STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE TRIP THAT WENT WRONG

 

So, okay, Mrs. C and I were going to have a long weekend in my much-loved home town. Some good dinners, theater, a special art show, maybe some touristy stuff. As mentioned, hot new restaurant on Thursday, the first night. Food poisoning, up much of the night with bi-directional GI eruptions. Exhausted, in bed asleep most of Friday. Managed to get out to dinner Friday to a favorite place and couldn’t finish an appetizer. We had theater tickets Saturday and did get out to a very funny show called The Play That Went Wrong, although I wasn’t always following it well.  Dinner at a little Italian place, where I made it into the second course before giving up.

Then things got worse. Our flight home Sunday wasn’t until 6 so we got to the Metropolitan Museum for the show we wanted to see. It was raining when we went to La Guardia and, as the day ended, a heavy fog settled over the airport. Close to half of the AA flights were canceled, including ours. Got online looking for alternatives. No non-stop seats the next day. Got an airport hotel and booked us through Chicago with a 5.5 hour layover. But La Guardia had high winds Tuesday morning and only one runway was in use. We sat on a taxiway for more than an hour before leaving on a two hour flight. Few seats had been available, so 6’ 3”/ 190 cm me was stuck in a middle seat for 3+ hours. When we got to Chicago our STL flight was running 90 minutes late just because. It turned out to be 3.5 hours late, with a change of aircraft because there was a pressure leak in a cockpit window of the original plane.  

So we got home 30 hours late, but we’re here. First world problems, right?                          

BACK AGAIN

 

Returning once again to my home town, this time with Mrs. C and granddaughter Ellie. This is one of the many entrances to the Times Square subway station. Ellie liked the subway but not being out on these streets. She said it felt crowded, loud, confusing and a little scary. Welcome to New  York, kid.          

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - IN THE CATACOMBS

 

New York's catacombs are, of course, the subway system. The public knows little about its secrets. This station is 181st Street and Broadway in Washington Heights. You might want to enlarge the image, noting the three semi-hidden men with their backs to the camera and the one lounging on the bench.               

STL DPB IN NEW YORK - THE SUBWAY

Everybody has heard of the New York subway. Not everyone knows that 40% of the system is at or above ground level, although locals call all of it the subway. It has 472 stations, 36 lines and 248 miles / 399 km of routes. I commuted to high school on the subway from 1963 to 1967. Still ride it every time I'm in town. This is a station in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, but I've never set foot in the vast majority of them.    

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - THE LONELINESS OF THE SUBWAY

The  columns in a station create visual compartments between the passengers, who are already seated on opposite ends of the bench. The woman on the left looks up, perhaps in hope that her train will soon arrive. The man on the right slumps with chin in hand, perhaps from fatigue or depression. The Target bag reminds me of the ongoing virus risk. Neither of them is masked. Maybe that's how we  got infected last weekend.

Don't Sleep In The Subway, Darlin'

You have to be pretty old to remember that one. It came out just before I graduated from high school, when I rode the subway every day. It was good advice then and still is now. It may be a long ride back around if you miss your stop.

One of the things I like about my Fujifilm camera better than my big Canon DSLR is the flip-out LED screen. It makes it so much easier to take sneaky pictures in public if you don't have to put the big blob to your eye. 

Oh, and happy Bastille Day to our French friends.   

Subway Riding For Dummies

Americans know the Dummies series of books: Plumbing For Dummies, HTML For Dummies, Management For Dummies, and so on ad infinitum. Looks like someone at the New York Transit Authority is a fan of the genre. You wouldn't think these would be necessary but the fact that the signs are there suggests ongoing problems. Does the public get it?        

 

In The Subway

New York, New York's a wonderful town.

The Bronx is up and the Battery's down.

The people ride in a hole in the ground.    

                                                                   - from On The Town, 1949 

I started riding the subway by myself in seventh or eighth grade, then used it to commute to high school in The Bronx for four years. Fifty years later, I found that there were so many portraits I wanted to make in the cars: the middle-aged Asian woman with weary eyes, her teen-aged daughter asleep on her shoulder; the beautiful young Latino couple standing by the door, much more aware of each other than the next stop; all the runners who had just finished the marathon, weary but proud, draped in their blue thermal capes; the Middle Eastern man who graciously gave up his seat to an elderly gentleman; the innumerable people absorbed in their smart phones. (There is free WiFi in the stations now, although not in the tunnels.) Nobody reads the newspaper in the subway any more.

But it's not easy to do that, even with a little camera with a flip-out screen. Everyone is so close together inside the cars. It could possibly get you in trouble, and there's no place to back away when the train is in motion. The platforms are easier to work with.

 

Manhattan - High Line - 16,592 Steps - My French Is Terrible

LONG day with Olivier. We met on Roosevelt Island (never been there before), a long, thin residential sliver in the East River. Then took the tram to Manhattan. Then subway to the High Line. Then walk and walk and walk. Then to the Whitney Museum. 

The health app on my iPhone says I took 16,592 steps, probably a one-day record for me. My legs hurt - Olivier is in better shape. I think I'm hot stuff when in France because I can get something to eat or drink, buy something, pay the bill and, on a good day, ask directions in the street. But general conversation with a Frenchman? Non. Olivier's English is equivalent to my French and it was a struggle at times. The noise level of the city didn't help. We tested Google Translate's bandwidth. 

These shots only scratch the surface of what I took yesterday. 

Tourist Shots

We all take pictures of lower Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry. We all sneak pictures of other people in the subway. Everyone takes pictures of their squirmy kids when they travel. Who am I to differ?       

NYC Transportation

Few New York subway stations lobbies are as spiffy as this one under a newer, high-priced office building. Most stations are around a century old and pretty gritty (although I think many in Chicago are even more barren). 

People can try getting around on a bicycle if the weather is good, although you may take your life in your hands doing so in this city. Maybe it's okay on a simple, slow bike with a sumo wrestler on the front to push away obstacles.                   

Fooie On St. Louie, I'm Back In New York

It was a global-warming-freakishly-beautiful day on the exotic island where I was born. We drove in early enough to beat the mob. Clear sailing through the Lincoln Tunnel, no line at the ticket window at the Metropolitan Museum. By the time we left the museum the line was out the door and down the block. By 4:30 or so, the dead stop backup at the Lincoln Tunnel toll booths was back to the New Jersey Turnpike. That's a long way. Welcome to The Big Apple. It costs $14 to get in through the Hudson River crossings but it's free to get out.                     

Above Ground, Below Ground

New York operates on many levels, and that means all kinds of things. From top to bottom:

Times Square.

42nd Street looking east from 6th Avenue toward the Chrysler Building.

Two views of the subway at Penn Station. The young woman in the third picture looks lost and afraid in the huge city. Much of the system looks post-apocalyptic but it gets you where you want to go. Unless you needed the E Train, which was out of service in Manhattan.