I heard it yesterday and then again today. It could be I’ve missed it before while in a straphanger fog. But two days in a row means it’s probably real and not an illusion.

Yesterday I was on the F train coming home at about 6:36pm. The train was sparsely populated with lots of empty seats. I looked up from my book when the announcement came on because we were stopped between stations at the time and I thought the announcement would be about a delay on the line. I pay attention to delays.”Ladies and gentlemen,” the conductor’s voice began. “A crowded subway is no excuse for a crime of sexual misconduct.” There was more, but I lost some wondering why he was talking about a crowded subway when the car wasn’t even a quarter full. I looked around to see if I was missing some large grouping of people all pushed together somewhere out of my line-of-sight. The conductor might also have said, “sexual harassment crime” instead of “sexual misconduct,” but that could just be me, hearing things, because I’m taking my agency’s, mandatory all-staff-must-attend, yearly workshop on sexual harassment in the workplace on Friday.  I looked for a pen to write down what I’d heard, but by the time I found one the lines were already fading from my memory. There was something about, “… report the crime to your nearest MTA official.” It could have been farthest MTA official, or nearest police, or farthest transit officer, but I missed it so I don’t know.

Today at 5:38pm, on a half full V train sitting at 23rd street, an announcement came on the loudspeaker that sounded like it was a canned PSA. “There is no excuse for sexual misconduct on the subway. If you believe you have been the victim of a crime please contact… ” I missed the rest while I wrote the first part down. I have to learn how to write faster. This time there was nothing to do with a crowded subway and it was followed by an announcement on the train intercom, right above my head about delays in front of us and all trains going express on the F line.

A cityroom blog at the NY Times from October 2, 2009 has the full quote. It seems the campaign was originally a subway advertisement PSA. It said, “Sexual Harassment is a Crime in the subway, too — A crowded train is no excuse for an improper touch. Don’t stand for it or feel ashamed, or be afraid to speak up. Report it to an M.T.A. employee or police officer.” There’s some cause and effect. A June 2006 incident following a July 2007 poll of 1,800 straphangers stating that a large proportion of women had been harassed or assaulted, culminating in the written PSA in September 2009, a slew of handouts (neither of which I’ve ever seen) and either a verbal PSA or a conductor taking the initiative and doing a live version in March of 2010. A four year odyssey to try and address a problem that’s been around since the beginning of time. The problem, as usual with these kinds of campaigns, is it puts the onus on women to do something about it. Don’t feel ashamed or be afraid to speak up, the PSA says, as if the problem is that women aren’t speaking up rather than men behaving badly. Why not a message to all the people who see it happen and don’t say a word, saying, Speak up - don’t allow sexual harassment on the subway. Or, Don’t let men get away with this abuse. Or better yet, why not address the perpetrators with, Sexual misconduct on this train is a crime and won’t be tolerated. Don’t do it or you’ll end up in jail.

Maybe that will be next years campaign.

It’s been a while since I’ve really looked at the other passengers on the subway. Maybe that’s what winter does to you - it numbs you. Or maybe I’ve just been tired of people and there are too many around you on the train. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.

Well, my vision lifted this morning, probably because it’s supposed to reach 58 today and my bones are aching for some sun.

I took the E-train, a new blue car. It seems like all the cars are now blue-benched. The changeover happened while I was hibernating. All my favorite orange benches are gone.

I almost didn’t get on the train. It was packed. I tried two different doors before I stopped just outside the last one and, looking in at a space that could fit maybe two more people, debated on whether to go in or wait for the next train. I stepped forward as the doors closed, pushing me further in than I wanted to go because my backpack was still on and I hadn’t had a chance to take it off. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.) A young woman to my left had her back to me. She was reading a book and taking up an additional foot of space with the hardcover. There aught to be a law against that. I reached over someones head and grabbed the center pole. My book was in my hand but I couldn’t get to it. There just wasn’t any room. I made eye contact with three people and looked away after each one, smiling half-heartedly. A large woman in a bright red wool coat came in behind me and we all accommodated her space as she took central pole position right underneath my arm.

I looked across the car towards the other door and saw a young woman in business attire with wispy hair ruffled as if it had been pushed about by the wind. She was reading the Dailey News and making little sounds as she read, pinching her cheeks in then puffing them out, then biting her teeth together - a veritable orchestra of tiny sounds and small dramatic movements. I couldn’t tell what she was reading so I shifted a bit around the large woman in the red coat in order to get a better look. It was either movie reviews or the obits.  Without large headlines to see or my glasses, I couldn’t tell. My glasses were in my bag and my bag was inaccessible. I watched her face as the orchestra of twitches, grimaces and frowns continued.

Stops came and went. The orchestra played on. Finally in an especially crowded moment I lost sight of her. The woman in the red coat looked up at me - I was a little too close to her so I moved back. My backpack poked into someone behind me. “Sorry,” I said over my shoulder. I looked back but tall heads and reaching arms obscured my view.

At the next stop, 42nd street, most of the car left in a giant exodus of folding papers, closing books, and iPhone and cell button pushing fingers. I saw the back of the woman’s head and her wispy brown hair, then a flash of the paper under her arm, and… she was gone.

I looked around me and found myself free of most of humanity -the car practically empty. The woman in the red coat was gone. I had the pole to myself. I opened my book on Iyengar Yoga and read. Although there were now seats empty, I stood the next two stops and got off on 23rd. It was still cold outside and windy. I’d worn a spring jacket, like an idiot. Maybe it’ll be 58 later in the day, but right then it was still pretty damned cold.

Dog and a Pack

It’s the F train but I’m only traveling from 23rd Street to 42nd for lunchtime yoga. The train’s not too crowded but I’m standing anyway. When I’m not teaching I sit a lot at my job so when I’m on short trips on the subway, sometimes I just like to stand. A woman gets on behind me with a large German Shepherd on a leash. 

I didn’t know non-working dogs could travel the subway. I see them sometimes but rarely.

Checking the MTA website, here’s what Article 1050.9 h 1. & 2 says:

1. Except as otherwise provided in paragraph (2) of this subdivision, no person may bring any animal on or into any conveyance or facility unless enclosed in a container and carried in a manner which would not annoy other passengers.

2. Paragraph (1) of this subdivision does not apply to working dogs for law enforcement agencies, to service animals, or to animals which are being trained as service animals and are accompanying persons with disabilities, or to animals which are being trained as service animals by a professional trainer. All service animals and animals being trained as service animals must be harnessed or leashed.

Okay. She should have been busted – that’s settled — but on with the tale.

The woman is wearing black cargo shorts, a brown baseball cap, a green tank top and has on a large, stuffed, army backpack. I can’t tell what’s in it but it’s big, it’s packed and it’s ready to burst. Her light skin is burned red at the shoulders and throat. She has red freckles on her cheeks.

She walks over to the two-seater and stares down at the seat, contemplating its availability. A man sitting on the other seat smiles up at her. I can’t tell if they make eye contact or not because my line of sight doesn’t give me an angle on her face. The guy does the ‘subway shuffle’, moving himself a little further into the corner of the seat, as if he’s taking up too much space – which he isn’t.

He’s a tall, thin, black-haired, iPod holding, white t-shirted, jeans-and-black-converse-sneakers twenty-something. His smile disappears and his eyes go wide as she seems to ignore him, turns around — presenting her back and backpack to him — and sits down.

Her backpack pushes way past the imaginary line that separates one kingdom from the other, invading his space and then conquering it. He is caught by surprise and can’t get out of the way quick enough. The backpack makes him turn sideways and pushes into his chest pressing him into the wall.

The woman leans forward to pat her dog on the head and the guy gets a breather but then she sits back and presses him into the wall again.

I smile. I can’t help myself.

The next time she leans forward, the guy squeezes out from behind her and switches to the empty seat across from him, shaking his head and adjusting his ear buds. The woman’s dog sprawls down between the ends of the four two-seaters taking up the whole passageway, panting. Nobody can get past the critter, even if they wanted.

I get off at the next stop. The dog lifts its head and his gaze follows me out of the car.

–Joe Lunievicz

THE POWER OF NOW

At 9:10 a.m. I enter the F-train from my usual spot: the no-man’s land between the two stairs going up to the main level of Roosevelt Station in Jackson Heights.

Inside, a roomful of open seats becomes the setting for a game of musical chairs—and the music has just stopped.

When everyone’s finished jockeying for a seat, I find one in the corner at the bottom of the “L.” My bags between my legs, my pad out and my pen jotting. Two seats are still free in my third of the car. Nothing unusual, except three commuters happen to remain standing.

I know why nobody has taken one of the seats. It’s next to a man who is asleep and seated in the pair of seats at the front of the car, next to the door. He also has placed a shopping bag and two suitcases on the seat next to him against the wall. Wearing a black baseball cap, he’s maybe in his forties and using his fist to keep from nodding forward. His belongings aren’t moving, and nobody’s asking him to move them.

The other seat is across from me, the center seat of three. A middle-aged woman is to one side, reading Oprah-champion Eckhart Tollet, and an older guy is to the other with a book of his own on his lap. The female bookend seems approachable, sit-down-next-to-able. In black slacks and a white shirt—a hard glasses case bulging through the pocket—the male bookend reads a small-print volume with glasses that he squints through and he underlines passages with a blue pen. He’s also holding a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup, regular size. I bet there’s three sugars in it. When he takes a break from reading, he turns the cup around, examining the circumference.

The train passes two stops. Nobody takes the empty seat. I don’t get it. There’s nothing on the seat. And the people on either side are not so big that there’s only a smidgen of seat available.

Finally, a man enters in navy slacks, wingtip shoes, white shirt and red tie. This passenger looks Indian, probably in his fifties, and carries a big, black briefcase. He looks at the two people flanking the seat. They look up at him. Eckhart Tollet gets placed on the woman’s lap.

“Excuse me,” says the man in the red tie says, as he turns around and sits. The man with glasses has just enough time to shift out of his way before Red Tie’s butt grazes him. The woman reading Tollet pivots to move over—but her hips are already against the partition. She has nowhere to go.

Red Tie chooses the elbows-forward position, ceding the back of the seat to his neighbors, who, with a joint sigh, rest their elbows back and down. Red Tie hunches forward some. The train pulls out of the station; we all readjust our positions. Eckhart Tollet rises from the woman’s lap. She shifts a little left and right, acquiring a bit of space with the movement. The blue pen resumes underlining.

The excitement over, I close my notebook, lean back and shut my eyes. I’ll rest them for a moment—before 23rd Street arrives, and I depart.

—Joe Lunievicz

I got onto the F train at 23rd Street at 5:15pm–peak travel time on a Friday. The train was crowded, people standing in the aisles. I noticed a little oasis of space in one of the L-shaped orange benches. There were two spots open next to a sleeping young man whose mouth was slightly open and whose head was tilted back against the subway map.

I made eye contact with a man standing in front of the two seats. He looked down at the seats then back at me and stepped away as if making room for me to sit. Across the car another man looked at me, then down at his paper.

Others remained in avid conversation, their gaze away from the empty orange seats. I checked the seats with a quick scan: There was nothing wrong that I could see–no water damage, no cracks, no bad stains, no newspapers hiding gum or spilled coffee.  

I looked at the ceiling to see if there was a leak–nothing. I sniffed the air to see if there was something foul emanating from nearby passengers. Olfactory check, A-OK.  

The two men sitting at the top of the L were making small-talk about what the next stop was. 

“Is it Lexington?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Because I thought it was Lexington.”

“It’s not Lexington.” 

I looked at the seats for another moment then leaned back against the doors. Why was no one in a crowded car in New York that’s-my-seat-I-saw-it-first City, not sitting down on those seats? There had to be something wrong with them, right?

Well, I tell you what. If nobody else was going to sit there, I wasn’t going to either.

We passed all the way into Queens and the seats remained empty. The young man remained asleep.

And when I got off at Jackson Heights, I left behind me another subway mystery unsolved.