SecondAvenueSagas offers the unique perspective of a New York native to an NY Times story on those skyline-gazing new adults arriving in our city these days and clogging our sidewalks and subways: the college freshman.

Sagas writes:

A resident of New York — a new one, recently arrived from somewhere else in the vast America that we all view with a wary eye — feels most like a New Yorker when he or she finally masters the city’s complex subway systems. I bet you didn’t see that one coming.

“Learning the transportation is sort of what I’m working on right now. I’m pretty good with the subways now, but at night it’s a little weird, and I don’t really know how that works,” Boris Chen said to [Times reporter] Buckley. Chen wasn’t the only one bemoaning our complex subway sytem.

And that’s where it begins and ends. If someone living in the city can navigate the hot spots — the so-called Central Business District of Manhattan — without the aid of a subway map (except during the weekends), then a New Yorker that person shall be. If someone can, by and large, get from his or her local subway stop to just about anywhere else in the city, if that person would even be so bold as to offer lost tourists subway directions, then a New Yorker you will be.

In our first interview with a fellow train blogger, we had a chat with LilSubwayCrybaby.

Trainjotting now puts the spotlight on SecondAvenueSagas.com. SecondAvenueSagas covers the underground world of New York City subway with depth, insight and humor. It’s the brainchild of Benjamin Kabak, 25, who grew up on the Upper West Side, the child of two New Yorkers. Kabak spent four years in southeastern Pennsylvania studying at Swarthmore College. Ten months living in D.C. convinced Kabak that New York was the only place for him and, more importantly, that the DC Metro is a far inferior subway system to the one in New York.

When not blogging about the subways, Kabak blogs about the Yankees at RiverAveBlues.com with two of his friends.

TJ: What compelled you to launch SecondAvenueSagas.com?

SecondAveSagas: I launched Second Ave. Sagas in November of 2006 shortly after the Democrats took over the House and Senate. At the time, a few of New York’s elected representatives in Washington were making noises about securing federal funding for the area’s transportation and specifically the Second Ave. Subway, and I knew that with Sen. Schumer owed a few favors for his work on the DSCC, the city and the MTA were lined up for a transportation windfall. Ostensibly, the site was going to chart the progress of the Second Ave. Subway, but as subway line construction is painfully slow, the scope of the site has evolved to encompass all the news, views and quirks at the MTA and the New York City subway.

TJ: What’s your day job?

SAS: For the next few weeks, at least, I’ll be wrapping up my job in the legal department of a major sports organization. After a month off, I’ll be starting NYU Law School at the end of August. The blog will not suffer though.

TJ: What’s your favorite subway line?

SAS: For no reason in particular, I’ve always been partial toward the 2 train. I grew up just a few blocks from the express stop at 96th St., and I love the speedy ride downtown. The train, stretching into parts of three boroughs, is great for people-watching. The F line is a close second simply because everyone else hates it and the ride through Brooklyn to Coney Island is great for sight-seeing. You can’t argue with a view of the Statue of Liberty from the highest spot in the system near Smith-9th Sts.

TJ: What’s something about the NYC subway system no one else knows?

SAS: I wouldn’t say no one else knows this, but the vast majority of New Yorkers are unaware of all of the shuttered and abandoned stations in the subway system. The abandoned City Hall stop is a beautiful station with majestic Gustavino arches and chandeliers. It’s been dormant for over six decades, and only astute subway-watchers and Transit Museum members know that it’s open for tours now and then. There’s a graffiti-filled station, long abandoned, at 91st and Broadway. The 18th St. station on the East Side IRT sits empty as well. The hidden and forgotten nooks and crannies in the subway system are what make it so fascinating.

TJ: Which of your posts seemed to be the biggest hit with readers?

SAS: People loved an early post I wrote on the subway-themed condoms the city gave out for free. They also enjoy a few of the quirky ones I’ve written about the 75-year history of the Second Ave. Subway and some of Massimo Vignelli’s designs for the system. Those are my favorite to write as well. 

TJ: If I were MTA president for a day, I would…

SAS: …run and hide from a vicious public after ensuring myself an Unlimited Ride MetroCard for life . In all seriousness, a day would hardly be enough time to enact many changes. I would probably open up the agency’s books to outside auditors and reporters. The MTA is in need of greater financial transparency. I would try to ride the subway lines and speak to the riders about their wishes and needs.  While the recent Rider Report Cards are a clear step in the right direction, I think the MTA Board needs to combat the impression that no one is paying attention to the riders. A meet-and-greet at various points in the system, while symbolic, would go a long way toward creating a bridge between straphangers and administrators.

As you might expect from the blog’s name, Second Ave. Sagas was all over Elliot Sander’s State of the MTA meeting yesterday, which focused primarily on the planned 2nd Avenue subway line. “Today we stand at a crossroads,” said Sander of the MTA’s 40-year–yes, 40-year–expansion plan.

Second Ave. said the speech’s ”Holy Grail” included this from Sander:

The Second Avenue Subway can act as a trunk line for new service to West Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx…Consistent with the vision for a Lower Manhattan rail link, imagine the Second Avenue Subway running south to Lower Manhattan, then going under the East River to downtown Brooklyn and on to Jamaica, Queens, via the Long Island Rail Road’s Atlantic Avenue Branch, with a connection to the AirTrain to JFK.

The Second Ave. blog drills deep, so to speak on Sander’s speech, with lots of comments from readers who know an awful lot about subway construction.

Trading Bud cans in paper bags for Anchor Steam in proper imperial pint glasses, the Trainjotting crew tipped a few jars at Pershing Square last night, with some lively banter about the Grand Central documentary on PBS, the depth of subway minutia over on SecondAvenueSagas, and G. Francis’s unhealthy obsession with the bathroom cars on the New Haven Line.

We set up a miniature F train on the bar so people might know where to find us, and that sparked the interest of the bartender. I didn’t get his name, but he was a good looking guy in a black t-shirt that looked actorly; you could envision him in Law & Order, playing, well, a bartender, perhaps, and vehemently denying any knowledge of how the woman ended up crammed inside the bar’s ice chest.

The barman picked up our wooden F train, examined it closely, and explained how he was obsessed with trains as a boy. I told him Little G is also obsessed with trains (TJ’s successor in the Trainjotting engine room a few decades down the road?), and we discussed the merits of toys that require elbow grease and imagination to work, as opposed to seeing how many times you can hit the Fire button on a video console.

His face had lit up as he kept examining the little F train and spinning the wheels, and you could see how the thing instantly took him back to being 10.

A good time was had by all, though I still can’t figure out how I had 20 minutes to get from Pershing Square to Grand Central across the street, yet still did not have enough time to secure a little Two Boots for the ride.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. In fact, I’ve had the same one for eight years running, and still haven’t accomplished it: Learn to crack an egg with one hand like the guy at the old Cooper Diner.

But I have a new one this year, and I’m getting a head start on it now: Be a more generous blogger. Spend more time reading, and linking to, like-minded blogs. Cuz that’s what makes the blogosphere go ’round, my new-media peers tell me.

With that in mind, here’s something from the very capable blog Second Avenue Sagas (full disclosure: I thought it was Second Avenue’s A Gas for the longest time). Second Avenue has a neat roundup of movies that prominently feature New York subways in them, including, of course, The French Connection, as well as Money Train and the latest entry in Manhattan-after-the-apocalypse fare, I Am Legend.

It’s clever. It’s here.

Happy new year.