Heading Downtown
By Robert Beck
New Yorkers have many rituals that they practice separately and shared, some of them in the subway. Such as stairway and car-door protocols, which require things to happen a certain way to happen at all. And sometimes they don’t. Like when you swipe your card, and the turnstile doesn’t move. Your physical and mental momentum (which in New York City is currency) gets interrupted, and you often take a shot in the gut. Everyone behind you pulls up short and snarls before baling to another gate. Your train leaves while you are sawing at the slot, and you have to wait another four minutes, which is an egregious delay in Manhattan.
The last time I took the 1 back from Columbia Presbyterian, an upstanding citizen drove his motorcycle into the subway car (as in inside). Not a scooter—a motorcycle. It took all of us by surprise, but then again, it’s New York. Everybody gave him a glance but kept to their own business, as this was a man with no qualms. No sooner had he joggled his way through the door and wedged between us pedestrians when an express pulled in across the platform, and he backed his way out with little push-steps—fighting the door, which was trying to close—to take advantage of the more expedient opportunity. I’ve done the same thing but without 200 lbs. of motor vehicle between my legs.
There are so many questions that hover around that. How did he get there, and how does he get back up to the street? Why is he taking a train if he has a motorcycle? Why isn’t he in a hospital for the stupidly self-serving? And the first question everybody asks: where were the cops?
At the next station, a guy came on the train and played a mariachi-like guitar for a couple of stops, but nearly everybody was lost in their cell phones. I gave him a good tip. I’ve had some lean years myself. There also was a guy with a cello case strapped to his back, and I wondered what was going through his mind as the mariachi guy worked the car.
Despite the entertainment inside, I spent most of my time looking out the windows as we snaked our way downtown under Broadway. The cars ahead and behind swayed and swerved as if barely attached. And when we ran beside another train, their glowing windows floated through the dark slower or faster—sometimes one, then the other—those riders encased in another time just a few feet away.
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Thank you Robert Beck! You captured some of the joys of subway riding perfectly. I can still feel that hit to the gut. 🙂
Thank you for the lovely art.
I take the train to/from work five days a week.
Sadly, there are often bikes, ebikes and recently some heavier moped/vespa types.
Incredibly the MTA now allows e-vehicles (up to a certain weight) on buses, subways, LIRR.
IMO if the vehicles are now allowed, people should pay extra for them as they take up lots of space and invariably hamper us regular subway riders.
Pay extra? I doubt they are paying at all. To get them inside the turnstiles they must be going through the emergency exit. Nobody pays when they get someone to open that for them.
First off, I love the painting. Thank you for sharing all of your artwork and stories!
The MTA just launched its portal for public comments in ref to the fare hikes. I’ve been complaining to the MTA for 10 years and nothing has changed, lol. Maybe if more people speak up it might make a difference.
https://new.mta.info/press-release/mta-launches-online-portal-public-comment-fare-and-toll-change
I saw someone driving a throttle e-bike down the 1 train platform a few weeks ago. He’d obviously just left the train I was riding on.
The City and the MTA legalized the “transport” of e-bikes and e-scooters on the subway a few months ago. What could go wrong?
Inevitably an e bike battery will explode on the subway and the powers that only pretend to care will be shocked, shocked, that this could happen. Another instance of deliberate chaos by cynical politicians to make themselves more relevant. They actually don’t care if you burn to death in the car or get shoved onto the tracks.
Please complain to the MTA on their complaint page on their website! I have. It is outrageous that they are now allowing e-bikes in the subway and on buses when residential buildings all over NY will not allow them. This is the influence from the very well financed lobbying group Trans Alt who have managed to keep e-vehicles unregulated in NYC! I won’t ride on a train or bus with an e-vehicle on it. It’s hard enough to walk on our sidewalks or cross the street without getting hit! NY doesn’t care too much about the safety of its citizens.
TransAlt the bike lobby is incredibly powerful
FDNY should get involved
These criminals bring the motorcycles on the subway via the ADA compliant elevators and avoid the fares by going through the emergency gates. This guy is either a food app worker, because the city has decided not to regulate those companies, or just some regular scofflaw with no license plate.
The thing is cops can’t be every station, despite the fact that Adams sent more cops and private security guards down there to stop farebeating and guard the gates.
I enjoy reading Robert Beck’s observations as much as I enjoy his paintings — a lot. On the subject of a subway, Ezra Pound wrote: “The apparition of these faces in a crowd/Petals on a wet black bough.” Those words paint a. picture too.
When one has an eBike, or a stoller, or is on a wheelchair, what is the correct way to pay your fare and get onto the subway? When we had station attendants they would ask you to swipe your card then they would make the emergency exit open.
I wish the subway looked just like your painting.
We have always loved Robert Beck’s paintings. Now we love his narrative.
Let us know if he has a gallery, or will have a gallery showing.
kakki, I have a studio on West 79th where all my UWS paintings hang out to dry and get framed. Visitors are welcome when I’m not out painting somewhere. you can get in touch with me through my website, http://www.robertbeck.net. Thank you for your interest.