An Imagined Country » New York Subway http://www.animaginedcountry.com An Imagined Country Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:08:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Subway, Brooklyn http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/31/subway-brooklyn/ http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/31/subway-brooklyn/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:38:04 +0000 Denis http://www.animaginedcountry.com/?p=204

Traveling between Union Street and Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street. An elderly Hispanic man steadying himself with a walking stick, moves through the carriage holding a battered paper cup, his voice slipping between monologue and song: high quavering notes.  A woman hands her son a $1 note; he drops it into the cup.

When we pull into Atlantic Avenue the old man steps out of the carriage, walks across the platform, waits for another train.

Wednesday
31st August 2011
New York

]]> http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/31/subway-brooklyn/feed/ 0 New York: riding the subway http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/30/new-york-riding-the-subway/ http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/30/new-york-riding-the-subway/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:00:40 +0000 Teresa http://www.animaginedcountry.com/?p=147

I rode the New York subway for the 1st time yesterday; the experience had the texture, the feel, of the London Tube, but it wasn’t.  Local station platforms dangerously narrow, stairs steep & uncompromising. Working out how to change lines, navigating the ticket machines, an anxiety-laden process.

Conversations shouted across us, around us, pitch us straight into a drama of New York lives, already familiar from TV & Hollywood. Complaints about being disrespected drift into comparisons of tattoos; difficult to separate the real from the imagined.

Station attendants safe in their glass-fronted booths, wield the power to make or break your journey, dismiss attempts at conversation, disdainful at our clumsy familiarity with the coinage; but today this too ready characterization is confounded. The station attendant deep in conversation with an elderly woman, he also grey haired, her contemporary, possessing a sense of space & calmness, offering useful advice on interchanges, fares & exits.

Tuesday 30th August 2011

]]> http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/30/new-york-riding-the-subway/feed/ 0 34th Street Herald Square Subway http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/30/34th-street-herald-square-subway/ http://www.animaginedcountry.com/2011/08/30/34th-street-herald-square-subway/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:00:10 +0000 Denis http://www.animaginedcountry.com/?p=163

We hear her before we see her running through the concourse. She’s crying, screaming, ‘I’ve lost my purse, I’ve lost my purse.’ She stops, moans, ‘Oh god, I’ve lost it. It’s gone.’ Her son clutching a clear plastic bag catches up, says,

‘Lets go back to where we bought the cucumber mum. Maybe it’s there?’

‘No. No. I had it just now. When we came down here. I had it, I’m sure-’

Moaning she begins pacing again. Her son is close to tears. He follows. She stops, collapses sobbing,

‘My purse, my-‘

The concourse is crowded. People stop, turn, stare. Women begin to congregate, to help.

Tuesday
30th August 2011
New York.

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