Go Your Own Way

It's no secret that those who live in NYC have their own unique brand of attitude. Many folks who live or are from NYC refer to this as simply a "New York Attitude" without getting into specifics. Specifics. That's what I'm here for. This attitude is hard to sum up succintly but this little anecdote may help.

Again we return to subway life. Nothing is more emblematic of life in NYC than what happens underground. People's true colors shine through and in close quarters, no less. Perhaps this is because all New Yorkers, regardless of race, income or education level are at the mercy of the subway and this is at times frustrating. What New Yorkers do when confronted with this frustration takes many forms. Some lash out when seemingly unprovoked. Others keep their thoughts to themselves while trying desperately to stay in control while still others take action.

At the 86th street subway station (home of the 4 and 5 express trains as well as the 6 local) the express trains often experienced a "brief" interruption in service. This interruption would be communicated to customers usually in two different ways. One, through unintelligible public address announcements and two through the stretching of very flimsy pink tape across each and every pedestrian entrance to the express train tracks. Perhaps the flimsy nature of this tape made their intent somewhat hazy or their message not as forceful because passengers would often see this tape and simply remove it and then proceed to the express train platform to wait for the express train that would not be coming any time soon. Why did this happen? Did New Yorkers, simply fed up with pointless service delays lash out at the system on thier own feeling that they could will the express trains back into service? Perhaps through New Yorkers' unique street smart ability to see through bullshit, these passengers simply saw this pink tape "blocking" the express train entrance as nonsense or the equivalent of someone on the street trying to sell them stolen goods. Maybe they were thinking "No, this is bullshit. No way the express traing isn't running right now. Let's just go down to their platform, I'm sure it'll come."

But whatever the faulty logic that informed these actions what really ends up happening is mass confusion on the downtown (or uptown as the case may be) side of the station when other non-suspecting passengers followed the other passengers with finely tuned MTA bullshit detectors who removed the pink tape, to the express train platform to wait for an express train that wouldn't be showing up for another 36 hours. It's at this point where those who follow end up waiting pointlessly while they hear the local trains that they should be taking stop and then leave the station. At this point sometimes eye contact is made between passengers and then the brave ones make the first move and say after about 15 or 20 minutes of waiting, "Are the express trains running today?"

No one ever seems to know the answer to this important question and the original remover of the flimsy pink tape does not own up to his/her transgression. Once the truth has been realized all passengers make their way back to the local track. However, the tape is still down and no one has fixed it (No one has the told the MTA staff about this either)! Once the first batch of misdirected passengers figures out that the express trains are indeed not running at the moment, another batch of lost passengers will try waiting for the express trains without sucess. Those who are more observant will see the flimsy pink tape on the ground of the entrance to the express trains and wonder before doing anything if the express trains are actually running or if the people of New York had decided to take matters into their own hands.