Don’t Cry for Me
I was standing at the platform waiting for the Q Train in the deep underbelly of the Atlantic Avenue station. I shouldn’t have been there. It was a Sunday afternoon and if everything had gone according...
View ArticleDon’t Look
When I took a position at a legal research firm, I became a frequent rider of the subway, sometimes spending more time under than above ground. My new job had me traveling from office to office during...
View ArticleHarlem Girls
I love this train station. 125th St. The 1 is sentimental, alluring. It’s Ice T’s shadow in the credits of Law and Order SVU, It’s an isolated and spectacular scene that rises from below at 125th...
View ArticleLost In Transit
It was 5PM on a Friday evening and somehow I was the only person on the train. I may have put the “new” in “New Yorker,” but I was no stranger to the stuffy sardine cans that subway trains turn into...
View ArticleIn The Living Room Of The Beggar
He sat sprawled on the furthest side of the Q train, nose plumped with alcohol and ears flushed a chili-pepper red -- laughing so hard his breath left two giant spheres of fog on the window. The rest...
View ArticleAfter the Storm
In the immediate wake of the storm nothing worked. Neither power nor light, neither running water nor heat, neither internet nor ATM, the fundamentals of middle class life, without which we don’t...
View ArticleI Know The Way To Brooklyn
I went to the Bob Dylan concert at the Barclay's Center around Thanksgiving. We are contemporaries. I love his recent work and I thought it was about time I went to one of his live performances. I got...
View ArticleFrom Ditmars Blvd. (the Last Stop)
N train I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. N train, two dollars and twenty-five cents. N train; go fuck yourself with your Sunday Schedule. N train you are making me lose my mind. You will never...
View ArticleFound in Transit
A woman once offered me her seat on a rush hour 3 train. New Yorkers only donate seats to the elderly, the injured, and the pregnant, so it was obvious what she thought. “Not pregnant – just fat,” I...
View ArticleRespect for the Dead
I was on the 2 Express uptown on my way home after work. It was about 6:30 pm. We straphangers who were standing were packed in like sardines. As the train pulled into the 79th Street station, there...
View ArticleThat’s Mad Creepy, Bro
I’m on the E train and a child who isn’t mine is leaning her head on my left shoulder. She is sleeping and I don’t quite know what to do yet. Her mother is to her left daydreaming, completely unaware...
View ArticleOn the Train in Winter
I have always lived near subway stations that are above ground, meaning that many of my days have begun by standing in the cold for a few minutes waiting for the train to roll in – the 1 at 125th...
View ArticleSpa Day
The massage was about three-quarters of the way through when Galina stopped what she was doing and disappeared, leaving me face down and naked on the table, without a word of explanation. Galina?...
View ArticleIn The Living Room Of The Beggar
He sat sprawled on the furthest side of the Q train, nose plumped with alcohol and ears flushed a chili-pepper red -- laughing so hard his breath left two giant spheres of fog on the window. The rest...
View ArticleAfter the Storm
In the immediate wake of the storm nothing worked. Neither power nor light, neither running water nor heat, neither internet nor ATM, the fundamentals of middle class life, without which we don’t...
View ArticleI Know The Way To Brooklyn
I went to the Bob Dylan concert at the Barclay's Center around Thanksgiving. We are contemporaries. I love his recent work and I thought it was about time I went to one of his live performances. I got...
View ArticleFrom Ditmars Blvd. (the Last Stop)
N train I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. N train, two dollars and twenty-five cents. N train; go fuck yourself with your Sunday Schedule. N train you are making me lose my mind. You will never...
View ArticleFound in Transit
A woman once offered me her seat on a rush hour 3 train. New Yorkers only donate seats to the elderly, the injured, and the pregnant, so it was obvious what she thought. “Not pregnant – just fat,” I...
View ArticleRespect for the Dead
I was on the 2 Express uptown on my way home after work. It was about 6:30 pm. We straphangers who were standing were packed in like sardines. As the train pulled into the 79th Street station, there...
View ArticleThat’s Mad Creepy, Bro
I’m on the E train and a child who isn’t mine is leaning her head on my left shoulder. She is sleeping and I don’t quite know what to do yet. Her mother is to her left daydreaming, completely unaware...
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