The New York City Subway

[lofter1]

The MTA should stop touting all their so-called improvements -- real or otherwise -- and fix the damned Metrocard mess. My cards keep going bad and I'm told the only thing I can do about it is to mail them in to the MTA and then wait for the pay back (it takes them about 3 months to give back the money they hold on the dead card).

And, no ... the card doesn't go bad because it rubs up against another card or something metal -- I keep it in its own dedicated sleeve on the outer part of my wallet. The cards are problematic and the MTA is taking its own sweet time to remedy the situation -- after all, it allows them to hold on to money that isn't theirs and can't be used by the purchaser.

[Ninjahedge]

They need to do the same as the Path Train. The cards that you pay $10 to get to start and can fill up with different rides (monthly, 40 pass cards, 20 pass card, etc).

As for the advertisements, they are a waste of space. I do not think they will get ANYBODY to start riding the subway that has not before because of the improvements.

You will also not get people to stop complaining about the fare hikes (although the rates are sucstantially lower than in other countries. Japan for example).

I would like to see the reason why they need to tell us about security cameras. I would like to know [/i]why[/i] they need to talk about the timers. If you need to know, most likely you do not HAVE them and it is meaningless to you.

NO WAIT WAIT! I HAS TO TELL MY GRANDMOTHER SHE CAN RIDEZ THE SUBWAYZ NOW THAT THERE ARE CAMERAZ!!!!!!

[stache]

PATH smart cards are $10.00 to start now?

[Ninjahedge]

I think so, i will have to check (it was a good round number like $5 or $10).

It sounds odd, but you have much more respect for something when you pay that much for it. I have had mine for a good 14 months now after leaving the city (job). I had to fill it up with my leftover transit $$ or lose it.


I lost most of it (I forgot.... ).

But still, one card, keep it in a billfold and wave it over the sensor. Works much better than a mechanical feed on a paper card with a mag strip.....

[stache]

I think they're still $5.00.

[Merry]

Drongos.


New York's Subway Replaces Poetry With More Ads

John Lundberg

Walking though New York's second snowstorm in as many weeks Friday morning, past the lingering piles of trash, down into the gritty, wet and steamy subway tunnels, I could have used a little inspiration. But unlike last year, I wouldn't find it underground. The city's popular "Train of Thought" program (formerly "Poetry in Motion"), which sought to brighten the subway commute with a little poetry and poignant prose, has been replaced by ads promoting the MTA's own achievements. And so commuters learn that track work is progressing nicely at the Fulton Street Station, and a dreary January morning remains a dreary January morning. Contrast this with the London Underground, which last week celebrated the 25th anniversary of "Poems on the Underground." Every season, the British Council Art Group selects six poems to make the Underground seem a little less underground. This season's selections address the value of the written word and include the well-known opening lines from John Keats' "Endymion." A good choice for the "gloomy days" of winter, readers will no doubt think of the tunnels they're coursing through when they consider the "o'er darkened ways made for our searching":

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health,
And quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

"Lines to a Movement in Mozart's E-flat Symphony" is a rare, hopeful poem about spring and love from the usually dour Thomas Hardy:

Show me again the time
When in the Junetide's prime
We flew by meads and mountains northerly!--
Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fullness, fineness, freeness,
Love lures life on...

Show me again just this:
The moments of that kiss
Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree!--
Yea to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness,
Love lures life on.

The Council also selected "For the Life of This Planet" by Grace Nichols, "Riddle" by Gerard Benson, a fourth-century translation of "Loving the Rituals" by Palladas, and a Seamus Heaney translation of lines written by Colmcille, a sixth-century Irish saint. Heaney and Nichols, notably, were also featured in the very first set of London Underground poems. You can take a look at all of the new poetry here.

Sadly, if you want to read a little poetry on your way into Manhattan, you'll have to bring your own. An archive of 25 years of Tube poetry is available here, and Orion Publishing has put together a few collections.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-l...?ir=New%20York

[lofter1]

Drongos.

WNY Word of the Day

[Stroika]

That's ludicrous! On most trains, the ads don't fill up the entire available space above the train windows (this may not be the case on the Lex Ave line, which I haven't been on in a while, but elsewhere this is certainly so).

It's reminiscent of when a developer knocks down a prewar architectural gem next to an empty parking lot in order to build something on the site of the gem but not the lot -- why not deal with the empty space you have before you seize real estate for something new? Of course, in the case of actual real estate, the lot does belong to an owner who may or may not be selling, as does the prewar gem. In the case of the subway, all of that space, whether empty or adorned with poetry, falls under the MTA's aegis. Sheesh.

[Ninjahedge]

Are you calling Dr. Zizmore an empty lot?

[Stroika]

Is it just me, or do Zizmor's before and after shots look like two totally different girls?

[stache]

He's that good.

[Ninjahedge]

Well, one IS smiling....

[Merry]

Except for Astor Place, definitely a sad loss for the city.


Lenox Avenue Subway Kiosk, circa 1930



http://harlembespoke.blogspot.com/20...irca-1930.html

[stache]

The story I have heard is these canopies became too dangerous, as criminals would wait inside them and could not be seen.

[brianac]

The Astor Place kiosk is a replica of an original one, made at the same factory as the originals, in the 1980's I think.