The NYC Subway: What I Don't Miss

I don't miss much about the New York City Subway.

When I first came to New York, I marveled at how far I could go on the subway with a dollar.  One used the dollar to purchase a token.  After a while, the token was replaced by the MetroCard.  The dollar per ride became $1.25 per ride.  Then $1.50.  Then $2.00.  After that, I stopped paying attention, since I then purchased my rides based upon the number of $20 bills it cost me to purchase or refill a new MetroCard.

The MetroCard of the late 1990s and early 2000s was a thin plastic card that had a magnetic strip on one side that you swiped through a turnstile upon your entry to a subway station.  When I rode the subway, the cards were made of cheap, disposable plastic.  These cards littered the stations and streets of New York City in the millions.  In those days, you could find as many MetroCards littering the streets as you could cigarette butts or dirty bubble gum wads stuck to the sidewalks.  About the only nice and memorable thing I can say about the MetroCard as I remember it, is that in the early years they came with nice photos of New York City on one side.  I remember one particularly nice MetroCard with a photo of the Statue of Liberty on it.  I used that card until Lady Liberty rubbed off from use.  Then I tossed it into an actual trash can.

The subway cars themselves were always filthy.

I don't ever remember riding on a car that didn't smell like ass or someone's dinner - from three weeks ago.

That wasn't the worst of my memories.

The cars ran on metal wheels on metal tracks.  The wheels were always screeching forward or screeching to a stop.  Think about that for a second...  metal on metal.  Always noisy.  I've traveled on many trains and subways both before and after my time in the New York City Subway system.  All operated with metal wheels on metal tracks, but none of the trains on those other subway systems compared to the merciless and endlessly screaming wails of the wheels on tracks in the New York City subway.

Do you remember pep rallies when you were in high school? Remember when everyone would get together in the gymnasium to cheer on your home team?  Well, imagine everyone in that gymnasium suddenly screaming at the top of their lungs.  That is the closest approximation you might get to an audio experience of screeching sounds the train makes as it accelerates through a tunnel or decelerates and comes to a stop.

And then there are the creatures.  The people that ride the rails. 

Sometimes, I wish I'd never learned manners.  I often found myself getting so worked up, having no choice but to stand or sit next to a pig clipping it's fingernails OR TOENAILS.

There were no manners on the New York City Subway system.  The system was so overcrowded that people learned to push their way into the cars.  If you were in their way, you'd better be prepared to brace yourself or you'd otherwise be on your ass.

And then there were the perverts.  So many perverts. Endlessly touching themselves and giving suggestive looks.  Licking their lips.

But the absolute worst, worst, worst aspect of riding on the subway trains were the people on their cell phones.

As a man, I learned more about feminine hygiene products and afflictions of the female anatomy on these mortifying rides than I'd learned at any other time in my life.  As a captive audience to cell phone calls, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the intimate details of the lives of strangers.  So descriptive were the many calls I overheard, I am quite certain if I were called to testify to the shape, smell, curvature and length of someone's hoo-hah, I would have been able to do it.

What's worse is that cell phone transmissions weren't great in those days.  So, in addition to hoo-hah talk, I'd get it screamed at me, whether I wanted to hear it or not.

"What was that," she screamed.  "I can't hear you!  What color was the discharge?"

OMFG! I screamed in my mind.

And then the subway car screamed for me.