04subway_600.jpg

This was a fascinating idea, even if the actual execution didn’t prove to be quite as compelling. The NY Times marked Independence Day by interviewing, or at least trying to interview, every rider on a rush hour Q train heading into Manhattan from Brooklyn.

Is it [sic] nearly impossible to take a single authoritative snapshot of New York City’s population, to freeze it in place, to discover and list all the different people who live here. Or were born here. Or who came here in search of success, or family, or to escape misery. Each block is different, from Park Avenue to Parkside Avenue, from the East Village to Eastchester — each is its own little city, with its own evolving ethnic mixture, its own traditions.

But if there is no perfect way to take that snapshot, then there are certainly worse ways than to catalogue the people in that car of the 8:27 a.m. Q train in the middle of the Manhattan Bridge, to learn who they are, and how they happened to be there…

The crew of Times reporters got 99 people to talk, while the other 29 were sleeping, were lost in an iPod haze–or simply held an innate mistrust of the media.