The Subways of New York City

There's something about the subways in New York City that brings it all home. The Red Line and the Green Line are brand new, with the cute line map with the blinking lights that show you which stop is next. Manhattan lines, primarily.

And when you take the Bronx-bound trains; the B, the D, the 2, you hit past a certain stop and even if you had no idea what subway you were on, you can tell. You're on the Bronx line. Same with the Brooklyn-bound C and G and the Yellow Lines. The people on the subways of New York City have a character to them, each subway car's passengers at any given time are telling you a visual story about the neighborhoods in the boroughs they're from. It's a beautiful thing.

And my favorite, the 7 train to Shea Stadium. I'm a Mets fan, so I'm biased, but on the 7 train you can get that true New York City feeling, from the amazing graffiti bombed roofs as soon as the train goes above ground to the roaring cheers from Shea on home nights. The 7 is the mythic train, the one rednecks like John Rocker (formerly of the World Champion Braves, recently resigned from the minor league Long Island Ducks) love to rag on; because its so alive. Because Queens is so big, everyone rides the 7 train, all the diversity of New York City comes in in countless configurations on every subway car on the 7 line.

Every time I take the subway--be it on an assignment to Brooklyn, on an evening trip to the Bronx, to a game at Shea, to dearest Harlem, downtown to City Hall or to midtown to get out of New York City and back to sweet New Jersey--I get a sense of New York. I get a feel for New York. And sitting there, waiting for my stop, I am become a part of New York.