Subways are for sleeping: NYC Transit survival thread

not sure if I can hotlink an image from Instagram but this dude was on my subway car last night o_0

http://distilleryimage2.ak.instagram.com/0a811a4a103411e3bb5722000aeb3e27_7.jpg

i love praying mantises. they are so boss.

just hangin on the ceiling, no big whoop

praying mantises are cool but the people who were sitting in the seats right under him were maybe a little overconfident in his gripping ability I thought

Kittens Run onto Subway Tracks in Brooklyn, Trains Shut Down

cutest service outage evar

Has anyone done any serious writing on the "Showtime" phenomenon with the boom box and the death-defying dance moves? The history of it, the risks, behind-the-scenes interviews with the performers, which stretches of the line have the most performances, what the MTA thinks, etc.? Yesterday I was on the D between 59th and 125th and a "show" began which devolved immediately into what felt like three to four agonizing minutes of the speaker cutting in and out from silence to a thunderous beat based on some 80s song I now can't place, and the guy trying to fix it by various means.

Ha, I was just talking about that with H recently. If I were a journalist I'd love to follow a group of those kids around. We get a lot of them on the E train in Queens and it's interesting to watch the variations in style, talent-level, etc. Certain moves seem to become memes, and they also tend to use a similar kind of music (and I can't really place the style, sort of hip-hop based club music) and I wonder whether they come from the same area, or whether they might even work for someone. Certain things are staples -- the hat-tricks, the pole swinging, etc., and lately I've started to see some contortionist-type moves, a few really impressive.

sometimes i think there must be some centrailized place that trains these kids. i don't care for all the hat tricks, but i never get tired of seeing back flips on a moving train.
xp

yeah we were joking that there was this giant, abandoned warehouse somewhere at the ass-end of queens, outfitted with subway poles, rows and rows of kids all learning their moves from an instructor

A little hat-trick goes a long way, I agree. OTOH I don't really want them to be doing any more flips because I'm convinced someone is going to get killed. It's a really weird entertainment model really: am I throwing in change because this person just risked his neck for it, or because I was entertained? On the other hand I just had my ride interrupted by loud music and bodies flying wildly about, four inches from my knees.

I wonder what the optimal number of people on a car is, too. You want a crowd, but if it's too crowded you can't really do the moves (though I've seen them try anyway).

re: training - maybe late at night on near-empty cars?

yeah there is a funny psychology to it, sometimes I think I throw my money in because of the tension and release, like "Argh, this is going to be aggravating and I'll probably get kicked in the face...hey, that was actually pretty good."

If they ever try that shit while I have my toddler daughter on the train though I will go papa grizzly.

saw somebody standing at the entrance to the F at east broadway pissing directly down the stairwell in broad daylight yesterday

sorry

drunk people be peein'

i don't think it was a drunk person - his partner was standing to the side, about 3 feet away, looking vaguely embarrassed. seemed like desperate tourists

I realize this is going to vary by line, but does anyone have any thoughts on the best time to bring a stroller on the subway if you absolutely HAVE to do it some time in the vicinity of rush hour? This morning I got on about 8:15 AM and it was murder. Would I do better going earlier (like say 7:30?) or later (like say 9:00)? Or is it a wash? I can't really go much earlier or later than those times.

the F which i take uptown is usually jampacked by 8:30 but the few times i've taken it at 7:30, it's been fine

Yeah I take the M from its first stop, so I at least get a seat, but then once people crowd around I get lots of nasty looks about the stroller, kid goes crazy, and it's very hard to get off.

I feel like 7:45-7:50 is the cutoff and that's in JH, so in Forest Hills yes about 7:30

The M is not quite so crowded as the F, so you have a few minutes more leeway maybe.

http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/the-unique-genius-of-hong-kongs-public-transportation-system/279528/

this is what it could be like, nyc ppl

Managed to get to the M a little before 8am this morning -- was much less crowded right up until toward the end, but getting off at lex/53 is murder -- the station was so deep in people that I could barely push the stroller, some obnoxious lady played walkway chicken with me even though I obviously had nowhere to go but forward, and the elevator broke.

I can shoot for 7:30 maybe. Any earlier is going to be tough with K only waking up at 6:30.

nostalgia photos

http://www.rsvlts.com/2013/10/23/nyc-subways-in-the-1980s-were-no-joke-47-photos/#1

http://i.imgur.com/bTD6Rcg.jpg

so cool

lol enough to make me hate unions

wtf is going on on the E train lately? Monday morning, train comes to full stop in tunnel "sick passenger" on the train ahead, half hour delay after which they let us walk to the front and get out of the front car at court square. Yesterday evening, E train home, SAME FUCKING THING at 71st Ave. This morning "trains running at slower speeds due to an earlier incident."

thanks de blasio!

De Blasio subway suicide wave

oh god, that relentless Big Bang Theory poster is back

morbs you do know the union is TWU right? no indication at all that jacket is union swag at all (in fact i don't think any official union stuff even says "mta" anywhere on it, that would be like UAW union materials saying "Ford" or something.)

it was just a wisecrack

(the closest i ever came to getting medieval on a transit employee's ass was in D.C. anyway)

husky busker guy at my stop in the mornings a few times a week -- every song either is or sounds exactly like 'hallelujah' or 'girl from the north country'

"husky busker," that's a nice rhyme scheme right there, v satisfying. (if I knew more about poetry there's probably a fancy word for that)

I think that guy's been in my park slope F station before, "Girl From the North Country" followed by Mumfords.

oh god, that relentless Big Bang Theory poster is back

one thing that bothers me about this poster is that you can tell that the main dude's hand is photoshopped because he's pointing at you in the poster version and not in the banner version which is located a foot away

had a terrible terrible wait for the train but the fact that I got to ride on my first r188s-on-the-7 almost made up for it

http://images.nycsubway.org/i131000/img_131240.jpg

moving on up

no rail fan window no cred

http://cdn.hitfix.com/photos/3172726/NBCs-Sean-Saves-the-World.jpg

that sean is so wacky but whaddya gonna do

doesn't that one look like a fake show poster that would be in the background of a movie or w/e

http://benhauck.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/the-michael-j-fox-show-featured-e1383279121389.jpg

there really is something eerie about all these posters

an outgrowth of the eerieness of the unkillable sitcom

Haha, yeah, the whole genre losing any kind of attachment to any audience whatsoever, existing in this vacuum that seems to assume that someone, somewhere is stoked that SEAN is on TV and can't wait to see his antics.

one thing that bothers me about this poster is that you can tell that the main dude's hand is photoshopped because he's pointing at you in the poster version and not in the banner version which is located a foot away

― iatee, Wednesday, November 20, 2013 11:30 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

during this poster's last reign at the top, I was convinced he was doing a "Cyclops" like gesture towards his glasses, but on the current version I realized his finger's not there... OR IS IT???

Haha, yeah, the whole genre losing any kind of attachment to any audience whatsoever, existing in this vacuum that seems to assume that someone, somewhere is stoked that SEAN is on TV and can't wait to see his antics.

clearly you haven't met my roommate

I think possibly the WORST ad campaigns ever are those Seinfeld in syndication banners in the subway.

http://adsonthesubway.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/photo1.jpg

a few years ago, this one happened to be prevalent around the time of the michael richards meltdown, and I had a really strong urge to cross it out and sharpie in "N166er!"

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/178892/KRAMER.jpg

it's probably good that you didn't