Archive for September, 2007
Monday, September 24th, 2007
Straphanger Joe Lurks in the Stairwell
Cell Phone Alley
Why haven’t I noticed them before?
I’ve walked down the steps to the 23rd Street station on Sixth Avenue at least one thousand times in the last five years, yet I never noticed them.
Now they’re there every day when I descend into the underground, right by the landing where the east and west […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Straphanger Joe by TJ
Thursday, September 20th, 2007
An Open Letter To:
The Guy in the “Popped” Collar and Suit in Grand Central This Morning.
No.
I can’t be more blunt.
No.
Last summer, I think it was, guys started wearing the Izod shirts with the collar up (a “popped” collar, I believe, in today’s young-people parlance). Initially, a few figured they were being ironic. The rest thought they were being […]
3 Comments » - Posted in Open Letter, Popped Collars by TJ
Thursday, September 20th, 2007
Subway System Cells Out
Subway stations will be wired for cellphone use in the coming years, but the actual trains will not. The Metropolitan Transit Authority sold the job to Transit Wireless for almost $47 million, and the wiring will begin at six stations in two years. Over the course of the next decade, all 277 stations in the […]
1 Comment » - Posted in MTA, Peter Kalikow, cell phone by TJ
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
I Thought My Commute Sucked Vol. IX
From today’s WSJ, a review of the new memoir How Starbucks Saved My Life. Author Michael Gates Gill, son of longtime New Yorker staff writer/bon vivant Brendan Gill, has written about how his upper-crust upbringing and rapid ascent in the New York advertising world came crashing to a halt, and he ended up working at […]
No Comments » - Posted in Brendan Gill, Michael Gates Gill, Starbucks Saved My Life by TJ
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
An Open Letter To:
The Woman With the Unreal Center of Gravity on the 6 Train.
You’re a short-ish black woman with strawberry-brown hair, stout of build and exceedingly stout of heart. There was a tattoo on your bicep and you wore fake rhinestone sunglasses atop your head. You smiled when someone bumped into you and you were kind of cute.
The […]
1 Comment » - Posted in 6 train, Open Letter by TJ
Monday, September 17th, 2007
What the Kids Are Googling
A small sampling of the Google searches people employed to arrive at Trainjotting last week. What we learn: Rats are scary, John Rocker is still in demand, and Samuel Adams never lived in Cincinnati.
my rage rat
aids subway beirut “John Rocker”
ecstasy under the queen’s feet
hungry cincinnati
how much do LIRR conductors make
“high voltage” switch pantograph
why do people […]
No Comments » - Posted in Google, John Rocker by TJ
Monday, September 17th, 2007
Several Thumbs-Down for ‘Carpoolers’
The new issue of trade mag Broadcasting & Cable weighs in on the new fall shows, and the report isn’t good for Carpoolers, the ABC rook that was going to show the world how much fun it really is to drive to work with a bunch of other guys from the nabe.
The mag asked the […]
No Comments » - Posted in Bruce McCulloch, Carpoolers by TJ
Friday, September 14th, 2007
Freshly Baked ‘rolls
There’s nothing sadder than a blog that ran out of steam. It starts with a fury, the blogger drunk on the power of new media, posting once, perhaps twice a day. Comments abound, as the newly-minted media mini-mogul keeps friends and loved ones up to date on all new posts.
Months pass. The blog is lucky […]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by TJ
Thursday, September 13th, 2007
Possible Titles: A Long Day’s Journey Into…Grand Central?
We usually leave the book-biz scoops, such as James Frey getting a million little dollars for a new novel, to the NY Times and our friends at Publishers Weekly. But little ol’ Trainjotting has something interesting from the tweedy book world: Nick Paumgarten, author of the greatest commuting story ever told in the New Yorker, is pondering […]
No Comments » - Posted in James Frey, Nick Paumgarten by TJ
Wednesday, September 12th, 2007
The Art You Create Each Day
Yes, folks, there is art in the way you show up at the train, take your seat, sip your coffee, see how Hendrick Hudson High football did on the weekend, and shuffle off into the big, bad city.
Commuting is the theme of an upcoming photo exhibit on “the commuter experience.” “Transported” takes place at the […]