Entering the Beast

"A fine web of history stink and art."




Entering the cavernous iron dungeon. 

Millions of people take these trains from the early hours in the morning for work, till the next day after a long night in the city that never sleeps. It's where many fellow city dwellers find a home where they have none. It's a brutal heartless soulless beast. It connects the poorest to the richest by just a couple of stops, the Bronx with Park Avenue, and Queens with Central Park West and the Financial District with Coney Island. 

A fine web of history stink and art. Music,dance, protest song, drag shows begging laughing sleeping everything happens in the subways and station platforms of the New York City subway system. The most interesting of stops along the way for me, is Union Square, one of the epicenters a of the strange and bizarre. When you come up from those steps anything and everything will amaze you. What usually always surprises me is the connections made underground. 

My recent subway story has to do with a couple who was stranded waiting for a late night F train that never came. I had just had a wonderful dinner with friends from Greece, and was heading home on a very rainy June evening. The night was nearly empty and the platform was mostly quiet except for a street musician playing the drums on the opposite platform. After 15 minutes there was no sign a train was coming so I proceeded to make my way to an alternate route. Gone was my chance to sleep early tonight I though to myself... as I was about to leave the platform a young couple approached me and asked... "does this usually happen?" Oh I shook my head and said yeah allllll the time and chuckled. The young woman was visibly disturbed by her predicament ( hmmm visitors I thought to myself) "How do we get to where we want to go?" She asked... Well where are you going? I replied. Brooklyn she said... Carol Street.  Aha! your in luck! I'm going that way too... So stranded no more and with companions on my journey, we proceeded to head to our destination. I learned of their travels and their life long dream to come to NYC. 

They drove here after their flight landed from Kentucky from Washington DC. They were on an adventure, a young and sweet couple who instead of living in some sterile hotel in Manhattan, decided to rent an apartment through Air BnB in a lovely, off the beaten track little neighborhood in Brooklyn. As we talked about where we were from and were we've traveled all over the world,  I told them I'm from Greece and its been hard being away from home.  They knew of our troubles they told me good luck and they hoped they could come to Greece soon. As they arrived to their destination I was glad that in this lonely sometimes distant cold train I could have a warm conversation with complete strangers.

Good Night New York and Good Luck.   

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