Topic 207: Subway Scenery

Carol:

Art on the Fly

I love riding public transportation, especially in big cities where having a private vehicle is an expensive liability. In New York, our hotel of choice is an easy ride from the airport, involving only the transfer from the Long Island Railroad at Jamaica Station to the A Train.  Off in Chelsea, walk two blocks and we’re there.  Tourists are often reluctant to ride the subways, but using the MTA is safer than it was 40 years ago, and definitely more fun.
 

I was afraid in New York back in 1973 when my then fiancé was working for the summer in a Manhattan law office. That August, heading to the airport for my California wedding, I carried my bridal gown on the subway. My imagination got the better of me, and I started constructing newspaper headlines. “Woman’s wedding gown stolen week before her wedding.” “Bride-to-be mugged on subway.”  Head down, holding onto purse or package or wedding dress, I rarely saw the graffiti on the tunnel walls or passing rail cars that constituted much of the subway scenery back then.
 

New York City was dangerous back then. The crime rate was a national scandal.  Riding mass transportation put me slightly on edge, completely alert to the passengers around me, yet trying to avoid eye contact. Thanks to a decline in drug use and major changes in the NY City police department, including more neighborhood-based police, the crime rate has steadily dropped over the last decade. Robbery statistics  have plummeted, from 32,562 cases in 2000 to 19,466 in 2010. Remember, this is a city of such a huge population that its subway system handles 5.1 million riders per week (source: Official NY City Statistics). When I visit New York now,  I can actually enjoy the scenery, not just on a walk through Central Park, but on the subway.
 

Yet, the image of The Big, Bad Apple still exists. To attract more riders and positive publicity, the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) has created Arts for Transit, a program  that supports visual and performing arts projects in subway and commuter rail stations. According to the MTA website, “Arts for Transit’s projects create links to neighborhoods with art that echoes the architecture history and design context of the individual stations.” Some installations are permanent, such as wall murals.  Many of the stations use ceramic tile art, a tradition that started with ceramic plaques used since the system’s opening in 1904.
 

The scenery on the New York subways isn’t just visual, however. Performance Art includes musicians from the “Music Under New York” program, including opera, jazz, blues, and classical music on subway platforms and train stations. Over 200 soloists and groups participate at 25 locations throughout the system, and complete information about the musicians, special events and locations are published on the MTA website.
 

Next time you’re in New York, enjoy a walk through Central Park, then look for the nearest subway station and head down, down, down to ride one of The Big, Bright Apple’s 26 routes. Treat yourself to the vibrant, creative subway scenery of a clean and safe  New York City.

Sources:
Arts for Transit MTA program.
Image of Canal Street subway tiles. Wikipedia. Gryffindor. ({{Information |Description=Canal Street (BMT Broadway Line) |Source={{own}} |Date=2010 |Author=Gryffindor |Permission= |other_versions= }} ICategory:Canal Street (BMT Broadway Line))
Image of 59th Street ceramic tile sign. Wikipedia.  Magnus Manske. {{BotMoveToCommons|en.wikipedia|year={{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}|month={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}|day={{subst:CURRENTDAY}}}} {{Information |Description={{en|Close-up of another mosaic for en:59th Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) station's upper level.
New York City Crime statistics.
Official  NY City Statistics.

Megan:

Yesterday my mother wrote about The Channel Tunnel, which she has never taken.  My first year in England, I spent the Christmas vacation travelling around Europe with friends, and at the end, took the Eurostar train from Paris back to London.  I don’t remember too much about that trip (the train part) except that I didn’t pre-book my ticket, so had to stay an extra day. Also, it snowed in Paris and the train was delayed for several hours and everyone’s ticket was free. Once the train went into the tunnel under the water, there wasn’t much to see (obviously).  My ears popped and I thought, “This is just BART.”

That’s what happens when you travel a lot. You try to make sense of the new by comparing them to the familiar.  European cities remind me of each other, and of San Francisco. And I spent enough time in England that when I was driving through the sheep farms in Southern Oregon on my way to visit my brother, the landscape reminded me of England and not the other way around.

Anyway, I was meant to be talking about Subways. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) was my first experience that I can remember with underground public transportation – and it’s only underground for about half the time. I often took BART from Oakland into The City so I could wander around the mission district, and attend author readings in bookstores. My senior year, my friends and I took the train to the Castro for Halloween. That was one of my favorite nights ever – I was a French maid, Kelly was an “Russian housewife on the lam” and our other friends were a cat, a scarecrow, a pimp, and a flapper. After hours of debauchery, and an encounter with the masturbating bear, we took the last train back to the East Bay. The cars were standing room only, and everyone was in costume. Seated nearby was a ninja with a sword strapped to his back. He had on a black fencing mask and it was impossible to see his face or where he was looking. Freakiest thing I ever saw – he pops up in my nightmares sometimes – just sitting somewhere in the background with no face.

The only other subway I’ve ridden with regularity was the London Underground – which is more like New York’s subway system than BART.  The Tube (as they call it) is a vast and confusing network of trains, which you navigate with a map that was designed for symmetry and is in no way to scale. Hundreds of thousands of people ride the  Tube everyday, and although I used it regularly whenever I was in London, I never really got the hang of it. I worried that my uncertainty identified me as a tourist, and was hyper-vigilant of pickpockets.  And, although I never had a problem with planes after 9/11, after the bombings in 2005, the underground trains made me nervous. When you’re walking shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people, it’s not hard to imagine the danger of a panicked stampede.

That being said, subways are a very efficient way to get around. I’m a big fan of public transportation, and the benefits definitely outweigh the risks.