Manhattan’s “largest circulation daily”…also known as…wait for it…AM NY, tackles the issue of the MTA locking subway station bathrooms overnight in its “P’d Off” cover story today.

Matthew Sweeney reports that NYC Transit has locked up 78 public subway restrooms between midnight and 5 a.m. to make way for cleaners, much to the consternation of club goers and graveyard shifters alike.

“Where do I go now? Wet my pants?” asked one “distressed” Long Island ironworker named Herby Campbell. (For the record, Herby, “wet my pants” is not a place to go. Perhaps “What do I do now?” might’ve been the better comment. But we realize you had more pressing matters on the brain/bladder.)

Of course, the knee-jerk reaction to this news is, who the hell would use a restroom in a subway station after midnight? In fact a lot of people would, especially that one can now feel relatively safe being drunk on a subway at 3 in the morning.

My second reaction is, which subway stations actually had restrooms open to the public? I can picture one (particularly filthy) one at 34th Street/Herald Square, but cannot think of a single other station that’s ever invited me to pee (though I reckon most of them are in the outer-boroughs to accommodate riders after long journeys).

It was like reverse karma.

I was hustling down the stairs at Grand Central to catch the 6 train this morning. A woman of undetermined nationality, subway map in hand, asked a woman in front of me for help. Fearing the subway was about to leave, the commuter brushed past the tourist without so much as a word. The tourist through her hands skyward in frustration upon this reaffirmation of the Ugly American stereotype.

I was right behind, so I offered up my help. The woman smiled and I hit Pause on my iPod (the Libertines’ debut album, if you’re scoring at home, before Pete Doherty became tabloid fodder). I helped her find the 4-5 to Bowling Green (”uh, it’s right there”) and we were on our way.

I hit the 6 platform and slid my finger into my pocket to un-Pause the iPod.

Nothing.

I tried it again.

Nothing.

Mind you, my iPod is my first line of defense in my daily commuter wars. It’s more important than good reading material like the Times, Nick Hornby’s latest, even AMNY. It’s more important than the Bose headphones. It’s the fountain from which all Metro-North relaxation flows (or at least trickles).

And now, my little lifeline-in-20 Megs was racing through tracks like an iPod shuffle after 841 Red Bulls: “The Man Who Would Be King,” “Music When the Lights Go Out,” “Narcissist.” Ripping through entire albums in, oh, six seconds, with nary a note reaching my ‘phones.

The 6 pulled up. I shut the thing off and turned it on, tried shuffle mode. “D is For Dangerous” by the Arctic Monkeys, a live “Love Over Gold” by Dire Straits, “Town With No Cheer” by Tom Waits.  

No cheer, indeed–it took all of 10 seconds to tear through 30 tracks. And still, not a peep of sound.

Good Lord.

Will tomorrow’s commute see me plug my cassette Walkman (a big, honkin’ Toshiba circa 1992) into my Bose cans? What ever would that sound like?

Who’s had this problem and can offer some sort of light in the proverbial tunnel? 

Amidst my unnecessarily mean rip on AMNY this morning, the pesky freebie actually had a solid cover story on the sorry state of subway platforms around the city, particularly in the outer boroughs.

“At each of the nine random stations amNewYork examined in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx,” writes Marlene Naanes, “wooden edges — or rubbing boards — were found to be at various stages of disrepair. Five underground stations on the No. 6 line in the Bronx, for example, have loose and rotted boards, some with portions missing or hanging by a nail.”

The story also tells the frightening tale of young Avi Katz, who plunged to the rails after the Kings Highway platform in Brooklyn gave way under his Keds.

My newspaper deliverer, Dolores L.

Where were my Times and my Journal today, Dolores L.? Was that 1 1/2 inch of snow–really, an inch of slush by this morning–really so foreboding that you were unable to deliver my papers in a timely fashion today?

You may see it as a victimless crime, Dolores L., one annoying suburban guy who doesn’t get a few stupid papers one day. But do you realize, Dolores L., that all I had to read this morning was the freakin’ AMNY for my 48-minute ride? Have you ever tried to read the AMNY for 48 minutes, Dolores L.? Has anybody? 

I read the 200 word “story” on Obama cleaning up the DelMarVa primary. I read the 100 word expose on Amy Winehouse’s mom. I read about some Brooklyn disco-hipster’s Valentine’s plans (shrimp pad thai with his sweetie at Lovely Day in SoHo) and I even read the stupid letters to the editor (Republicans bad! Cockfighting good!)

Geez, Dolores L., thanks to you sleeping in today, I even thumbed through all those AMNY ads: Hemorrhoids! End Foot Pain Now! Tinnutus! It’s a wonder AMNY readers can even get to work amidst such a litany of maladies.

Dolores L., I received a nice Christmas card from you back in December, with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too. You enclosed your return address, some PO Box in upper Westchester, and we both know full well what you meant: Throw your trusty paper lady some cash for the holidays.

Dolores L., I fully planned to. I have your return address on my desk. (I know, I know, I’m seven weeks late.) But now, Dolores L., I’m not so sure. Sorry to sound like an old timer here, but when I was a kid, paper boys schlepped through all sorts of weather, sometimes barefoot, to make sure people got their papers on time. The world could’ve blown up last night, Dolores L., and all I would’ve known from my media consumption this morning was that Yoga Moves Can Charge Up My Sex Life.

Thanks for that.

Sincerely,

Trainjotting

We’d like to introduce you, dear reader, to a fresh new voice in metropolitan-area commuter bloggery. Once dubbed “one of the most hilarious writers about sports ever” by a mid-level media critic (we’re totally serious), Jimmy Sneakers puts pen to paper for fleeting escapes from a humdrum workaday life selling Webcasts.

The Pee-ples’ Limousine

I have a peculiar compulsion, one that would seem to be in unfettered opposition to the notion of fast-paced urban living. Given the choice between the bus and the subway, I will often choose the bus.

Surface transit is somewhat more civilized and, despite its tortoise’s pace, it has its own benefits. It commonly will get you closer to your final destination. The seats are roomier and several even allow a fair amount of personal space. In case of emergency, it can be rerouted. It is closer to fulfilling Thomas Moore’s prophetically Utopian ideals of commuting, but of course, nothing is perfect.

Here we come to a recent trip on the M1.

The M1 is one of Manhattan’s more interesting bus lines. It begins well up in Harlem, passing the entire length, and part of the width, of Central Park, crawling past some of the most expensive commercial and residential real estate in the world. At 40th St., it becomes the only NYCTA bus to travel down Park Ave., sliding over to Broadway at Union Square, and ending up at Battery Park. It shuttles the rich, the poor and the stupid (yours truly in that last category).

After dropping my son off at his elementary school where he learns readin’, writin’, and proper Catholic doctrine as established during the third Plenary Council of Baltimore, I headed for the bus. The Limited, with its joyous stop-skipping and thick-legged ballet steps down the lower Broadway bus lane, arrived, typically un-crowded, and far more elegant then the nearby 6 train.

I chose a seat in the back, near two women: one a professional type and the other looking like she’d experienced some solidly joyless times. The latter had a small shopping bag, somewhat soiled and re-enforced with packing tape, filled with assorted papers, as soiled as the bag. In her hand, she held a Bible, heavily dog-eared, the kind that would be swung around by a seersucker-clad revivalist in a hot tent. The only other truly marked characteristic was a solid odor of urine that didn’t seem to be coming from the business type to the left of me. When she leaned forward to flip through the bag of important soiled papers, it appeared as though the Faithful had made good use of three copies of AM New York, saving the seat from a good soaking and wicking away some excess liquid from her dark raincoat.

Granted, this was not the most pleasant way to start the day, but it also gave me some sociological confidence in this town. 

This moistened fundament, juxtaposed with the career gal type’s obvious disgust, reminded me that the egalitarian nature of public transportation is alive and well above ground too. There are no billionaire mayors or spoiled food-carting gentlemen representing highly dubious homeless organizations. But there are still these moments of pure social equality, where the class system seems to be a moot point.

I spoke too soon when I mentioned that the stack of traffic-inducing Metro papers was moved away from the top of the stairs descending to the subways at Grand Central.

Not only were the green Metro papers back today–with another cover story on the untimely passing of Heath Ledger, no less–but its fellow freebie AMNY was there as well.

Good grief.