It was a crowded F-train this morning, 8:43 am. The doors closed on the 74th Street and Roosevelt stop. Two last-minute straphangers pushed me away from my door position. I wasn’t annoyed, because I still had a pole to hold on to and I wasn’t reaching far or through people to get to it. Osho’s autobiography [Editor’s Note: Some Indian philosopher] was open in my hand.

I heard a disturbance behind me and I closed the book, using my finger as a bookmark to see what was happening.

Voices got louder and I could make out what they were saying.

By the center door an old man, maybe in his seventies, maybe Latino, was having words with a young, smartly dressed Latino.

“Do you want the seat?” the old man asked.

“Get out of my way,” the young man replied.

“I asked if you wanted to sit?” the old man said again.

“Nigger, what are you trying to do?” Another young, tall African American man with an oversized baseball hat a few feet away chimed in.

“Don’t push me,” the old man said, his voice taking on a sharper tone.

I couldn’t tell if any pushing was going on. The doors had closed but we weren’t moving yet.

“Fuck you,” the young man replied. “Get out of my face. I don’t want your fucking seat.”

“He could be a grandfather, you nigger,” the tall baseball-capped black man said. “Let him have the seat. He’s a grandfather. He could be your grandfather.”

“I don’t want the seat,” the young man replied, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I never sit on the train.”

“Then stop pushing me,” the old man said, standing his ground by the pole but not taking the empty seat yet. “Are you going to sit or not?”

“Fuck you, you stupid old man. I’m not sitting down.”

The old man turned in front of the young man and sat, looking up and staring at him. The young man lowered his gaze down to a book he’d taken out.

“He could be your grandfather, nigger. You better let him have that seat.”

The old man wore a porkpie hat. He pulled it down lower onto his head and sat up tall.

The train started and the rest of us went back to our private straphanger worlds–grateful there hadn’t been a physical contest and, at least for me, grateful to the young man in the baseball cap who knew what was right and helped make it happen.

–Joe Lunievicz 

 “Be kind to your behind.” 

It’s cottonelle’s new tag line and it’s covering the wall space at the stairs heading to the Grand Central subways and everyone’s talking about it. Whether it’s the poop reporter whose motto is “Your #1 Source for Your #2 Business” or Cassandra Jupiter  who is anti-wiping and pro-washing–or Jon Stewart on the Daily Show–the butt is the talk of the underground.

Now this is the kind of conversation that commuters need to have more of. Butts. Poop. TP.

It got me to thinking about other campaign slogans and how they might fit on the wall of fame heading down to the underground. Maybe the Cottonelle team will use one. 

Big beautiful butts build bridges, just like the Peace Corps. Let Cottonelle help.

 Harsh is for hands. Cheeky is for lip. Underneath just let it rip. Nice to know Cottonelle will catch you.

Not on the seat. Not on the cheek. Look underneath and take a peak. The perfect place for poop. (My son liked this one the best.)

 Buttwipers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your cheek.

Why use newspaper when you can use Cottonelle?

 Itchy heiny? Don’t use what’s harsh, thick or shiny. Think baby wipe without the lotion and soon you’ll be back in locomotion. (Especially appropriate for Grand Central.)

Which would you rather use, the bear or the Cottonelle? The bear’s vote doesn’t count.

TV ad: Camera pans in to a cocktail party, zooms in to hip level and focuses on a jeans-covered butt, dancing to a groovy beat. Another butt comes close with a tail of toilet paper hanging out from the back. Voice over: “This could be the start of a beautiful relationship.”

Heiny on fire? Douse the flames with Cottonelle, the fire extinquisher.

Come on. Everybody uses it. You use it. I use it. They use it. Don’t keep it a secret. Bear all. Cottonelle. 

Got one you think would work? Think about your heiny as you ride the rail and let me know.

–Joe Lunievicz

Three-Way Comparison

After a closer examination of the 7 train and the 6, today’s study in subway demographics looks at the F-train, 8:43am, Roosevelt Station.

It was a cold walk from my son’s school after dropping him off. I was chilled but glad to be below ground where the wind couldn’t get to me.

After the 6 on the Upper East Side and the 7 train from Flushing it was good to be back on the old familiar orange bomber. The doors opened and I wedged my way in. I lost my position near the door as others pushed me further inward just as the doors closed.

“Sorry,” I repeated to two or three people I pushed into. I couldn’t reach the poles to front or back so I had to go with the overhead ceiling grip – never a good choice on the F – but sometimes you just gotta hold where you can.

Here’s what surrounded me.

There were 92 people in the car with me. I may have missed the exact number by ten one way or the other. There were 35 people in my third of the car. That I’m pretty sure of. I had my notebook and pen handy and scribbled fast at each of the stops.

Six people were reading papers: Two the Metro, two the New York Post, and two I couldn’t tell because my armpit blocked the view. There was one hardcover book, title unknown, and two small black-covered bibles – pretty sure they were in English.

With the cold there were some wool coats, mostly navy and a few black and white herringbone. Two had their creases pressed and I saw cat or dog hair on one woman’s coat next to me. Otherwise the car was filled with parkas, jackets, sweat jackets, some hoodies and puffy down vests. We were exploding in muted winter colors.

Four people that I could see were sleeping. One had his mouth wide open.

Most of the folks on the train were black, Latino, Indian or and Asian. There were two Caucasians – one of which was me.

Nobody had coffee. Maybe it was just too crowded. One woman ate a jelly and toast sandwich.

I saw one briefcase and lots of backpacks.

At Lexington a quarter of the passengers got off. A woman dropped her scarf and a man, watching from his post by the door, leaned forward to help her. You could tell he wasn’t sure what to do because he hesitated a moment before he decided to help, and when he leaned forward he watched to see if she would wave him off. She did.

“I’ve got it,” she said, and he straightened up. She smiled at him and he smiled back. I was impressed. Then he got off at the next stop.

Most of those passengers still riding by 23rd Street, got off there with me. We herded ourselves through the turnstiles and up to 6th Avenue. The wind met us heading up the Northeast stairs. Funny, but nobody goes up the Northwest stairs - nobody. We’re always packed on the Northeast stairs, heads down, bumper to bumper, cursing anybody coming down against the current.

I wonder why.

Flushing Line

I took the 7 train. Not my usual run, but this morning I found myself during rush hour, 8:42, mixing with the straphangers on the above-ground line.

I was on my way to the South Bronx for work. Here’s what I noticed compared to the Lexington line from the week before.

§         It was packed with about 50 people in the car.

§         I counted 12 seated passengers who were asleep, or at least with their eyes closed and seemingly asleep.

§         There were easily 15 people reading papers. Three read the Daily News and the other 12 read Chinese or Korean papers, their characters alien script to me. A man read a paperback book – I couldn’t see the title.

§         There were three people on cell phones–the beauty of the elevated train is you can still stay in touch electronically [Editor’s Note: Beauty?]. Two people were holding phones and seemed to be; by the way they stared, reading messages.

§         There were four visible pairs of white ear buds for iPods and two old-style CD players.

§         Winter parkas abounded. Women wore thick coats with the hoods lined around the edge with faux fur. Men wore sport coats without ties. A couple of guys wore hoodies. I saw two briefcases and lots of backpacks. At least half of the people in the car wore sneakers.

§         One woman had a coffee with her. She didn’t drink it. She just held it and seemed to stare past it. It wasn’t from Espresso 77 – I could tell because the brown heat-shield wasn’t stamped with its red logo.

§         The advertisement that covered the wall above me was for “the mother of all vodkas from the motherland of vodkas – Stolichnaya.” There was no mention of pie or pi.

§         I dropped a bookmark and a man across from me said, “Hey–you dropped something.” It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me and that I had dropped something. I said thanks, impressed with the kindness.

To cross the East River we went underground and the world closed in around us. My ears popped.

At Grand Central the car emptied almost completely. I transferred to the 5 going to the Bronx. The train was packed up until 86^th Street, then cleared out. By the time I got to 149^th Street/3^rd Avenue stop I was one of half a dozen left.

Up on the surface, the South Bronx spread out before me and I moved from one world to the next.

–Joe Lunievicz

Some eagle-eyed readers of Trainjotting have noticed the new ads adorning the top of our pages. Indeed, Trainjotting has partnered with with Google to feature ads that aim to have something to do with the content on the page, which results in the reader clicking on them to buy stuff, and Google’s stock climbing north of $600 a share.

Trainjotting gets paid for each “AdSense” click. Some clicks are literally worth pennies, and some are actually worth a decent chunk of change–which means we mayl be able to buy a Starbucks card (or Espresso 77 t-shirt) for Straphanger Joe, maybe a pint of Pale Ale for G. Francis, perhaps a miniature 7 train whose wheels don’t stick for Little G.

If the program takes off, Little G may even have options other than Westchester Community College when he’s 18.

Hopefully us whoring ourselves out to Google won’t detract from your Trainjotting experience. And let’s face it–we’ll all be partnering with Google in some way or other somewhere down the road.

Pi

I found myself on the Upper East Side this morning waiting for the 6 train, Lexington Avenue line, the Green line, at the 86th Street Station. Some things I noticed about the folks commuting from there as compared to my usual base in Jackson Heights.

* There were lots of people wearing wool coats, nice ones. The men wore a lot of navy and there was little dandruff. One guy wore a black and white herringbone. I think he was at the wrong stop. The women wore tan, red, gray, and blue.

* There were a lot of white folks.

* I thought I was crazy taking my Espresso 77 hot tea on the subway but up there on 86th Street it seemed pretty common. There were six people with coffee/tea/hot beverages in hand. One, obviously a veteran, had his own non-spill cup from Starbucks.

* There were a lot of iPods with white ear-buds. One woman was using an iPod touch – I could tell by the way her fingers swept across its surface.

* A young man had his book wrapped in the Daily News, its cover hidden. I recognized it as a Mortgages For Dummies book. His cover was blown. There were five other books out in commuters’ hands – one of which was a hardcover ­– and only one other paper in sight. The paper looked like The Book Review from the Sunday Times.

* There was one person wearing a NY Giants Champions hat, and it was a woman.

Overall people were pretty nice. I smiled at a woman and she smiled back. People made room and there was very little pushing or shoving even though it was pretty crowded.

A man and a woman, tourists probably, searched through a map of New York City and spoke to each other in French.

There was an advertisement from NYC Teacher’s Fellows lining the wall from one side of the subway to the other. They were all white letters on black background – very stark. One slogan that caught my eye read, “Teach them that Pi can be a piece of cake.” (Of course, they used the symbol for Pi, which gets lost when posting on the blog.)

So I wondered about this for a while. Are they saying that working with Pi can be easy or are they saying that Pi can be a piece of cake? It can’t be a piece of cake, of course – because it’s a Pi. Even if it was a pie rather than a Pi it still can’t be a cake because it’s a pie. Perhaps I was being too literal this morning.

By the time I got to 42nd Street the racial make-up of the car had changed. By the time I got to 23rd Street most of the car had emptied out. I came up to ground level and it was raining. I had forgotten my umbrella but being able to walk through Madison Square Park made the light rain bearable.

Passing the Comfort Diner, famous for its apple pie, I smiled.

Going home I’d be taking the F and all would be right with the world.

–Joe Lunievicz

No Stuffed Animal Necessary 

When my son Max was younger, 2 or 3, he was terrified of the subway.

Riding in to visit the Museum of Natural History was our big trip from Queens and it entailed two transfers. He stuck close to me (attached to my leg or I carried him) when we went from one train to another and, once on the train, he buried his head into my arms while sitting on my lap. Usually we had to bring a small stuffed animal with us as added protection.  

Last Saturday we traveled in together – the first time in a while – and it was a very different experience. Now that he’s 5 1/2 he doesn’t need to be in my lap or hide his head – he sits next to me and holds my hand. No stuffed animal is necessary.

I watched him look around and people-watch, then cock his head to the side, as if he was listening to something. 

“The train rocks a lot,” he said. 

“I guess it does,” I said. 

“Why does the train make so much noise?” 

“Does it?” 

He nodded.  

“Probably because it’s old,” I said. 

“Why do people leave their bags and cans on the floor?”

He pointed to the floor beneath the bench across from us. 

“Because they’re not thinking about saving the Earth.” 

“Why does it squeak?”

I stopped myself from answering. I listened instead. The train did indeed squeak.

“I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe the wheels need oil.” 

“The squeaking makes me feel like I’m vibrating.” 

Now that I heard the squeaking too I noticed it set my teeth on edge.

“Me too.”

“Hey, Dad.”
 

“What?” 

“Why are there no seatbelts?” 

I looked around and imagined the car’s passengers all strapped in and buckled up – except for the standing ones.  

“Daddy?” 

“Because no one would use them,” I said. 

“Why not?” 

“Because it’s the subway and things are different down here.”

I know I didn’t satisfy him but I was grateful he moved on.

–Joe Lunievicz

Espresso 77 - Part II

[continued from yesterday]

Double, double toil and trouble

Tea doth burn and coffee bubble.

I entered the F train, hot tea in one hand — the Espresso 77 heat shield keeping my fingers from getting burned — book in another, bag sagging off my shoulder.

The press of people propelled me across the no-hand-hold zone and towards the far doors where two commuters stonewalled me with their stares. They weren’t reading anything. They weren’t dozing. There were simply protecting their space in front of the doors and not budging an inch for the incoming crowd. To be fair they didn’t have anywhere to go.

At some point I got the idea that I could still read my book (Yoga Therapy by Makunda Stiles – a big, heavy hardcover textbook that I’d been lugging in each day because I couldn’t read it at home with a child to take care of) and drink my tea while I rode the rail.

I never said I was especially smart.

I let my bag drop to the floor and held it between my feet. This gave me a dangerously narrow stance but would have to be dealt with if I was to complete my task. I opened the book as the train set off and spilled the first bit of tea onto my hand. I quickly closed the book, transferred the tea from left hand to right, and immediately grabbed the center pole — before brushing into the passengers to my right.

It sounds a lot more graceful than it was.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry.”

I readjusted my stance and hand-holds as the train picked up speed. If I was very careful, I could hold the book in the crook of my arm and my tea while holding the pole with my other hand. I couldn’t actually drink any tea – which was fine because it was actually too hot to drink anyway – and I couldn’t turn the page because it was not physically possible to do so.

But I’d reached homeostasis of a sort.

When we got to the next stop I turned the page.

And so it went until I reached 23rd Street.

Did I learn my lesson from this experience? I’d like to say, yes. I’d like to say I never tried the trick of riding the rails with hot tea or coffee in hand, whilst also reading a book, again [Editor’s Note: Whilst?]. Alas, I must be truthful. In my hope of supporting the fledgling business I did this three more times – Expresso 77 heat shield in hand. I received multiple burns, stains on my book and coat, and pissed off several commuters while echoing my refrain, “I’m sorry. Sorry. Very sorry.”

Now I can tell you all that I’ve come to my senses. I’ll no longer travel with hot beverage in hand unless it’s during non-rush hour and I know I have a high probability of getting a seat.

And of course, I figured out I could also support the shop by buying a cup on my way home. Walk and drink. Walk and drink. Walk and drink.

–Joe Lunievicz

Espresso 77 - Part I

To drink or not to drink – that is the question. 

First I should put this in context. There’s a new coffee shop in town so this would not be a problem if the shop hadn’t opened last month. Oh, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts and plenty of Colombian coffee shops here in cafe con leche country that I could patronize on my way to Roosevelt Station and 74th Street. But these shops are part of the natural lay of the land so therefore are not out of the ordinary.  

Espresso 77 opened up right after Thanksgiving and it’s the first of its kind in the neighborhood. It’s a high-end, latte/macchiato/chocolate peppermint/pumpkin spice caramel/cappuccino making shop utilizing Gimmie coffee imported all the way from Brooklyn. They also sell tea (Stash and Tazo) and decaf coffee–neither to otherwise be found in Jackson Heights.

It was opened by two local entreprenuers who will be competing with a Starbucks that will open up around the corner from them February 1st with three times the space.  

It’s not that I’ve never had the urge to buy a café con leche before and take it on the subway with me — my neighborhood makes the best in the city, especially Café la Nueva’s. It’s that I’ve never done it before because I’d then be stoked with high-test before I’d hit my office on 23rd Street and I’m a little afraid of what that might be like. Usually I save my hit of coffee until late in the day and work on tea in the AM. This has been my gameplan for years and it has worked well in keeping my coffee habit to a minimum. 

There’s also the saner question of, do I really want to be holding a hot cup of coffee (café con leche is made with hot milk and they don’t give out heat shields like Starbucks and the other high end coffee shops do) while riding the crowded F train? 

So Espresso 77 opens up and my neighborhood moves just a little further on the road to gentrification. I am both excited and disturbed at the same time. I like my neighborhood as it is but I also like what those gentry types bring to the table — new products and new places to hang out.

Jackson Heights is changing and for me the magnifying glass starts here. I want to support the new shop so I go there with my son — a lot. Max, 5 years old, has made up a song* about the shop (he drinks hot chocolate there and eats biscotti) — which we sing on the way there — and the owners have kindly put up a flyer for my local yoga class.  

On my way to work their first week open, I stopped by. It’s on the way. Yes, I could walk down any number of streets to get to the station but 77th is just about as good a choice as any other – so I walk by.  I stop in. I buy a green tea for the road.

Then I get to the subway and realize, as I enter the masses of jostling commuters winding their way down into the underground, taking no prisoners as they make haste to catch their express trains, just what an idiot I am.

[to be continued]

–Joe Lunievicz

*Espresso 77

(Lyrics by Max)

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seven

Espresso seventy-seeeeeeeven

Espresso seventy-seven.

According to our records, on January 13 last year, Trainjotting smashed into commuters’ collective consciousness like a Harlem Line express train hurtling toward White Plains. Over the course of a year, we’ve documented and detailed all sorts of Metro-North minutia as we slowly, painstakingly shifted from commuting newbie to a hard-bitten veteran of the Grand Central trenches.

We’ve had some help along the way, from the likes of Straphanger Joe and Engine Bob (what happened to that guy), CTRider, Connectic Energy, G. Francis, Bobby the Conductor, PeterFromPort and a cast of other commute-chronicling characters.

We’ll be celebrating in style, or at least in our version of style (parachute pants and a Members Only jacket, perhaps?), with some sort of first annual Trainjotting turns one celebration, which we’re tentatively titling the First Annual Trainjotting Turns One Celebration.

We’ll pick a place, and we’ll attempt to wrangle some sort of drinks special (maybe pints marked all the way down to $6.75 at Annie Moore’s?), and we’ll invite any and all readers to come out and hoist a few with us.

Details to follow. Maybe we’ll even get the New Haven Line transvestite to, for lack of a better term, come out.