Observations on the X90

So for some mundane reasons I won’t get into here a few mornings a week I shall be taking the express bus to work in place of the subway. The express bus is a million times better than the subway. A million. The biggest advantage is I don’t have to walk almost a mile to get to it- it picks me up right outside my apartment and drops me right off outside my office.

It is not a normal dirty crowded city bus either- it is a coach bus with big plush reclining seats with only a few other riders on- this morning I got two whole seats to myself! There is no chance of any perverted/weird/angry or smelly people on it. It is just normal office workers going straight to the financial district. It is also whisper quiet and I get to watch the sunrise over the East River and Brooklyn Bridge the whole way as we roll by peacefully along the FDR highway. It is, may I sound like a diva here, FABOLOUS. Couldn’t get better service if I was a big-time Wall Street executive with a private driver!

Why do you say have I not been taking the bus the whole time? Because it is more expensive (it is a tough economy out there!) and takes longer to get to work (time is of the essence when commuting!).

Even though the bus is incredibly boring with observations for this blog, have no fear I will still be riding the subway as well and will still record every stinky detail. Just be warned you may see an observation from the bus every once in a while slipped in….if there is ever anything interesting to write about that is….

A Crowded Subway is No Excuse for an Improper Touch

So I think I shall start including links to New York subway-related news stories of interest occasionally. Apparently a new anti-sexual harassment advertising campaign has just been unveiled on the subway. I actually saw the first ad this weekend. Gaudy and yellow next to the posters for cheesy bankruptcy lawyers it screams in big bold letters “Sexual Harassment Is A Crime On The Subway-too. Below in smaller letters it reads: “A Crowded Subway is No Excuse for an Improper Touch” Funny right? First of all, the heading isn’t even grammatically correct. Oh MTA. They could hire me any day to come up with more innovative sexual harassment signs than that.


Anyways this article in the New York Daily News about it states that 63% of the people polled said they have experienced one of the following while riding on the subway: “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, flashing, groping, fondling and public masturbation.”

ICK. So far I have not been unlucky enough to be a victim to any of this….actually I really can’t confidently say that. The 5 is so crowded in the morning that in reality I probably would have no idea if someone tried to violate me. As unfortunate and disturbing as this fact is I think I would rather just not know if I were being groped. I would prefer to just ride on with my Led Zeppelin blaring through my iPod headphones.

Of course I always have that fantasy of some guy just trying to slip something funny. In this fantasy I turn around, fearless with fire in my eyes, pull off one my black stilettos heels and beat him across the face with it. The perv would run away in fear as the crowd of onlookers cheer me on. I would be a hero for New York woman everywhere. A subway urban legend. Please give me my wonder woman cape right now please. Preferably with a giant green 6 emblem on the back.

Obviously it would never play out like this.

Bring on the Big Mac (hold the poop please)

This afternoon the 4 smells strongly of Porta Potty. Not like an old crusty crap smell but of that dreadfully strong chemical that they use to clean the toilets. Everyone must know what I am talking about -it is remarkably unmistakable.

The man across from me has a red plastic bag which is filled with kumquats. He is sitting there pulling them methodically off their stems. Wait a minute- scratch that- I don’t even know what a kumquat really looks like. Maybe they are crab apples?

A girl sitting next to me is eating a big steamy bag of McDonalds. I normally get irritated when people eat on the subway but it smells so unbelievable that it actually takes the edge off the porta-potty scent a little bit. People who say they don’t love or don’t eat fast food are either lying or certifiably crazy. After a long day of number-crunching and watching the Dow sink lower and lower I am nearly rabid for it.

Where are the Men?

This morning on the 6 I am in deep observance of the men around me. Well I always am always in deep observance of men in general but even more so this morning. What has happened to the way men dress? I notice that the man sitting across from me, very attractive, you might even say “strapping” is wearing a pink tie with little blue whales. Little blue whales. Really? When did that become okay? I notice another man a few seats down. He is wearing a light purple dress shirt with white cuffs and a darker purple tie. I mean obviously gay men are entitled to a get-out-of-jail-free fashion pass but these men are clearly not homosexual by the way they both stare down a brunette woman with gigantic breasts heaving out of her blazer who has just stepped into the car.


I know this is New York but I really just miss men being men. Leave the creative fashion expression to the ladies of this city- they got it plenty covered.



On another note...I had a few inquires yesterday to what happened to the "sick passenger" on the E train. Truth is, I don't know. They had them cleared away by the time I finally made it to the platform. Usually though, if someone is killed by being hit by a train it mentioned in at least one of the local newspapers, buried deep in the local section. There was nothing this morning.

A Sick Passenger

Yesterday it is 3:30pm and I have to go to a very important appointment/meeting in midtown at 4. I know everyone in New York thinks what they are doing is always incredibly important but this really was, I swear. It is the kind of thing you absolutely cannot be late to. I hop on the E train to take up to 34th street. First let’s start off saying just how much I hate the E train. Well I guess hate is a strong word, one that is much more appropriate for later in the story. Okay, so I strongly dislike the E train. I always have to transfer to the E anytime I want to get over the west side from my apartment. Not only do you have to go up and back down a million stairs to transfer (which always makes me grumpy) but the E is always late and always smells like pee.


Everything is going smoothly until somewhere in the tunnel no mans land between the 23rd and 34th street stations the subway slows to a halt. I glance at my watch 3:45- great. But the subway stopping briefly for mysterious reasons happens almost every day and since these delays are only a minute or two, I don’t really think much of it.


After about five minutes though I start to wonder what is going on and begin to get a little anxious. I only have 10 minutes now to get off the subway and to my destination. I begin to feel flush and jittery. It is when the conductor completely shuts down the motor of the train that I realize this is not good.


We sit there as the minutes creep by. I keep looking at my watch then my Blackberry, watch then Blackberry, hoping that time would stop moving or that the train would start to. I keep waiting to hear an announcement from the conductor explaining the problem but all that comes out from above is static because the loudspeaker is broken (of course crappy E train). As the time inches past 4 o’clock I really start to panic, my suit pants clinging to my legs with sweat because the air conditioning has been shut off. I feel the tears sting in the back of my eyes (yes I am sometimes a crier). I along with about the other 50 people in the car just sit and wait. The lights even go out for a time, and we are all in the silent darkness together. Surprisingly I am not worried about this fact- the tunnels could be erupting around us and I wouldn’t care because I am too upset about where I was supposed to be ten minutes ago at 4 o’clock. I can’t believe of the hundreds of times I have ridden the subway this is the day that this fiasco happens. THIS DAY. I am never late to anything, anything at all, especially important things and here I am trapped, trapped underground with no cell phone signal and no information on when the end of this awfulness was in sight.


Normally I respond to daily inconveniences on the subway calmly and well. I consider it the price we have to pay for not ever having to worry about rising gas prices. But I have never experienced anything like this. I am now in a complete irrational frenzy about my appointment, muttering expletives to myself and rocking back and forth.


Finally after over 40 minutes the train’s loudspeaker has mysteriously found its voice. We are delayed due to a “sick passenger ahead.” I have heard about this ambiguous announcement before. It usually means (so I’ve been told) that either someone has collapsed in one of the cars or someone has been hit by the train.


I feel enraged. Angry at the conductor, the MTA, the city itself. I know it is not the MTA’s fault if someone is pancaked all over the tracks. But someone tell me why today? If the MTA was one tangible object, a person or perhaps a creature I would slay it right now without thinking twice.


Apparently the very front car in the train is close enough to the 34th street platform and we are instructed to all walk through all the cars up to the front. Ironically I think to my blog entry Tuesday about people who walk between cars. It is a weird experience. You never realize just how long a subway train is until you are stranded in the last car and have to walk through all of them with several hundred other people.



I know what you are thinking. Someone has either had a massive heart attack on the way to Penn Station or committed suicide by leaping in front of the train. How could I be so upset about my stupid appointment? Well it is obvious I am not in a rational state of mind as this all plays out.


I could’ve used this time to take some good observations of this event- how my fellow passengers were responding to this mess, what it looks like in the darkness deep inside of the tunnel when you are outside the car. However I am too consumed by my own panic about the fact that is now almost 4:30 to really notice anything.

By the time I finally get through and escape onto the platform and I am like a crazed animal.

People Who Go Between Cars

I have decided that only sketchy sketchy weirdoes go from car to car while the train is still moving. For those who are not familiar with the subway, there is a door on each end of the car that opens up to a little bridge into the next car that is out in the open. You are never supposed to open those doors unless (and I quote the fuzzy mysterious subway loudspeaker voice “In an emergency or else directed by the train’s conductor.”


I mean it is against the rules, it is dangerous and it looks like it would be scary. Yet I see people do it all the time. There is just simply no explainable reason to. And the people who do it are always creepy and mysterious looking. Why would one car be better than another? The only answer to that would be if one car is extremely crowded and the next one is not. But when does that happen? If your car is crowded you can bet that that one next to you will be just as packed if not more. Maybe if someone smells really bad in the car? I have smelled a lot of bad bad human odor on a subway car before but it isn’t usually so terrible it can’t be fixed by going to the other side of the car.

A Stock Market Panic and Melon Man

Due to all the drama that is going on with the economy right now it is always an intense scene outside the Wall Street subway stop when I go home in the afternoon. Even though most of the financial firms in the city aren’t even located on Wall Street anymore the media seems to like to camp out there, probably so they can get the“Wall Street” street sign in their news shot. Every afternoon lately the news trucks with their towering antennas are lined up one by one, white and boxy along the curb waiting for more excitement to happen. I think they fully expect office workers to come jumping out their windows as the Dow plunges lower and lower. You also have your scattering of run of the mill anti-Bush, anti-corporations, anti-rich people, anti-everything nutcase protesters milling about. Today was no different, only magnified because of the historical fall of the markets today. I see people with “Die Greedy Wall Street Bastards” signs, staring down us everyday workers who are simply trying to get home in time for this evening’s back to back Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune.

Today, being a day of extremes, I notice an even larger crowd standing around at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway. As I try to elbow my way to the subway stairs I notice what they are all paying attention to. I pause for a New York minute (oh cliché!). A middle-age black man is standing up on a box in the center of the circle, shouting rants about the state of the economy. Not that unusual. But what catches my eye is the fact that he is wearing a black top hat with a giant half-eaten watermelon on top. Is it stuck there by glue? Is it balancing? We don’t know.

And so goes another day.