While taking the subway home last night after seeing a comedy show of my friend Dan Mintz and Dimitri Martin, I noticed that the train had the following notice that said "Priority Seating for persons with disabilities." Fine. But what does this sign mean when it's placed in an area with...no seating at all?! I'm so confused!
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Subway
Walker Evans was a photographer noted for his images taken during the Great Depression, many of which are widely recognized. Less known, but what really interests me about him is that he also took these incredibly voyeuristic yet equally poignant photographs in the New York subway using a camera hidden in his jacket. These were collected and published in his monograph Many Are Called. It still has an amazing resonance today nearly some 70 years later. While the fashion and ethnicities of straphangers have changed, the facial expressions have not.
I love what this NYC artist is doing with the street level subway grates--each time a train runs by the air gets pushed out into the street, which is annoying at best when you walk by and disgusting at worst with trash being tossed around. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mttu9M_BuJ0]
Thursday, 9 pm -- last car on the D train from Rockefeller to Union St.
I wrote a review awhile ago of the new N trains where I expressed my generally pleasing experience on these shiny new trains. I'm glad I savored that experience, because I haven't had many opportunities to ride it since. After a long day at the office followed by an exhausting post-work session at the gym, the D train is the primary chariot on tracks that delivers me home.
Leaving the gym and walking outside where the brisk Soho night air immediately cools me, I cross the street against the oncoming traffic towards the subway station, while holding my palm out at the taxis and cars that boldly inch closer to my biological body than I preferred. That action is silly, because it's an inherently flawed act of self preservation. A gym might provide the milieu and means by which one creates a stronger body, but that body is no match against the physics of the force a metal moving object exerts against a fleshy object that stands in its way. (Insert Krytonite footnote.) And yet, my palm acts as an urban amulet that compels even the most sadist cab driver to slow to a halt. Or so I hope. A friend of mine, born and raised in New York City, is an expert in this and has perfected it to practically an art form, or what I call, "Extreme Walking."
Extreme Walking is walking from point A to point B by the shortest route possible while ignoring street signs, moving vehicles, and construction.
Try it.
Just make sure you have health insurance first.
Going over the bridge, I like to look out at the Manhattan skyline and I'm of the opinion that the monolithic Verizon building is quite a hideous structure. Its overcompensating red corporate logo emblazoned across the top screams its presence all across downtown Manhattan and insecurely asks, "CAN YOU HEAR SEE ME NOW?"
Unfortunately, yes. Yes we can see you now.