Clyde Haberman


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NY Times “NYC” columnist Clyde Haberman is once again wagging a wrinkly finger at the hoi polloi who ride the subway, and litter on and around it too.

When it comes to creating trash, however, New Yorkers are nothing if not catholic in their tastes. They’ll throw anything to the ground, leaving it to some poor hard-working devil making minimum wage or close to it to pick up their mess.

There are so many of these self-centered louts that our immediate reaction to the transit agency’s campaign might be rendered in Internet-speak as LOL. We don’t mean Laughing Out Loud. The anti-trash effort is commendable. This LOL stands for Lots of Luck.

Not unlike LIRR madman John Clifford, Haberman wishes every last subway rider sat stock-still, arms crossed, iPod turned up only to 2, and took up no more space than that a one-inch buffer zone around the perimeter of his being.

Here, Haberman chastises riders who don’t fold their NY Times properly.

Here, he ponders life with cellphones on public transportation, same as he did here…and hereand here

And, of course, here.

Geez, this guy’s even more uptight than TJ. He’s actually got some decent points about what is sometimes a lack of human decency out there–too bad he comes across as such as schoolmarm when he presents his case.

NY Times columnist Clyde Haberman used his space yesterday to comment on rudeness in the subways, and in particular, “the lost art of folding the paper to fit available space” between riders. (That sort of sounds like something a guy named ‘Clyde Haberman’ might complain about, doesn’t it?)

Haberman uses the debut of the narrow Times trim size to remind people to do a better job of not allowing their newspaper to invade a fellow rider’s personal space. “A subway reality remains that virtually all readers of newspapers, be they broadsheets or tabloids, insist on opening the pages to maximum width,” laments poor Clyde. “If this habit of theirs invades the space of people in adjoining seats — well, that’s just too bad.”

Haberman then cites the forgotten art of the lengthwise fold of a broadsheet practiced by businessmen in the ’70s, before throwing feet-on-the-seat, taking up two seats, panhandling, littering and using “amplified devices on platforms” into the subterranean sin mix.

OK, Clyde, nobody is more in tune with bad behavior on mass transit than the good folks of Trainjotting. But lighten up, dude. Better yet, hop a cab.