If traffic at the Bronxville train station seemed a bit light this morning, it may be because some residents in Westchester’s choiciest zip code are walking to the station in honor of Earth Day.

A memo circulated to residents spells out the benefits of walking to the train and to school:

SAFETY training: Walking regularly with a child from a young age enables them to develop life skills; preparing children with road safety and personal awareness skills.
CONGESTION reduction: Fewer cars on our roads is good for the environment and local communities; fewer cars at the school gate can make it safer for students making their way to and from school.
HEALTH benefits: Walking to and from school allows adults and children to incorporate physical activity into their daily routines.
ON the ball students who walk to school arrive wide-awake, and are therefore more prepared for the school day ahead.
FUN and friendship: Friends and family can walk to and from school together and enjoy some quality time.
LEARNING for life: Walking regularly enables a child to become more familiar with their surroundings and provides them with the opportunity to learn about the weather and changing seasons first hand.
EDUCATIONAL: Kids learn about environmental awareness, and our responsibility to keep earth clean.

The memo felt like one of those corny elementary school things where the first letter of each bullet point spells something catchy; I believe such linguistic creatures are referred to as anacronyms. So I put them all–SAFETY, CONGESTION, HEALTH–together, and it spelled S-C-H-O-F-L-E.

Indeed, Bronxvillians, enjoy your schofle home from the station today.

New York’s low-key senior senator, Chuck Schumer, is urging the MTA to speed up its plans to make both Metro-North and the L.I.R.R. Wifi-enabled, which would mean wireless Internet for all those suitably equipped for it.

Schumer, who would go to the opening of an envelope, held his press conference at Bronxville train station…no word if he ducked into J.C. Fogarty’s for a pint afterwards.

Where my Wifi at?

Schumer wants to know why the transit system’s broadband study is taking so long.

The Journal News reports:

“Why is Metro-North lagging behind? We don’t know,” Schumer said at the Bronxville station. If the MTA passes a plan quickly enough, Schumer said, it may be able to obtain federal stimulus funds for the work under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Rail systems in places like Boston and San Francisco already use or are setting up wireless Internet services. Amtrak is testing a system on its Acela Express trains that run between Washington, D.C., and Boston, passing through New York City.

“They’re almost inevitably an overwhelming success,” Schumer said.

The MTA responded that it just recently placed ads soliciting bids from Wifi providers, which are due in in September. Schumer concedes the rollout will take a few years, but says he’d like to see a pilot program in place in a few months.

Grand Central debuted wireless internet at the Station Master’s office waiting room in May 2008.

Paul Vitale, vice president of government and community relations for the business council, said the MTA should be out in front, providing wireless Internet before others.

“We should be a trendsetter,” he said, “not a follower.”

[image: takeahoodback.com]

How Starbucks Saved My Life, Michael Gates Gill’s memoir about how he goes from being an Ivy League son of privilege, working a cushy job as an advertising exec, to being a lonely old man who commutes 90 minutes each way from Bronxville to the Upper West Side to pour coffee at Starbucks, isn’t a bad premise.

And Gill’s pedigree–his father is famed New Yorker scribe Brendan Gill–certainly stoked my anticipation as well. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one–Tom Hanks has signed on to play the author in the film version.

Too bad the book sucked.

How Starbucks Saved essentially serves as a 260-page Starbucks recruitment pamphlet, where “Partners” (the dude/dudette who pours you your coffee) treat each other with utmost respect, the company bends over backwards to help each Partner reach his highest level of happiness (to be fair, its employee health insurance plan is exceptional), and its coffee was set on this earth to heal the world’s wounds.

Gill stumbles through the entire book in constant amazement that an older white man–one from tony Bronxville, no less–can actually talk and joke with people of color–people from actual ghettos where folks are poor and some even get shot!

Mind you, the affection between Gill and his boss Crystal, a young black woman, is genuinely endearing, and Gill’s access to literary lions through his pops–”Gatesy”, as Michael is called, meets the likes of Robert Frost, E.B. White and Brendan Behan, and has chance interactions with Sinatra and Queen Elizabeth–offers an intriguing glimpse at some very compelling people.  

But he’s just such a ninny. The whole point of the book is Gill breaking from his priviledged past to make it on his own–at 64, no less. But all the while, the reader can’t help but think, Man, there’s no way you get a book deal if your father isn’t Brendan Gill.

I’d recommend How Starbucks Saved My Life–the title refers not just to his barista job helping Gill pull his head out of his ass, but to a coworker saving him from a knifing in his Upper West Side ‘bucks–to a grandmother with a taste for Mitch Albom. For everyone else, it’s as enjoyable as spilled a venti cappuccino on your lap.  

And back to Gill’s onerous commute. He makes a big deal of his three-hour round trip on public transportation from Bronxville to his Starbucks on West 93rd Street (which is a 14-mile drive, by the way):

“If I could eliminate the three hours a day of commuting, it would give me a big break physically and mentally between every shift. I was always anxious to make the right train, catch the shuttle, and grab the right subway.”

Sorry, Gatesy, but I have to call BS on that. He lives right next to the Bronxville train, which takes less than half an hour to Grand Central. So if it takes him, say, 35 minutes to go from his apartment to Grand Central, I’m just not buying the fact that it takes Gill another 55 minutes to take the GCT shuttle to Times Square, then hop the 3 train up to 93rd. Old guy or not, there’s no way.

In fact, Gill admits this near the end of the book. “My last shift did not start until 1 p.m. It was already noon at my little train station in suburbia, yet I knew I could make it to my store in New York City in plenty of time.”

Obviously it doesn’t add up. I fault Gill’s editor for that one as much as I do the author.

Yet another reason to skip the book.

MOUNT YEARNIN’ \Mowwnt Yerrnin\ noun: Pangs of envy one feels when passing the stops at Bronxville, Pelham, Mount Vernon, etc., that are within 30 minutes of Grand Central.

Usage: I had a serious case of Mount Yearnin’ as the 7:22 rumbled along to Chappaqua.

People from out of town confuse Bronxville with the Bronx, but they couldn’t be more different. Today I rode the Metro-North from Bronxville to Grand Central. A mere thousand yards from Bronxville, a train village with Gilded Age charm, the press of the Bronx begins. While Fleetwood and Mount Vernon are not technically part of the
Bronx, they share the severe brick apartment buildings motif with that borough.  

I love the train, because it cuts quietly through city like a knife. Everyone else is jammed into subway cars and buses, or dealing with traffic signals, insane drivers and construction. My train pauses at each station through the Bronx and I marvel at the curious location of the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Gardens amidst the poverty, at school districts and their magical power over the destiny of communities, at the invisible lines that dam the wealthy from the poor.  

I briefly consider whether this system of gross inequity is sustainable in the long term, but then realize that inequity is what sustains the way things are. Who would make me a burger if it weren’t for these differences? Then I remember to check The Economist for the Big Mac index, because I was thinking of visiting Thailand and want to know how far the dollar goes there.

–AWall