An experiment in creative nonfiction narrative by WORD writers.
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I am very fortunate to live in Woodside, Queens, which provides easy commuting to and from Hunter. On a good day it can take me as little as a half hour to get to school. I also commute to visit friends and family around New York City, and I thank the MTA for having an active subway and bus system so desperately needed by people like me: I don’t own a car and I don’t drive.
I enjoy riding on the R where I bump into diverse people: Spanish, Asian, African American, Europeans, caucasian and a huge number of those we now called Mixed people. I am one of those mixed individuals. My grandmother on my mother’s side was Jewish; on my grandfather’s side — my mother’s father — I have some French, Spanish and German, and on my father’s side I have some Italian, Greek and more Spanish. They add up to quite an ethnic medley.
I like being so diverse, my ethnicity so diverse that it could overwhelm a U.S. Census taker because the blood flowing through my veins makes me so unique, and people don’t know what language I can or can’t speak, as well as guessing where I come from or — I really like this — who I am.
I am originally from Colombia, South America, and when I tell people they seem to be very surprised because I have very fair skin. Of course, I tell them I am mixed, but also I make sure I explain that despite coming from a tropical place like Cartagena, where I used to live, not everyone there is tan; that, in fact, there are so many different kinds of people there, so many different colors, races and backgrounds, and in my own words but I want to use quote marks, “We are as diverse as people are here in New York City.”
Cartagena, northern coast of Colombia. The metropolitan area, 1,240,000, and the city proper 1,090,000 (2005 census). Fifth largest urban area in Colombia. A centre of economic activity in the Caribbean region and a popular tourist destination.
Every female learns quickly about what to wear to commute in New York City. Just to name a few variables, the consequences of ignorance, depending on the day and week and time and the subway line, can range from trite embarrassing moments to episodes of abject humiliation. It’s been only recently that the city subway trains robotic announcements include alerts about sexual harassment, that we don’t have to put up with it, women, that is. I’ve yet to hear of male commuters complaining about their butts being pinched or being emotionally unhinged by psycho voyeuristic perverts. Before I return to the main thread, I just want to say that the MTA’s SubTalk posters should include the following: “Male straphangars should not tolerate the sexual harassment of females on New York City Transit.” And last but not least, check out Hollaback.
Back to the main thread: I mastered all of these rules ages ago. It is important for females to avoid light colored pants on rainy days. Mind the gaps on the platforms when wearing flip-flops. Check the see-through ratio of your clothes before heading out into the sunshine. Hold your skirt when climbing the stairs out of the subway.
Well, I thought I did. Because on the evening of October 12, 6 p.m., when I was descending to the R train at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street, a wind caught my long, lightweight skirt and the hem flew up to my neck, exposing regions that should not be exposed in public thoroughfares. The experience was like a page out of Marilyn Monroe’s famous sidewalk grate scene except that she was a platinum blond bombshell adored by men everywhere, and me, the girl next door with auburn hair. I think I handed it well, pretended it didn’t happen.
[For those of you unaware of Big Apple legends and tales and customs, the Naked Cowboy is somewhat of a local celebrity like Dr. Z but with better abs. He can be found at times in Times Square with his guitar and wearing only a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. Okay, he also wear tight whites. The Naked Cowboy has made a career out of a simple tenet of human nature: Add the word naked to your [fill in this blank __] and fame may not be too far off. The Naked Cowboy has parlayed his gig into appearances in commercials, endorsements and music videos. I’m thinking this might work for me. I could appear in SubTalk posters informing riders about smart clothing choices or stand at station entrances handing out pamphlets on windy days. Imagine: This faithful subway commuter making a living because of an errant gust of wind. People have become famous for doing little else. (Paris Hilton comes to mind but her genealogy also gave her an edge.)]
The Queens-bound R train. Evening commute from campus. A man and woman step into the car. They seem collegial.
Woman: “Hey, long time no see.”
Man, looking distressed, nods.
Woman: “Tough day?”
Man: “Yeah. Don’t feel well.”
Woman: “Sorry to hear it. Same issues?”
Man: “Can’t shake this pain in my stomach. Have to get a refill on the Oxycodone.”
Woman: “Oxycodone! You shouldn’t be taking that. You’ll get addicted.
Man, shrugs. “If you had pain like this, you’d take it too.”
Woman: “Seriously, stop taking it. It’s addictive. Do you want that?”
He looks her straight in the eyes. “I’m a grown man and I’ll take it if I need to.”
A mother sleeping while her two boys, one in a stroller and the other one about 7 years old, entertain themselves. The boy in the stroller, pointing to other passengers: “Shoot the bastard. Shoot the bastard.”
Older boy, making a mock gun with his hands: “Rat-a-tat-tat. Got ‘em. Got ‘em.” Laughs.
Boy in stroller: “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”
Same day 6 p.m. going into Queens, the the 7. Another mother wearing a white blouse, jeans and her hair pulled back holds a baby in her arms completely covered with a blanket. She is trying to breast feed the baby. Passengers stare but don’t say anything.
A young female in her 20s with coffee in hand sits by my side. She’s wearing a tight black jacket, black pants and black nail polish; she proceeds to read the book, “Intro to Music.” Suddenly someone pulls the emergency break and the train comes to a sudden stop, making the female spill coffee on her legs, book and bag. A mess. I give her some paper towels found in my bag.
5:30 p.m. I jump on the R, Queens-bound, very crowded. A multitude of heads as if in a moving cattle car. It’s peak time for the cattle drives. A male in his 50s wearing a blue jacket and jeans, with grey hair and blue eyes, has his back directly behind my back and each time the train stops, he pushes me against the door of the car. He is talking to himself in an European accent, it seems. I move to the other side of the car because he almost forced me down to the floor at the prior stop.
Woodside Queens (the A marks it dead center)
A dark skinned male gets on the train at Queens Plaza. Wearing a yellow coat, white sneakers and a backpack. He immediately starts singing “Beautiful World” and solicits donations from passengers. Straphangars seem annoyed. Some cover their ears with their hands. The car smells as if perfume has been mixed with sweat and dirt. The floor is yellow with brown spots all over, and passengers are carrying at least three bags each. Shopping sprees? One seat on the right end corner of the car is cracked and the door to the conductor is semi-open, providing a view of rails and tracks through the window of his cabin.
At the Steinway stop, a mother and young child get on the train. The young, green-eyed child with blonde curls hanging from his little head wears a red jacket, dark jeans and grey tennis shoes and keeps asking his mother if they are there yet while jumping up and down in his chair. Mom gives him a toy, a little blue car; the child lays down on the floor and moves around passengers’ legs and feet at the same time he makes motor car sounds. His mother gets angry, tells the child to behave and to sit down. The next stop, 65th Street, where I get off.
Months ago my aunt’s friends from Florida toured New York City for a few days. I met them for lunch and spent most of the time giving them subway directions to 50 sites they had on their checklist for the following 24 hours. Their next stop after lunch was Chinatown, not so they could eat or buy silly souvenirs, but so they could say, “We’ve seen Chinatown.”
Mere steps from the entrance to the West Fourth Street station, we encountered a slice of Big Apple life. A toothless, bedraggled man, who had a sixth sense that they weren’t from ‘round these parts’ asked for money. He seemed harmless, but did get in their personal space (and being from a more rural area, their personal space is about 10 feet more than a New Yorker’s). Despite my attempts to keep them moving forward, they stopped and conversed with him which only served to inspire him. When I finally wrangled them underground, they were concerned.
“Are you going to be okay?” they asked me.
“Oh, I’ll be okay,” I said but in my mind added: But you I Love New York—T-shirt wearing—unzipped purse carrying—white sneaker trotting tourists won’t if you keep staring and trying to chat up complete strangers.
[If you’ve ever visited New York and believed you blended in so well that you passed for a local, I want to say that you didn’t and you won’t. We spot you a mile away even if you might be following all of the standard local protocols pitched to tourists: No eye contact, no chattering on like teenagers, and, for the love of God, no shorts. But still, you’re not passing. It’s got something to do with presence, I guess.]
Nevertheless, mom’s friends later reported that they thought that New Yorkers were incredibly nice. “We only had to glance at our map on the subway and several people would offer directions,” one said. I’ve witnessed this myself, although it’s less about generosity of spirit than it is a passion of New Yorkers to tell people where to go. But then where else, except New York, would I be riding the 4 train on a Saturday Autumn day at noon, and see one woman wearing a surgical mask, another one with a T-shirt — “Friends don’t let friends get mullets” — and one of my favorite musicians, Delta Dave Johnson, belting out the blues on his guitar and harmonica from his wheelchair?
I’m taking time to write about the the A and my experience on the way back from my friend Laura’s house in Inwood. The train’s starting point, the 207th Street station in Inwood, seemed to agree: Its walls are emblazoned with mirrored mosaic tiles that read “At the start …”
A handful of straphangars plod onto the next train slated to leave (indicated by an old-fashioned illuminated sign that reads Next Train). They are a mix of ages, races and levels of alertness, but from talking to some of them, the hype about Inwood’s real estate status, as one of the last places in Manhattan where property is still reasonably priced, appears to be true.
Looking more Williamsburg than extreme Upper West Side, a young male approximately 25, moved here three years ago because his office was in the area. “It’s about the only place in Manhattan I can afford to live,” he says. “I grew up on the Upper West Side, so I guess psychologically it was important to me to stay in Manhattan.”
Another male in his 50s says he grew up in the neighborhood and moved back full time in 1983. “It was a Dominican neighborhood,” he says, “but now yuppies are moving in and pushing the Dominicans east of Broadway. That’s true all the way down to Washington Heights.”
Although he travels about 40 minutes to Fulton Street every day, the gentleman tells his friend he doesn’t mind the commute. “At this stop, you can get a seat, pick up a paper and let it roll around you.”
The crowd gets thicker and more diverse as the A passed Yeshiva University and the Cloisters at 190th and 181st Streets, but a flood really begins at 168th Street where the A meets the C. Gabbing high school students, heavy-eyed laborers and a few Blackberry-attired suits pour in. Many listen to iPods; most are sleepwalking. “You can’t get a seat on the A train before 10 a.m.,” says a female in her 30s, who boards with what appeared to be two friends.
It’s true: By the time we hit 125th Street, the last station before an express shot to Columbus Circle, all the seats are gone. For one female in her 40s, who works in management in Midtown as she says to a friend of her coworker, the risk of standing is a small price to pay. She says she lived in Westchester, and for eight years has been driving to a parking lot near 181st Street every day. From there, she boards the A train to 42nd Street. “I don’t like to drive in the city,” she explains. “And I like to read.” She holds up her book; it’s something from the self-help category. No wonder she seems so calm about her hour-and-45-minute ride.
When we hit Columbus Circle, it feels like the whole world rushes out of the car. But when the doors close, strangely, the crowd has not thinned significantly. It only gets less crowded at the next stops: 42nd Street, 34th Street, 14th Street and Canal Street where the crowd disperses in short, frenetic bursts, as if the train is coughing pesky straphangers out of its system.
The last stragglers lumber off at Broadway/Nassau Street, and though the train will continue on to Brooklyn, the platform is nearly empty. One of the only people waiting to board is a male in his 30s who told the female sitting next to him that he is catching the train back to Crown Heights. He looks just as tired as everyone else, but with one important difference, and says to the female: “After a graveyard shift at a downtown restaurant, I’m finishing my day just as everyone else is getting started.”
Any New Yorker who has ridden a city bus might think there is an unhappy spirit haunts the underside of the vehicle. The engine came a high volume sound as well as a squealing of an old machine parts and acceleration is often accompanied by the hums of snaps and cracks: The squeals of aging. The new line of New York City buses promises to have no noise.
I decided to put the M2 new East village bus to the test, December 5, 3 p.m. after visiting my aunt who lives in the East Village at 11th Street and 4th Avenue. On the bus there were 37 seats inside a brightly lit interior with glowing LED panels. The rear doors open after a slight nudge, and the batteries recharge every time the driver hits the brakes.
On the trip to Washington Heights, not every passenger had the same reaction. A female in her 40s made her way to the bus’s elevated rear seats. She quickly returns. “It’s too high,” she says, frowning at the seats, which are closer to the roof than in other city buses.
But is it smoother? “It might be if the road wasn’t this bumpy,” she says. “But it is bumpy, so it’s the same thing exactly.”
Another female in her 30s takes a seat near the front after boarding just north of 42nd Street. “It feels like the air is cleaner, lighter.” Glancing around the bus and adjusting the fox-fur lining on her khaki coat, she squints through sunglasses. “It’s still noisy, but it’s nice that it’s bright.”
Other riders are immediately struck by the lack of racket. “There’s no hissing back there,” says another passenger. “There’s usually a lot of engine noise, but this bus, it’s a lot quieter; it makes me think it’s electric.”
A female in her 20s says, “This new bus is awesome! It smells like a bus that takes you to different countries and states.”
As I grow more interested in getting to know this new bus I decide to take the it to last stop at 168th Street and Broadway, and when we get there one passenger wearing a black and white suit and carrying a black briefcase, with Blackberry in hand, tells the driver, “It took more than an hour to get home, this bus is too long. That’s all I got to say.”
