A great essay by someone -- like me -- who is a true New York Subway fan. I've been a member of the New York Transit Museum for 20 years...it's in my blood.
Grandpa rode the last horsecar line in Manhattan as a kid.
Dad closed the Third Avenue El in 1955 and swiped a train lantern. I still have it, over my desk. He put a light bulb in it and I put it on when I have serious work to do, letting folks know about that.
My father and I opened and closed subway lines in New York...I rode the first trains to Hudson Yards and the Second Avenue Subway.
I took my daughter on a Transit Museum fantrip in an antique subway train, lovingly restored. She wrote a college essay about the bonding experience with me. Got a fairly full ride to a good college in Maine.
I've had rides exactly like those described, with people exactly like those described.
However, I urge readers to visit the Transit Museum and take their fantrips.
The last place my father and I went together before he died WAS the Transit Museum. Sitting in a car he rode in as a boy during the 1930s, Dad shared with me his memories of growing up in New York.
I realized he was telling me that to hold and pass on those stories to my family.
Dad died five days after my wedding. He never met his daughter. But I told her the stories, took her to the museum, and she had a great time.
"The thing about haunted trains is you never know who’s the ghost and who’s alive." I get that same feeling some days, especially grey days, walking through neighborhoods that were charged for me. Times Square. the West Village. The landscape has changed, but some internal compass knows exactly where I am, where I was 30 years ago. Forty. And today shimmers for just a second and it feels like if I was brave enough, I could step through and go back to then, whichever then is appearing to me. Ghosts huddle in doorways that don't exist anymore. It sounds poetic. It sounds nuts. It sounds especially crazy when I say I know that that is not actually happening, but part of me still believes, if I would just take that step...
Damn, that was brilliant. I felt every poetic word of it. As someone born in NYC in the 1960s, I rode those iron horses (as Harlem kids used to call the subway) for years and witnessed so many crazy things. As a young adult, I too was that drunk guy sprawled on the seat, drunk and missing stops. Though John didn't mention it, there is a terrific doc about the "mole people" who live in the tunnels called Dark Days (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqjuFqaT3ic. That underground community is also a big part of the recent Netflix mini-series "Eric." Thank you John for writing this wonderful essay.
A great essay by someone -- like me -- who is a true New York Subway fan. I've been a member of the New York Transit Museum for 20 years...it's in my blood.
Grandpa rode the last horsecar line in Manhattan as a kid.
Dad closed the Third Avenue El in 1955 and swiped a train lantern. I still have it, over my desk. He put a light bulb in it and I put it on when I have serious work to do, letting folks know about that.
My father and I opened and closed subway lines in New York...I rode the first trains to Hudson Yards and the Second Avenue Subway.
I took my daughter on a Transit Museum fantrip in an antique subway train, lovingly restored. She wrote a college essay about the bonding experience with me. Got a fairly full ride to a good college in Maine.
I've had rides exactly like those described, with people exactly like those described.
However, I urge readers to visit the Transit Museum and take their fantrips.
The last place my father and I went together before he died WAS the Transit Museum. Sitting in a car he rode in as a boy during the 1930s, Dad shared with me his memories of growing up in New York.
I realized he was telling me that to hold and pass on those stories to my family.
Dad died five days after my wedding. He never met his daughter. But I told her the stories, took her to the museum, and she had a great time.
"The thing about haunted trains is you never know who’s the ghost and who’s alive." I get that same feeling some days, especially grey days, walking through neighborhoods that were charged for me. Times Square. the West Village. The landscape has changed, but some internal compass knows exactly where I am, where I was 30 years ago. Forty. And today shimmers for just a second and it feels like if I was brave enough, I could step through and go back to then, whichever then is appearing to me. Ghosts huddle in doorways that don't exist anymore. It sounds poetic. It sounds nuts. It sounds especially crazy when I say I know that that is not actually happening, but part of me still believes, if I would just take that step...
What a beautiful tribute! You had me with the subtitle. And you inspire me to finish my essay on the Paris metro that I rode for 20 years.
Damn, that was brilliant. I felt every poetic word of it. As someone born in NYC in the 1960s, I rode those iron horses (as Harlem kids used to call the subway) for years and witnessed so many crazy things. As a young adult, I too was that drunk guy sprawled on the seat, drunk and missing stops. Though John didn't mention it, there is a terrific doc about the "mole people" who live in the tunnels called Dark Days (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqjuFqaT3ic. That underground community is also a big part of the recent Netflix mini-series "Eric." Thank you John for writing this wonderful essay.