On Duty, Off Duty

Earlier this summer circumstances found me boarding the 2 train to the financial district every morning. I was surrounded by suits, briefcases, dress skirts, high heels and black flats. I am happy to say I successfully blended in with the crowd. I am usually loath to look proper, but clean up well and only had to keep up this act for two weeks. Being an imposter is fun and jury duty gave me the opportunity to be one.

For two weeks on jury duty I was a nine-to-fiver. Going downtown every morning. Mingling with the millionaires of Wall Street and the assistant district attorneys of city hall. Being a poser.

I was placed in a grand jury of 23 other people. It was a random configuration of strangers who would never share the same room in any other circumstance; people who I will never forget and never see again. I could only guess what they were in their normal lives. Were they stock brokers? Doctors? Artists?

It turned out to be a mixed bag, many slices of the big New York City cheesecake. A grandmother, an electrical engineer, a puppeteer, a future minister, a photographer, a web designer, several teachers and students. We were assigned seat numbers, and that’s how we knew each other until our warden wrote down everyone’s name in the record book. I was known as “21″ and the middle-aged woman to my left was the foreperson, number 22.

In due time I learned 22’s name, Julie, and that she is a Spanish teacher at a school in the West Village. Between cases she would knit beautiful bags and sweaters. Julie knitted like the fate of the world depended on the clackity clack of her needles. Like she was trying fix all the unraveled futures of the people who passed through the court system. She was the lost sister of the Three Fates, and her creations were reincarnations of all the discarded strings of lives that had been cut.

During lunch break one day I saw Julie whizzing by the New York State Supreme Court on bike, which immediately added a dimension of bad-assness to her aura. I decided I needed to interview this renegade, knitting teacher-woman.

We sat down on the Astroturf soccer field in a park on the edge of Chinatown. Groups of retired Chinese gathered around benches playing chess, card games and erhus. We ate our lunches and talked. The Star Spangled Banner, a remix of Jimi Hendrix’s version played on an erhu, provided the appropriate background music for the occasion.

We discussed jury duty, cycling and knitting, among other things.

What are your hobbies? You know, things that you would be doing if you weren’t in jury duty right now.

You may have noticed during jury duty that I knit a lot. I never buy sweaters. I like to ride my bike everywhere I go.  I like to read … it’s actually a dull sounding life when I talk about it. Sometimes I read and knit at the same time. I have a secret vice.  I like to watch Teen Mom when no one’s looking. My husband doesn’t know this, but my daughter does and she scoffs at me.

How long have you been cycling?

I’ve been cycling forever. I grew up in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. You can’t get anywhere without a car if you live in the Midwest in the suburbs. The idea of having to depend on a car to get anywhere was always very unappealing to me. It’s a waste of space, gas and money. They get messy and dirty and they’re funny looking. They’ve always been unappealing to me. Biking feels so good.

When did you start biking?

I started biking in high school and I never stopped. There’s no better way to get around a city. Cars close you off. When you’re driving around Cleveland in a car going to the supermarket or whatever, you’ve probably got the radio on the AC is up and you’re in a bubble all by yourself and I don’t like that. In New York when you’re going around on your bike or in the subway, you’re right there with everybody else. I like that about New York. I like the public aspect of life, the contact that you come in with everybody and anybody. It makes me feel very much closer to things that are far away—closer than I would if I were living in Ohio and driving a car. And that’s what makes jury duty so much fun too is that you’re sitting in a room with people you know nothing about and by the end of the two weeks you’ve had some really interesting conversations with them.

What were your thoughts on jury duty before service?

I have a friend who said it was very interesting and it’s something I’ve always been interested in. I didn’t know what to expect. There is one thing that is surprising to me: since I’m a teacher I think a lot about how to convey information accurately to people who you’re going to hold accountable for knowing it. I’m shocked at the dismissive, casual attitude the assistant district attorneys have when telling us things. There are so many ways of making sure you give information to people besides just standing up in a suit and talking. Teachers would look at this and think that this is a poor, outdated and ineffective way of getting a point across.

How much of a learning experience was jury duty?

It’s very interesting to step out of your routine and into the life of a juror because you hear about a lot of other things going around you that you would really have no idea of. This is a big, complex, dynamic city. I’ve been at my job for 15 years, and I’ve been living at my apartment for the past 20 years. My routine is a very salient feature of my life. Being outside of my zone and seeing what goes on pretty much up close, not at the crime scene or in the DA’s secret chambers, but hearing details about parallel universes is what it feels like to me and it’s really interesting to know that what I’m doing in my own world is just a very tiny slice of what’s happening on any day.  The wheels are turning all around and you’re not even aware of it.

Did you learn anything about yourself while on jury duty?

It’s refreshing to me to feel, since I was the foreperson, satisfied with the ability that I had to let a conversation happening and let people express themselves. That’s not always easy to do. I think being a teacher helps but I feel like I’m in my own little niche and that my skills are quirky and it’s nice to know that I can function well in a different environment.

Tell me about your post jury duty plans.

Ha Ha Ha. I’ve put together a high profile crimes of Soho tour, which is not related to jury duty. Bernie Madoff’s son jumped out of a window a few blocks away from where Etan Patz was taken and a few years ago there were several suicides in the NYU library. Very dramatic. This is my darker side. Maybe I’ll start a walking tour. It’s awful to say, I don’t want to profit from someone’s tragedy but I can’t help the way my brain works. So yes, I’ve jotted down the addresses of the minor crimes we’ve talked about during jury duty. I’ve already taken my first forays of the tour on my bike.

What was the worst thing about jury duty?

The responsibility kind of weighs on me. The things we’ve indicted on aren’t that big of a deal. That kind of troubles me.

Your favorite thing?

It is an escape. It is a vacation. For anything else in your life, everybody is willing to say ‘Oh right, you’re on jury duty’. If I don’t cook supper, if I miss a meeting at school, it’s okay. Better yet people have told me how much they miss me being around. I love that! I never knew!

What would you say to people who wish to avoid jury duty for political reasons?

My husband is one of these people. For one thing it’s not all up to you and you’re allowed to dismiss something as you see fit. There’s discretion involved. If you’re leery of indicting people on small things then you don’t have do. It’s cool to be part of a system that says it needs the little people to function, even if it’s only true in a superficial way. I think that the system is more broken than not. I think that there is privilege inherent in who gets caught and who doesn’t, and what kind of defense the people that get caught are able to provide. There’s privilege and lack of privilege completely wrapped up in that and you can’t get away from that. It’s troubling, but it’s a better system that a lot of places on the world have.

What did your students think about you being gone on jury duty?

I had to tell my students that I was going to be away and miss the end of the year. I wanted to make jury duty understandable to them. Indictment and prosecution are words that are very hard to understand. You frame it in terms they know already, like playground conflicts—he said she said kind of stuff. These things are immediately understandable to even the smallest children.  

Aural Dystopia Becomes Venue for Live Music

This busy intersection will become a musical stage later tonight

New York City is an aural dystopia. The intersection of 96th and Broadway is no exception; traffic horns, angry pedestrians, screeching brakes and the rumble of the 1, 2 and 3 lines underfoot weave an unappealing tapestry of sound. Normally this omnipresent cacophony blankets the city, but today, the curtain will be lifted as streets, stoops, storefronts, parks and parking lots will be transformed by the sound of music. Thousands of public spaces have become stages for even more musicians as they participate in Make Music New York’s seventh annual festival.

Since 2007, the usual accumulation of city noises on 96th and Broadway has been upstaged by a bouquet of music. This year the sound of American country, electronic, folk and Torah punk rock music emanate from the intersection all day long.

I got the opportunity to reach out to Laura Silverman, a singer and songwriter whose stage name is Laura Fran, electronic musician Preston Parish, and Don Bonus of the self proclaimed Torah punk rock band Moshiach Oi! before there performances today.

How and why did you get involved with Make Music New York?

DB: Some of us were involved in a previous MMNY with another group, Blanket StatementStein, and we decided to try it again.

PP: I just randomly found the event online a few years ago and it sounded like fun. It’s a good place to try out some new material and hear all the other creative mutants that come out of the woodwork.

LF:  heard about MMNY from ASCAP. ASCAP is the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers.I am a songwriter and so I joined and as a member I receive Emails with updates about music related things. I heard about MMNY through them and signed up. This is my first year.

Do you have a fun anecdote from a previous experience?

DB: We played outside the Treif Gesheft Bike Shop in Williamsburg.  There were live chickens in the back of the store.  The Penguin Revolution also performed.  So there was kind of a bird theme.

PP: I learned that day, that iPads can and do overheat in the sun. Had to sit out a short improvisational set I was scheduled for later that afternoon. Gave me a chance to check out the circuit bending workshops, so that was fun.

What are your hopes and expectations for playing on 96th and Broadway?

DB: We hope to make some ruckus and draw the attention of passersby.

PP: Not really sure what to expect! Hoping I’ll be loud enough – there’s only so much you can squeeze out of battery-powered amplification.

LF: I picked 96th and B’way becasue I have a lot of friends in the area. Hopefully they will be able to come and because it is close to the subway, people will stop along their way to wherever they are going and listen.

How long have you been playing music?

DB: Moshiach Oi! has been a band for four years.

LF: I have been singing since I can remember. I was president of my A Capella group in college, but I have only been playing guitar for about two and a half years. I wrote my first song two years ago and I now have about twelve songs to my name.

PP: I’ve played something or other since I was a kid, but didn’t really become compulsively involved with music until high school. So it’s been about fifteen years.

 Tell me about your identity when you’re not playing music.

DB: Yishai, the singer, takes care of mentally disabled adults.  Menashe Yaakov, who plays the guitar, works in a law firm.  Pesach Simcha  who plays the drums, studies in yeshiva.  Mitchell, the bass man, works in the optometry field.

LF: When I’m not playing music I am a recent college graduate looking for a job in the public health field.

If a Boy is Alone in the Wood and No One Hears Him Is He Still Alone in the Woods?

Adam Janos is heading for the hills

Adam Janos is one of the millions of New Yorkers who will be leaving town this summer. His first stop will be Iceland followed by a stint in Barcelona before heading to the middle of nowhere. This particular nowhere is a house in the woods in the Catskill mountains, where Adam, a theater teacher at Harlem Children’s Zone, will live without a phone or the internet.

In this day and age it is hard to imagine anyone would voluntarily detach their self so. This is an era of increased connectivity; from the satellite’s silent laps around the Earth, to the invisible, static flood of electromagnetic waves, to the smartphones as present as extra appendages, everything seems to corroborate this fact.

Yet while it is clear that we have become more connected to our electronic devices, there are other connections we are missing. Every collective hour we spend with our heads in cyberspace is an hour less spent talking to your neighbors, painting a picture, playing catch, watching the sunset, getting to know yourself.

This summer Adam will get to know himself very well. Adam will not be facebooking, texting, emailing or answering your calls (you might be able to send him a letter though), but he will be connecting with the woods, swimming in his own private pond, and probably watching the sunset a lot.

Indeed it is these places, the ones where we can’t check our e-mail or post our status, that are rife with a different sort of connectivity. For some reason, we still refer to these places as middles of nowhere, despite being a somewhere experientially richer than Cancun and other so-called somewheres.

At any rate, Adam’s trip into the woods piqued my interest, and he invited me to come talk to him as he packed for his trip to Iceland.

So do you see this endeavor as an escape from the city or are you being seduced by nature? In other words are you being pushed or pulled towards the woods?

It’s a little bit of both. The leave everything behind thing is appealing to me. I love the outdoors. I’m more interested in finding edible berries and the uses of birch bark than I am into silence away from the city.

Where will your digs be and how did you get them?

I’m staying in a house that’s on a hundred acres off a seasonal access road. The nearest town is Margaretville, which is four hours from the city. I sent an email to everyone that I knew and said I was looking for a cabin and a friend of mine put me in touch with her brother in law. His family bought the house in the 1950s and converted it into an artists’ retreat for writers, directors and filmmakers but it’s fallen into disrepair in the last twenty years. I am going to try to fix stuff up. It’s a nice place but it’s not really functional.

So this is an exchange of services?

Yeah … that’s giving me more credit than I deserve. It’s mostly a giant favor to me. I will try my best to get the water running—I’ll at least sweep and clean and set up some propane tanks, but I’m a boy from the suburbs and am not really good at being handy.

What do you hope to achieve from going off into the woods?

Clarity. You know when you run water from the tap and it’s all cloudy and you have to wait for all the bubbles to settle before you get clear water? I feel like New York is a constantly running tap. I feel if I just hang out for a minute things will get a little clearer.

What do you hope to figure out?

I haven’t done any new work that I feel proud of and I would like to figure out my next steps. Do I want to keep working in academia? How do I reconcile my desire for balance and my desire to be an artist? It’s not easy; they don’t really work hand in hand.

Tell me about some of your work.

I played in a band called the Easy Tease and we toured America and Canada and put out two albums, I was in a sketch comedy group called Olde English that went viral in the internet with some short films, I was the head of a band called It’s Us that was based out of Philadelphia. In the past few years I’ve been working on musicals in New York and Philadelphia. My most recent musical was May of last year, called Go Phone Yourself, which was an interactive show that involved audience members calling in information to actors.

What wilderness survival skills do you have or hope to pick up?

I don’t have any wilderness skills and have not picked up any. People have told me I should really learn how to hunt and I should really learn how to clean a fish. I haven’t thought about it too much, but I’m going to have a car and there’s going to be a fridge. I think I’m going to just go to the grocery store and get food the capitalist way and haul it up the mountain in my car.

But wouldn’t it be fun to learn how to get your own food?

Yeah, it would be fun, but wouldn’t it also be terrible to eat some poisonous berries? I’m not trying to live My Side of the Mountain but maybe I should take these things more seriously. Hopefully I’ll panic enough when the time comes.

You at should at least bring a fishing pole.

Okay. I’ll bring a fishing pole. Someone told me to bring a shotgun. I would rather learn how to fish than hunt. Hunting just seems a little too vicious for my temperament. I mean, I get it, I’m a meat eater, and I should learn to confront blood and guts but I don’t want to shoot a deer or a rabbit. I just don’t want to!

How do your friends and family feel about this endeavor?

They are all A+ supportive. I’m so impressed with everybody, from my girlfriend to my parents to my colleagues, even my boss. Everyone has met it with enthusiasm and ‘you go boy’ exaltations. I’m really thrilled by how everyone’s been.

What about your students?

At first my students thought it was crazy, but now they think it’s cool.

How do you plan on entertaining yourself?

I don’t know, maybe making music? There’s a pond near where I’ll be staying and I look forward to swimming every day. I haven’t really thought about it. You know, there’s a quote that goes something like this “A man who gets bored on his own isn’t keeping very good company” and I don’t think I’m a very boring person.

No, not at all.

I’m going to bring my instruments and recording devices and I’m going to bring a notepad and stuff. I think I’m going to write an album, but I guess we’ll see. I’ve been very vague with myself and with other people about what precisely I’m going to create because this will be a monumentally different kind of experience that for me to predict it right now would be foolhardy.

Have you ever spend an extended period of time by yourself?

Yes, not by myself as in I didn’t see anybody else, but by myself in that I wasn’t friends with anybody. I lived for a year in South America and I didn’t know anybody. It’s almost more lonely to ride the bus and know nobody, and to live in an apartment and have no relationship with your roommates than to be alone.

Adam is ready to go

Digital Has Not Killed This Movie Rental Store

I went to We Deliver Videos for the first time last year. My favorite movie rental store back home in Kansas City had closed and I needed to find a genuine mom and pop store in New York. I was on a quest to get a hold of the 1983 film version of The Pirates of Penzance, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta about pirates. The movie features many big names–Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury and Linda Ronstadt–but it is not well known and impossible to find on Netflix and at Blockbuster. I wasn’t sure if any independent movie rental stores existed, but they do, and We Deliver Videos on 89th and First Avenue was voted the best of them by the Village Voice in 2009.

When I walked in the guy at the counter was busy, which was strange. The employees at the movie rental stores of my memory were never busy. My sisters and I had plenty of time to flirt with them, ask them for recommendations, entice them into games of movie charades and request that they decorate hand-written notices to help remind us when we had to return our movies.

Things were a little more fast paced at We Deliver. I quickly learned that the guy behind the counter, Drew, is also the owner and I know now that staying in business means staying busy.

I tried to look casual I watched as Drew simultaneously ring up rentals for walk ins as he helped customer on the phone, which he kept wedged between his left shoulder and chin so he could use both hands to clean DVDs.  A few moments later, another customer approached Drew for recommendations.

Netflix relies on an expensive algorithm to recommend movies; Drew asked a few simple questions. What was the last movie you saw? Did you like it?  Are you seeing the movie with anyone?

The last question highlights the difference between Netflix and mortar and brick movie rental stores. Streaming a movie doesn’t require you to interact with anyone. The Netflix algorithm is geared to only recommend movies that you like; for its intents and purposes you are the sole audience. Netflix is just one more thing in the digital age that makes it easier for people to retreat into their personal bubble.

The man at We Deliver told Drew that he was going to see the movie with his girlfriend. Eventually Drew recommended The Fighter.

There’s no telling whether or not the man or his girlfriend liked it, but the fact that We Deliver is remains alive and well in the digital age is a testament to Drew’s track record.

After the man left, I was finally able to ask Drew if he had The Pirates of Penzance. With the magnitude of We Deliver’s inventory, Drew was certain he did.

But he didn’t, and was professionally embarrassed.  ”You know what? I’ll order it,” he promised.

Drew was true to his word, and now anyone seeking The Pirates of Penzance has only to stop by We Deliver Videos. While some movie rental chains like Blockbuster make people want to retreat into their personal bubble, people keep coming back to We Deliver. I wanted to know more about the store and its customers, so I decided to interview Drew on my most recent visit. Drew was busy cleaning discs and fielding phone calls but he happily obliged and even asked the first question: “So, how was the pirate movie?”

You are in a neighborhood that’s teeming with families. How do children usually react when they come to We Deliver?

Neighborhood kids really love it here. A lot of parents tell me that this is their favorite store. When they go to the kids’ section it’s a little overwhelming for them because there’s so much to see and look at. The get really excited. We also run a special every day, two for the price of one for kids’ movies.

Can you describe your clientele?

The clientele is families, singles, couples, the elderly …  we’re pretty diverse. There are so many different people on just this square block that you can’t really categorize our clientele. We don’t have a set; we have everybody.

Many movie rental stores have gone out of business. What are you guys doing that prevents you from becoming extinct?

Well, people enjoy coming here. People like to come and talk and see things. The fact that there are so few stores left around helps us. It’s sad to say, but the fewer there are the better we do. If there’s one gas station in a twenty-mile radius everyone is going to go to that gas station, whatever it may be. We also do specials. Today is two for one, tomorrow is two for one–and we don’t skimp on getting titles. A lot of places only have one copy of a big release, so people come to us for hard to find stuff and new releases more than anything else.

Do you any of your customers have Netflix?

A lot of our customers might use Netflix, but they still come here all the time. They’re great for what they are. They are affordable for people. They have TV shows and they offer a lot of older movies, but it’s hard to get any kind of new release on streaming Netflix. We’ve survived it, but they did knock out a lot small stores. I still like the small business aspect of the world and they’ve turned this industry into a fast food service

Many movie rental stores rely on their porn section to stay afloat. Do you foresee having to rely more and more on that?

No. Porn is not a big part of our business.

But it’s part of your business?

Very little, if that.

What’s the most popular movies?

Besides new releases, I would say British and other foreign films. That’s a pretty popular genre. At the moment it’s jumping between Mission Impossible and Contraband.

What is your personal favorite movie?

They always change. Right now my favorite new movie is A Dangerous Method. Also I like gangster films a lot. My favorites are White Heat with James Cagney, and I’d also go with Donnie Brasco, which is more recent.

What’s your favorite thing about working and operating a movie rental store?

I would say more than anything else, the interaction with people is a lot of fun. I think that talking to people all day is not for everybody—but it is for me. I enjoy people’s company. People like to come here because it’s mostly a happy environment. I would say that 99% of customers go out happy. We don’t like to have people leave empty handed.

Do you get a lot of feedback from customers?

All the time. We always hear that it’s really nice to be in an actual store, and that it’s really nice to talk to somebody. We hear it almost every day.

Drew hard at work

Wanna learn more about We Deliver Videos? Check out their website: We Deliver Videos.

Occupy Wall Street: Wolves and Dream Houses

The world’s financial institutions compared Occupy Wall Street protesters to wild predators as they prepared for potential May Day mayhem. “Banks cooperating on surveillance are like elk fending off wolves,” said a security director who was working with several financial institutions.

With all this talk of wolves I was prepared to encounter widespread chaos as I ventured out onto the streets on May Day. When I reached Bryant Park, the launching point of a march to Union Square, I was not met with snarling, menacing packs of protesters but with an optimistic, determined group of activists. Many of them were even smiling.

Some within the movement said NYC would be shut down as a result of May Day protests. However, shutting down New York City is a tall order and neither terrorist attacks, blackouts or MTA strikes have been able to do so.  The collection of activists cohabiting Bryant park with business men on their lunch break is a demonstration that the Occupy Wall Street movement has become an integral part of the city, and not a force operating against it–despite the mayor’s best efforts to treat it like a cancer.

What has been proven more than ever is that Occupy Wall Street is an idea that is carried out everyday; it is a conglomeration of people’s thoughts as they decide where they buy their food, what businesses they will support, what kind of consumer they are, and who they vote for. May Day was a day for people to wear these ideas on their sleeves.

The march from Bryant Park to Union Square was reminiscent of the march in the fall from Washington Square Park to Times Square. The huge march made me aware of the extensive reach and appeal of Occupy Wall Street. Bryant Park before the march was a hub of creativity and idea sharing. Nothing wolfish about it. One of the first things that caught my eye was a colorful house made of cardboard and painted in bright pastel colors. Passerby were invited to write their dreams for the future on a slip of paper and “deposit” them into the house.

I got a chance to talk to writer Daniel Pinchbeck, one of the creative minds involved in the construction of the Dream House. Pinchbeck founded Open City literary magazine, is the creative director of Reality Sandwich, and author of Breaking Open the Head and two other novels.

Daniel Pinchbeck and the Multicolored Dream House

Tell me about yourself and the other people involved in the Dream House.

We’re a group called the Awareness Experiment. We’ve been doing a number of conscience raising events sometime where we bring together the creative community, the fashion and the art community with people from the Occupy Wall Street movement to inspire dialogue and create synergy. As part of our ongoing awareness experiment we created a dream house to inspire a creative insurrection—an insurrection of the imagination.

Why a dream house in particular?

Is there a why? Because look–it’s so cute!

Yes it is so cute! But why a dream house instead of a dreamboat for instance?

Ah! A dream boat … well, that’s for you to do! Someone suggested we do a dream city with different dream houses and skyscrapers.

 Is the dream house supposed to be representative of the housing bubble and the foreclosures?

No, maybe on a meta-level. One inspiration was that instead of having a White House we have a muliticolored dream house, but you can freeform it in a lot of directions. I think instead of harping about what has gone disastrously wrong it’s more about having a creative future oriented vision of how we can shape and reform what’s been happening.

What are you going to do with everyone’s dream deposits?

Well, yeah we’ll put them up on our website.

What other projects do you have going on?

We’ll be doing another awareness experiment in May at the Bowery Hotel. We’re doing some media projects on community gardens on the lower east side We’re a cooperative and we have a lot of great people. You should join us!

Thanks!

Here are more pictures from May Day in New York City:

March from Bryant Park to Union Square

At Bryant Park

At Vietnam Veterans Memorial near the Staten Island Ferry

The Man on the Tracks: Part II

Continued from The Man on the Tracks: Part I

The New York City subway system has 842 miles of track. There is little to see, and the vast darkness serves as a Petri dish for the imagination. This is the darkness that Frank, a Road Car Inspector for MTA, immerses himself in on many occasions; so far he’s never encountered the Boogie Man.

Like anything else that triggers the imagination, the New York City subway system has been subject to lies, rumors, and Hollywood. It has appeared in many movies, sometimes as a central focus, sometimes making a  cameo appearance. Sometimes Hollywood sticks to the facts, sometimes its fabrications and embellishments impose an identity crisis when studio versions of the subway and its habitat are mistaken for the real thing. Each rumor has varying levels of truth: societies of Mole people, secret subway stations, underground monsters. While some rumors are pure Hollywood, reality can be as strange as fiction.

In this second interview, Frank dispels rumors, shares real life anecdotes of life and labor in the tunnels.

Is it true that there are mole people living in the tunnels?

There are people that live in the tunnels, but not as many as you think. When I work in the stations sometimes you have homeless people that hang out there—regulars. You always want to get along with them because sometimes they tell you stuff. Say there’s a sick passenger; the regulars will probably know where he or she is. You want to get along with everybody, especially if they’re a little nuts.

So where do the homeless people live?

Most people hang out at the end of the station, but I think you do have some people that go a little farther in (the tube). There’s a lot of abandoned little hutches and extra space.

What’s the best real estate for people who live in the tunnels?

Maybe you could break into an old utility room, but a lot of those are pretty sketchy anyway. There might be a lot of rats, or the floor might be rotten. I guess they find spots, but they can’t be very permanent spots.

What are the fires on the track caused by?

The fires on the track are caused by a couple things. It could be a burning insulator, or it could be garbage. Mostly its garbage that gets hot sitting on the third rail. The other thing that causes track fires is a stuck brake that just drags along the rail and gets really hot and starts burning things up.

In “Taking Pelham 123” they speak of an emergency brake …

 

Yeah they’re talking about the dead man.

The dead man?

Yeah, the dead man feature on the train. It’s a handle. On the old trains you held it down at all times—on the new trains you have to twist the handle. So if a train operator faints or dies or collapses and lets go of the handle the emergency brakes are triggered and all are instantly and fully applied. If you’re on the train and you hear a big poof it means the train went into emergency mode. So in Pelham 123 they find a way to keep it pressed down. In the remake, which I worked on–

You did?

Yeah, only for one day though, but it was fun. They fed us really well and we just hung out. In the movie they open the doors on the train, so we had to open the doors for them. What they did was take one of the old trains and made it look like a new train by adding panels. It was kinda neat. If you ripped off the panels you see that it’s an old train.

Why did they use the old trains?

Because in the some of the old trains you can detach one car and it’ll move on its own. In the new ones you have to have the whole link up of five cars for them to move. They didn’t want to sacrifice five or four cars just for the movie. It’s amazing the job they did on these things.

Other than rats are there any other gruesome beasts that live in the tunnels?

I don’t think there’s any gruesome beasts … there’s cockroaches. You know what there’s a lot of that you wouldn’t think?

Umm … raccoons?

Cats. There’s a lot of cats. More than you think. Sometimes people who work down there will feed them. And there’re a lot of birds in certain stations. Like on the one line, on 181 and 168; those stations that are really deep. You wouldn’t think they get all they way down there. You have to take an elevator to get down there!

Tell me about Cloverfield. Did they actually film that in New York’s Subway system?

No they didn’t. The tracks don’t look the way they did in the movie. And the station they used is not a New York Station. They didn’t film it (the subway scene) in New York, because I woulda heard about it, and maybe would have made some overtime.

Okay, here is another movie question. In Bone Collector, there is an old, out of service train station where Angelina Jolie goes to search for clues. In the movie it’s called Navy Street.

 

There’s no Navy Street. They do that kind of thing all the time in the movies.

Tell me about the Second Avenue subway.

I haven’t been there. I mean, you could see it as well as I could. Here’s kind of a funny story: when they made the new South Ferry station they made the platform a foot too wide, and the trains wouldn’t fit in it, so they had to redo the whole platform. They had to tear it all up and do it again. That’s kind of funny isn’t it?

How many bomb scares do you handle?

Not very many. There were a whole bunch a while ago.

What do the bomb scares end up being?

Well, they call them suspicious packages. But honestly, when someone tells me about a suspicious package, I just get on the train and take it off. I don’t think twice about it. I take it, I look at it and I give it to the dispatcher who puts it in lost property. If it’s in a plastic bag I throw it in the trash.

What do the suspicious packages usually tend to be?

Well, something that someone left on the train. The MTA tells people to report unattended packages, and they should report them, but if you stop the train every time there is a suspicious package, the trains wouldn’t be running. Actually a lot times someone had their lunch and they were too lazy to throw it in the trash, so they just threw it on the seat. Or they were on their way to JFK and they had four bags and they left one behind. When you listen to the 6-wire—the radio—you should hear the things that come over there. People leave their babies, in the baby stroller, on the train! All the time! All the time!

How often does that happen?

Maybe half a dozen times where I stayed with the kid. I had one kid a couple months ago, and he was around eight or nine. And his sister, who was eighteen, was supposed to take him to school. I don’t know what happened; she was talking to her friend or whatever, and he ended up getting lost, and he came up to me. I reported it and I just hung out with the guy, shot the shit for a while. We were doing math problems. He said he was good at math, so I was trying to teach him math. And then, you know, eventually the sister got off the train and notified the station agent, and they matched the two up, put him in a squad car and he was on his merry way.

The stroller thing is what I don’t understand. A baby carriage is a big thing to lose. Or passengers lose their parent who has Alzheimer’s. This kind of stuff happens all the time. But how can you forget your three or four year old kid? I don’t understand it. A kid that’s so small, that you have to hold hands all the time—or carry them.

How often do people lose their children or parents?

Daily. Multiple times.

Who was left behind today?

A guy in his 80s with Alzheimer’s, a four-year-old kid, a six-year-old kid. Another guy who reported his kid missing, and then it turned out that the kid was just with his mother. That I didn’t understand either. There’s some bizarre stuff that happens.

What is your favorite train to ride?

Ummm, I’m pretty partial to the one train. And I like the seven because it’s mostly outside and there’re nice things to look at. You get to see the Five Points building.

What do you do to pass the time when you are a commuter?

When I’m a commuter sometimes I read, sometimes I take a nap. That’s basically it.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?

What I like about my job is that when I get on a train, it’s just me. And if I do a good job I know it’s my fault. If I do a bad job I know it’s my fault. I’m the one who made the decision. And sometimes I get to save the day.

The Man on the Tracks: Part I

The trains come, the trains go. You go to work, to yoga class, to a baseball game, but Frank stays right where he is. Frank is a Road Car Inspector, and the subway station and platform are his office–not that he’s there much. When a train has a problem, and they often do, Frank will be somewhere in the tunnels and bridges  of the subway system’s 842 miles of track.

Frank uses a radio to communicate with train operators and conductors, and news of a malfunctioning train will dispatch him into the tracks. Frank also relies on his own observations or the train’s whistle–the train operator will whistle three times if something is wrong–to determine if there is a technical problem on the train or track that needs to be fixed. Though his official title states that he is an inspector, Frank considers himself a mechanic.

Neither label approximates the importance of his work and his decisions affect rush hour for eight million people. Frank’s job is to inspect trains and identify mechanical problems. There are many seemingly minor problems that can occur; a malfunctioning door, a cracked window car that lacks heat, or conversely, air conditioning; or maybe the train operator’s seat is broken. Many simple problems pose serious consequences, like stuck brakes, smoke condition, a fire on the tracks. Often, after assessing the train and locating the problem, Frank has to decide whether or not to take it out of service and there’s a lot to consider aside from the mechanics. “It’s not so much about the one train, it’s about what you’re going to do to the system. I’m in charge of the mechanical aspects of the train, but what I do impacts the service of the whole system,” he says.

While at work, Frank doesn’t get to see the light of day much, but being a cog in the machine that takes a whole city from point A to point B means Frank gets to see many different slices of life. What are your once in a while subway stories (like the guy who shat himself on the train!) are a day at the office for Frank.

Though there is nothing to contrast with the darkness of the underground, Frank’s job is replete with juxtapositions. The industrious rush hour river of humanity that flows past him is impeded by a homeless person, still as a stone, surrounded by their accompanying carts and bags. Some days are filled with both death blood and amniotic fluid.

There are good people, bad people, rich and poor, old and young. And they all ride the subway—which is why I wanted to talk to Frank, the caretaker of the giant metal beast and steward of its dark domain. It is a creature we curse, laud, fear and glorify. With good reason too. A subwayless New York would be like a body with no blood flow.

I speak to Frank about way too many things, but it all seems relevant. The rats, the Mole people, the subway suicides, denizens of the deep (real and Hollywood fabricated), how to avoid getting hit by the train, suspicious packages; it’s all part of the subway’s mythology. Frank patiently answers everything, and divulges he enjoys doing so—no one has ever interviewed him before.

So, what happened at work today?

Not much. There was a stuck train, which I didn’t get to on time, there was a 12-9, and they didn’t want me to go to it. That was it. I read.

What is a 12-9?

When someone is under the train. I don’t really know what happened. There was a woman who was got hit by the train and ended up under the platform. They say she was wrapped around the motor. They couldn’t get her out but they have to retrieve all the parts before they can move the train. My job with a 12-9 is to make sure the train is okay—to make sure the windshield wiper works, to make sure the headlights work, to make sure the train operator has a clear view, to make sure the horn works … and then I help find the parts that are missing.

So you walk around the tracks looking for, say, a disembodied leg?

Sometimes you look for a leg. Sometimes you look for pieces. You also look for damage on the train—see if any parts got knocked off. It’s important, because if you move the train and it could cause a problem because maybe something’s hanging off. You don’t want to run the train with something hanging off of it. It would cause further damage.

What are some things commuters should avoid doing to prevent getting hit by the train? 

Don’t stick your head out to look and see if the train is coming. That’s a big thing. Don’t stand by the edge of the platform. Don’t walk by the edge of the platform just because the platform is crowded. It’s common sense stuff that people don’t think about. A lot of times people will look the opposite direction the train is supposed to come and the train hits them from behind … Honestly, now they have countdown clocks, so there’s no need to look at the track if the train is coming.

Have the countdown clocks reduced casualties?

No. In fact they’ve gone up due to the bad economy.

How often do people get hit by the train?

Once or twice a week usually, if not more.

Wow, seriously? Which stations have the most suicides?

I don’t really know … the ones outside?

I had a job in the Bronx and used to take the 4 train …

Yeah, there’s a lot on the 4 train. It also seems like they have a lot in Brooklyn, on the Q, B, D—wherever they’re outside. I don’t know why.

 Is it true that there’s more suicides during the holidays?

Yes, it’s true, and you can actually tell who’s more serious by where they jump. If they’re at the end of the platform where the train is coming in and it’s really fast, then they’re more serious.

So most casualties are suicides?

Well it’s either a suicide, or a drunk person, or someone lost their cell phone or their glasses and they jumped into the tracks—those are the three reasons mostly. I mean, usually people don’t get pushed. If they get hit they might not necessarily get run over. They can get hit on the side. Every once in a while they have someone who gets trapped between the car and the platform—they get pinned in between. They call that a ‘space case’. It’s really awful.

How often does it happen?

It’s really rare. It’s really kind of gross to go to those things. I had to go to one once … that stuck with me. It was really bad. At the time you do what you gotta do, but you know at night, when you lay down and think about it, it kind of creeps you out. It sticks with you.

What happens if someone is stuck in the doors because they tried to catch the train at the last second, and the train takes off with the person stuck in the doors?

If the doors fail to close all the way the train can’t take power. People have been hurt and killed when straps, scarves, or something got stuck. It’s still a really stupid idea to put a limb in a closing door. It’s pretty selfish to delay the other people because you don’t make it on time. Transit works on a very tight schedule. Small delays can cause big ones.

Okay, let’s talk more about your daily routine. How often do you go in the tunnels?

It all depends. There’s some weeks when I don’t go, but then I’ll have to go a couple times in one day. We go by ourselves, so it’s just you and your flashlight and your safety vest. Trains come and you have to clear up. Sometimes they don’t slow down and they’re whipping the cars right by you. The train looks really big from below the platform.

Are you afraid of the dark?

Um. I’m not afraid of the dark, but I don’t like going down in the tunnels.

I bet it’s gross. What about subway riders? Do they up the ick factor?

People do all kinds of nasty things. There’s a lot of vomit, especially on a holiday, on St. Patricks day, if you work a midnight shift, or on New Years Eve, it’s all vomit, and you’re busy.

Anything out of the ordinary?

I got a call once for an unusual odor and it turned out to be Chinese food. That was kind of funny. You get some weird stuff. There was a lady who was covered in vomit and she had a needle in her hand. She kept coming up to people and wanted to touch them. So I had to persuade her to get off. I told her she was on the wrong train.

When they announce on the subway that “the train is having technical difficulties” is that just a euphemism or code for something?

No. Whatever they announce is almost always accurate. If it’s mechanical problems, that’s me. If it’s a sick passenger, it’s a sick passenger.

You mean, someone who got hit by the train?

No really, a sick passenger.

So how sick is too sick?

Well, usually what happens is that another customer will say something if they see someone puking or fainting. A lot of the times it’s … um … you know, skinny women on their way to work. They didn’t eat dinner, they didn’t eat breakfast and they faint. You get a lot of sick passengers on the Upper East Side. The vast majority of sick passengers are women. I usually respond to those. I take the sick person off the train and set them down on the platform so the train can keep moving.

Has anyone given birth on the train?

People have stories. I had one close one, but she didn’t end up giving birth. I kind of wanted her to. Which is kind of bad—she was a lot better off at the hospital. They (the EMTS) came and determined that she was going to make it to a hospital on time. But she was having contractions. There was actually a nurse on the train, which was really lucky. She was a wonderful person. She stayed with her and made her comfortable. They had her all decked out, they cleared off some seats, they had her all ready to go. We evacuated the car. Basically what I did was made sure no one got near the car. It was kind of fun actually.

Stay tuned for Part Two of Frank’s interview, coming next week!

Frank plays it safe and stands behind the yellow line.