Subways are for sleeping: NYC Transit survival thread

if you have not been at the west 4th station at 1am on a Friday night you are missing out

Every time I catch a train at 1 AM there the train stops in between stations to let off MTA workers

that stop is a serious melting pot crowded full of hipsters, homeless, businesspeople, dates, meatheads, tourists, kids, MTA workers and buskers round that time

It's mostly been NYU fratbros and their dates when I've been

i may be getting there a bit later than 1 to be fair
but there's always rasta guitar player and sometimes tap dancer and dulcimer player and always always some dude with a full fucking drum kit
and a lotta full-on fabulous queens and cranky old men and a churro cart lady and the dude who really should've taken an uber and is realizing that now

hey, some of these subway movies def worth seeing on the big screen (Pelham 123, obviously)... i've never even seen Style Wars or The Incident, among others.

http://www.bam.org/film/2014/retro-metro

http://www.villagevoice.com/2014-09-24/film/bam-retro-metro-review/

style wars is super great

I'll be seeing Pelham for surr

I've never seen a churro cart lady day or night at w 4 and that was my stop for a year

Minnelli's The Clock is really great.

dayo i'm back of the F train; i see churro carts out there about mid platform.
The Clock is A+, yes

i have never bought a ny street churro, can anyone confirm deny that i am missing out?

The Clock is splendid, but i believe it is alone in that series in being shot entirely in Hollywood USA.

6th ave L platform is where I always used to see the churro cart

got em a couple times and they were always super greasy and tasty

i used to work until 2am-3am in chelsea four days a week, which led to routine waits of up to 30 minutes at west 4th and/or jay street. pretty unpleasant, especially in summer. rat-sized cockroaches, dog-sized rats, etc

the people are interesting, but i didn't really want to have conversations with them, let alone stave off the paranoia of the fucked up ones

"and the train letter and number is on the side of every car at least once"

this is lies

i assume 'messy fonts' is a non-designer grasping at the idea that the signage on the MTA is absolute garbage both aesthetically and in a 'reliably showing you which way to go'

it's like the signage in an office kitchen

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/lu-signs-manual.pdf

Yeah, the number of times I've had to quickly step into a train just to see which train it is xxp

basically, the MTA has charm, and it's cool that it's 24h, but it's an embarrassment to the commercial capital of a developed country. that is how i break it down.

air conditioning is a good thing though.

i got food poisoning and threw up on the platform at highbury and islington tube last weekend by the way, so it briefly smelled a little like W 4. doing my bit for transatlantic cultural exchange.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/suppliers-and-contractors/design-standards?intcmp=5837

Can you still drink beers on the London Underground?

No ;_;

i got food poisoning and threw up on the platform at highbury and islington tube last weekend by the way, so it briefly smelled a little like W 4. doing my bit for transatlantic cultural exchange.

― caek, Thursday, September 25, 2014 9:09 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this would shut down the entire line for at least an hour in NYC iirc

due tew a sick paessenjuh

I thought that meant someone died?

prob just a bad churro

William Ronan, first chairman of the MTA, dies at 101

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3037304/slicker-city/william-ronan-who-masterminded-nycs-transportation-network-dies

You know one thing that's great, when you're on the local and the express gets going at the same time, so for a minute as you're cruising through the tunnels you can look through the darkness and see this other car, gradually falling out of sync with yours so you get this Edward Hopper Viewmaster reel of urban scenes, tableaus of people's lives: guy thinking, family chatting, tourists checking map, guy playing drums, and then - zip - the other train has descended to the lower level and it's all gone into the darkness.

yer not wrong Dr

still i think bcz of the novelty i prefer the pronounced looking-in-apartments views that are constant on the Chicago El.

what's not great is when you're approaching a transfer point and the train you want to switch to appears in the next tunnel over, passes you, and is just closing its doors as your train arrives

also when you're at west 4th and there's an announcement that the next express train is one station away and you're all like f u *which* express train goddammit

at Columbus Circle's A-B-C-D platform, the announcements differ btwn "express" and "local" tracks which is a completely meaningless distinction at that point.

What was up with the 4 5 6 this morning

http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/11/man-killed-after-being-shoved-in-front.html

http://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/100729370274/found-the-brooklyn-residence-thats-farthest-from-the

http://media.tumblr.com/b87f9c89e2c8823de47e9b15e5b6400b/tumblr_inline_ndty2h3jZt1szvr4h.jpg

i guess the dark, dried-blood zones are where i should focus my housing search.

(except for Red Hook obv, where everyone just takes the IKEA shuttle)

yes the scabs are not up-and-coming yet

how the hell Ocean Parkway is a "neighborhood" I don't know.

Aargh, Black Friday tourists!

On the bright side I just went to trader joes at 21 and 6 and there was no queue at all

only five weeks til effing tourists go home

but I will club them if I have to exiting the Altman retro

ha, i just went through ugh times square and the cold is thinning them out somewhat

No uptown 6 on a weekday morning? Nice

the other morning there was a grandma on the uptown A who was headed to penn station but didn't otherwise know anything. at every stop -- even the ones in brooklyn -- she would ask ppl where we were.

'fulton'
'excuse me?'
'fulton'
'14th?'
'FULTON'

we drilled it into her head that she needed to get off at 34th and would not have to go outside, but given how fucked up penn station is, i wouldn't be surprised if she is still wandering its corridors

those types o' people are always fun and tend to have kids in tow.
"i'm trying to get to columbus circle"
"okay, you're on a G train in Queens right now, headed to Brooklyn"
"well is columbus circle one of the stops?"
really puts the lie to the unfriendly new yorker as 75% of the car will rush to share advice

Ha, the other day I was at 96th, downtown 1/2/3 platform, family from Jersey trying to get to Times Square and very politely refusing to accept my contention that they are in the right place and they just have to get on the next train on THIS side, and you will BE THERE in TWO STOPS. My attempt to explain that both the 2 and 3 go there, they just have different fates after that, were interpreted as "one goes to Brooklyn, one goes to Harlem."