A pair of train accoutrements I never noticed before…
I was on Metro-North heading home the other day, the Harlem Line’s 5:46. One of the poster-sized ad spaces on the train was filled not with a poster–that’s so ’80s–but a fully digital screen with a revolving door of ads and images. I saw ads for Major League Baseball and New York Magazine, along with a few house promos for the railroad.
It was kind of cool to look at, but I’ll say this much–I wouldn’t want to be the fool sitting across from the board for the length of my train ride. It would be a bit like trying to sleep in that cheap motel room, cigarette burns on the sheets, with the blinking ‘MOTEL’ light right outside your window. (I don’t know if such motels actually exist anymore, but they sure pop up a lot in movies.)
Then, last night to New Shea/Debits Field, I noticed a lit-up diamond shape around the ’7′ on the outside of the 7 train, signifying an express train. The train heading home had a lit up circle in the same region signifying local train.
This has probably been around for some time, but I hadn’t been on the 7 in a while and never noticed it before.
For what it’s worth, with Derek Cheater electrying Yankee fans uptown (OK, the nickname doesn’t work, the guy is the polar opposite of a cheater), I’ve never seen such a somber mood–or such a small crowd, and I’ve seen some modest gatherings over the years–at a Mets game before. Those sissies schlepping to Queens for the tennis nonsense greatly outnumbered the baseball fans.
I did enjoy the station attendant at the Mets/Willets Point stop, instructing the tennis fans/Mets fans filing off the train thusly:
“Yellow balls, to the left! White balls, to the right!”