Hi, do you wear a button?

This sign was posted at the top of a stairway inside the Clark Street subway station. I can’t help but wonder whether it worked.

Have you ever posted (or answered) an ad looking for love?

I Believe In Harvey Dent

Signs of Life in the Subway

The Metropolitan/Lorimer Street subway station features Signs of Life, a series of mosaics by Taiwan-born artist Jackie Chang. The project, completed in the year 2000, was commissioned by the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority. It brings a much-needed touch of wit and beauty to an otherwise dingy underground section of Brooklyn.

Faith - Fate

Same - Sane

History: Your Story

Use Less

MTA: Permanent Art
Dephography: Jackie Chang
NYC Subway: Artwork
Art in Context: Jackie Chang

I ♥ Anderson Cooper

The graffiti about the popular newscaster was written on a construction wall near the entrance to the 66th Street-Lincoln Center subway station.

I felt a bit guilty asking the elderly man who was leaning against it to move so that I could take a photo, but he readily obliged. As he slowly moved past me, the fellow grinned, leaned over conspiratorially and whispered, “If what I’ve heard about him is true, that might have been written by a man.”

“If what I’ve heard about him is true,” I responded, “it might have been written by his mother.”

Entrance to 66th Street-Lincoln Center station

I ♥ Anderson Cooper

CNN: Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper 360°
Anderson Cooper 360° Blog
Wikipedia: Gloria Vanderbilt
Gloria Vanderbilt

A Midsummer Day’s Mess, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Early today, while most of the city was still asleep, Brooklyn was hit by a tornado.

The storm was the most powerful to strike the borough since the National Weather Service began keeping reliable records. With wind speeds reaching 135 mph, the tornado tore through Bay Ridge and Sunset Park, downing power lines, ripping up trees, shattering windows, tearing roofs from buildings and crushing trucks and cars.

The storm dumped three inches of rain on the city in just about an hour, overwhelming the sewer system, flooding streets, tunnels and subways and disabling the subways, trains and busses.

As hundreds of thousands of people tried to go to work, a spokesman for the Transit Authority, interviewed on a local television station, said, “The entire subway system is virtually shut down. If you can stay home, do it.” Unfortunately, the people who most needed to hear that messsage were already en route. Outraged commuters were stranded, the transit authority’s Web site crashed and chaos ensued.

Fortunately, the worst of the tornado’s ferocity bypassed my neighborhood and by the end of the day, most of the city’s transportation system was running with limited service. It was definitely time for something light and entertaining.

==============

Shakespeare in the Park is a longstanding, beloved tradition in New York City. More than 50 years ago, Joseph Papp (who was subsequently accused of un-American activities), began to stage free productions of Shakespeare’s plays in at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park.

Today, the shows are still free, but entrance to the famed open-air theater comes at a price.

Approximately 1,500 seats are available for each performance. Tickets are distributed on the day of the show on a first-come, first-served basis and limited to two per person. It is not unusual for people to camp out in the park overnight in order to obtain a pair, a feat that has been described by the New York Times as an “endurance test” requiring determination, patience and fortitude.

All tickets are for reserved seats and are non-exchangeable. If a performance is rained out, the ticketholder is simply out of luck. The well-heeled, of course, avoid the long queues by either hiring others to wait for them (the going rate is about $100) or by donating money to Shakespeare in the Park (a $150 donation earns one reserved seat).

When a friend offered me the opportunity to attend a run-through of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the show will officially open on August 23), I headed straight for the soggy subways.

Thanks to the storm, it took me about two hours longer than usual to reach Central Park, but it was well worth the trip. Those who braved the muddy fields and branch-strewn paths were transported from the chaotic, storm-torn city and treated to a calm, clear night, a first-rate company and more than a little much-needed magic on a midsummer night.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 2

Daily News: Brooklyn becomes Tornado Alley!
Newsday: Tornado, storm wreaks havoc in NYC
Gothamist: Wild Wednesday Weather
NY Times: Free Theater, But the Lines? Unspeakable
NY Times: It’s Free Theater, but With a Price
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Public Theatre: Shakespeare in the Park
Public Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Central Park Conservancy: Delacorte Theater
CentralPark.com: Delacorte Theater
NYC Department of Parks & Recreation: Central Park

Making a Magic Bus

Give me a hundred
I won’t take under
Goes like thunder
It’s a bus-age wonder
Magic bus, magic bus, magic bus, magic bus
I want it, I want it, I want it 

– Pete Townshend, Magic Bus, 1968

Today, down by the South Brooklyn waterfront, I stumbled across a group of artists gathered in the street to paint a bus.

Armed with cans of spray paint and stencils, quenched by glasses of wine and cans of Red Bull, energized by the bright sunlight and the music of the Doors, they channelled the spirit of the 1960s and transformed a rather plain green vehicle into a thoroughly magic bus.

The Bus on Union Street

Wine glasses and paint cans on the table

Stencil on the sidewalk

The crew at work

Working with white paint

Section around window

Trunk with Mr. T

Reflector and skull

Village Voice: Columbia Street Waterfront District
Mendoza Auto Sales and Auto Repair
Brooklyn 1863 Draft
Red Bull
The Doors
TheWho.net: Magic Bus

Discouraging Signs in the Subway

With 6,200 cars, 840 miles of track and an average weekday ridership of 4.9 million, New York City has one of the largest, busiest and most complex subway systems in the world.

Unlike the systems in many other cities, New York’s subways operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That means all service and repairs must take place while the trains are running.

In an attempt to cause the least disruption to riders, most planned maintenance and construction work (as opposed to emergency service) is scheduled for weekends. As a result, getting around the city on Saturdays and Sundays can be challenging for even the most savvy New Yorkers.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) says that they issue service advisories to “provide information about planned service changes on weekends that are needed for their Capital Plan work such as construction projects.”

Many city dwellers try to stay informed about temporary service changes and interruptions by checking the MTA’s Web site, subscribing to special e-mail and text message alert services (such as those offered by HopStop and the Straphangers Campaign), and/or following local newspaper and television reports for updates on the latest service advisories.

Any of those approaches is more effective than just showing up in a subway station and hoping to locate and make sense of the printed advisories that are posted every weekend.

Today every station I entered had at least a few advisory signs taped to the walls, but these were the most discouraging, disheartening and headache-inducing of the bunch.

Today’s Service Advisories posted in the Times Square station

Sign in the Pelham Bay Park station

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
MTA Service Advisories
MTA Guide to Weekend Travel in Lower Manhattan
MTA Subway Facts and Figures
New York Public Interest Research Group Straphangers Campaign
Transportation Alternatives
Tri-State Transportation Campaign
HopStop New York

Mysteries of Manhattan: The MetroCard Bicycle

This bike was leaning against a signpost near Union Square Park.

Nearly every surface — spokes, handlebars, posts, fenders, basket — has been decorated with discarded MetroCards (bus and subway tickets). If you look closely, you’ll see that there is even a chain made of MetroCards.

Who? When? Why? I have no idea. Just another mystery of Manhattan.

The bicycle near Union Square Park

The bicycle as seen from the right

Mysteries of Manhattan: Nick Beef’s DieKu

These images of gravestones were pasted to the wall of a passageway in the West 4th Street subway station. They have a credit line (A DieKu - Nick Beef - NYC) printed in the bottom border but provide no other information about their origin or purpose.  

The gravestones in the upper image follow the classic haiku structure:

Corona Brewer
Noble Golden Beer Skillman
Wetmore Lips Aleman

The names in the lower image create:

Bizzaro Bushman
Texas Manno Wargo Wild
George Izzo Looney

Upper DieKu
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Lower DieKu
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Two DieKu Pasted to the Wall
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Lee Harvey Oswald & the Mysterious Nick Beef
The Story of Nick Beef
Wikipedia: Haiku

Push for Help

Armed only with a heavy, black marker, someone turned this customer assistance intercom box in the Times Square subway station into a helpful, smiling face.

Push for help
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Painting a Garden in Transit

“The project will highlight — on a mass scale — goodwill, hope and triumph on a city, national and international level.”

This space on 32nd Street has been empty ever since the last tenant, a discount store known as Amazing Savings (formerly Odd Job Trading Company) declared bankruptcy. Now, at least for a while, the place is again bustling with activity because Portraits of Hope has come to town.

A non-profit, California-based organization, Portraits of Hope has created unique, high profile, inspirational public art projects around the world. They are now in New York to work on an innovative program called Garden in Transit.

For the next few months, thousands of people from hospitals, schools, and community groups around the city will come here to paint stylized flowers onto plastic panels. Once completed, these removable, weatherproof panels will be affixed to the roofs, hoods and trunks of 12,760 New York City cabs.

From September 1 to December 31, during the centennial celebration of the metered taxi, the decorated cars will serve as a vibrant, colorful Garden in Transit as they drive through the streets of the city.

Grandma helps a painter
Originally uploaded by annulla.

A painter
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Taxi 07

Painting the panels
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Portraits of Hope
Garden in Transit
Hotel Pennsylvania
Amazing Savings
DCC
Amazing Savings to reorganize in midst of bankruptcy

Yes, Spelling Counts

It isn’t just something your teachers said; in Brooklyn, even vandals know that correct spelling and punctuation are important.

These notes appeared inside the Flushing Avenue IND subway station on a poster for Cedric the Entertainer’s new movie, Code Name: The Cleaner.

Thoe’s are real

“Those” - You can’t spell

Code Name: The Cleaner
NYC Subway: IND Crosstown, Flushing Avenue
Station Reporter: G Train

Holidays Underground

No one would ever mistake a New York City subway station for Rockefeller Center, but if you know where to look, seasonal decorations can be found underground.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) doesn’t decorate the subways (not that anyone would expect them to do so) but they don’t forbid holiday decor, either. The only official policy is a prohibition against anything that would block views into and out of the token booths and train dispatchers’ offices. Other than that, decorations are allowed at the discretion of the station manager.

As a result, every year certain Transit Authority employees take the time to bring a bit of holiday cheer to their subterranean workplaces. Using their own materials and at their own expense, these men and women string tinsel, hang lights and garlands, draw snowmen and stars on whiteboards and even use discarded MetroCards to create tiny, bright pockets of merriment in the dark tunnels.

Time constraints allowed me to capture only a few examples before the decorations were taken down for the season, but if I’m still here next year, I’ll be back and publish more.

Clark Street Station

Court Street Station

Train dispatcher’s office at Cortland Street Station

Tree decorated with MetroCards and TransitCheks  

NYC Transit: Subways
Transit Chek
Gothamist: Token Booth Closings

A Trip on the Staten Island Ferry

Let The River Run
We’re coming to the edge
Running on the water
Coming through the fog
Your sons and daughtersLet the river run
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation
Come, the New Jerusalem

Silver cities rise
The morning lights
The streets that lead them
And sirens call them on with a song

It’s asking for the taking
Trembling, shaking
Oh, my heart is aching

– Carly Simon, 1989

Staten Island is one of the five boroughs of the city of New York (the others are Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan and Queens). It is located southwest of Manhattan Island, cut off from the rest of the city by a 5.2 mile stretch of New York Bay (also known as New York Harbor).

Every day, 65,000 people travel between the Northernmost point of Staten Island and the Southern tip of Manhattan via the free-of-charge Staten Island Ferry. On a steamy hot day, the temptation of a free boat ride was irresistible.

If you begin the trip in Manhattan, as I did, you’ll board at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal. Completed in 2004, it replaced a structure identical to the century-old Battery Martime Terminal that still stands next door.

Approximately 25 minutes later you’ll arrive at the St. George Ferry Terminal on Staten Island, where the tourists and residents immediately part ways; the natives rush off to work, play and home, while the visitors simply turn around and catch the next ferry back to Manhattan.

Foreground, Battery Maritime Terminal (c. 1904), background, Whitehall Ferry Terminal (c. 2004)

Waiting for the ferry

Passing another ferry; background: Governor’s Island

Catching a breeze near the statue

Approaching Staten Island

Pulling into the terminal

Staten Island: hazy, hot & humid

Outside the terminal

Exterior of Terminal

Running to the Manhattan-bound boat

The Statue of Liberty

Sailing on

Manhattan coming into view

Carly Simon called it “the New Jerusalem”

Terminal on the left, Brooklyn Bridge on the right

Pulling in to the terminal

The view from inside

Inside Whitehall Terminal

Staten Island Ferry

NYC Department of Transportation

Carly Simon: The New Jerusalem

The transit strike arrived at 4:00 a.m.

This morning New Yorkers woke up to the news that the city’s entire public transportation system has been shut down by an illegal strike. Millions of people scrambled to find ways to get to school, work, etc. Despite their best efforts, many were unsuccessful.

Only a few days before Christmas and Hanukkah, chefs and waiters struggled to reach restaurants where they waited in vain for diners to arrive. Bartenders hiked to work only to spend the day time drumming their fingers and polishing glasses as one holiday party after another was cancelled.

Doctors and nurses were unable to arrive in operating rooms. Defendants didn’t show up in court. Teachers were unable to get to their classrooms.

Of course, those who suffered the most were the lowest-paid workers; those teetering on the edge of poverty, those who don’t receive any benefits or union protection, those who don’t have the options of working from home or simply taking the day off. For them, this was a day of frustration and lost wages.

It took me nearly five hours to reach work this morning and nearly three hours - and $20 in cab fares - to get home. An exhausting day for many people, for many reasons. I hope, for all our sakes, that the strike is settled soon.

The prevailing mood

You can’t get there from here

A Lily Underground

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance.

– John Ruskin

If you have only two pennies left in the world, with the first penny, you should buy rice to feed your family. With the second penny, say the wise Japanese, you should buy a lily. The Japanese understand the importance of dreaming.

– Annie Walker, Lilies: Words and Music, 1999

It was rush hour. I was sprinting through the Times Square subway station, running down a short flight of stairs, when something bright caught my eye.

It was a flower — a stem of yellow lilies — stuck into some metal duct-work at the ceiling. There, against the dirty, peeling paint, was a small, cheerful beacon, a sweet surprise and a reminder of spring and beauty and hope.

I paused for a moment, fired off a couple of shots with my cell phone, and kept going. There was no time to linger, but I couldn’t resist turning around for a final, blurry photo of the lily underground. Then I ran for my train.

The lily in Times Square Station

The yellow flower in the duct-work

A final glimpse of the lily

Annie Walker

Visit Cumbria: John Ruskin

12th Annual Bus Festival

In the mid-1950s, America fell in love with a television program about working class New Yorkers called The Honeymooners. Ex-vaudevillian Jackie Gleason starred as blustering Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden; 50 years later, the actor and the character he portrayed continue to occupy a special place in the hearts of New Yorkers and the New York Transit Authority. In fact, a statue showing Kramden in uniform stands outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal (New York City’s largest bus station) and a major bus depot on Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue is named in Jackie Gleason’s honor.

Today the New York Transit Museum held its 12th annual bus festival at the foot of Borough Hall, drawing bus aficionados from far and wide. And naturally, Gleason’s presence was felt. As they walked along the avenue of historic vehicles, visitors were serenaded by the series’ familiar, brassy theme song issuing from loudspeakers. One of the highlights of the day was watching people suddenly stop, smile in recognition and happily exclaim, “Hey, they’re playing the Honeymooners’ song!”

From the official festival announcement:
September 17, 2005, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Join us as we celebrate a century of motorized bus service in New York City at the New York Transit Museum’s 12th Annual Bus Festival. More than a dozen vintage Museum buses, dating from 1917 to the 1980s, support vehicles, and more recent examples from the MTA fleet of buses will be on display in Columbus Park. The star attraction of this year’s festival is “Betsy,” the Museum’s newly acquired closed-top, double-decker bus (no. 1263), originally operated by the Fifth Avenue Coach Company from 1931 to 1953. Throughout the day visitors to the Festival may enjoy guided tours of the fleet, live musical entertainment, hands-on children’s workshops, story-telling, and complimentary rides around historic Brooklyn Heights on a horse-drawn omnibus. And everyone can shop for unique bus-related gifts and transit memorabilia in the Transit Museum Store tent. This event is free and open to the public.
Vintage double-decker bus 

New York Transit Museum Bus Festival 

Parked in front of the State Supreme Court 

Bus 303 (circa 1917) 

New York Transit Museum 

Getting ready to tow a bus back to the depot 

Jackie Gleason Depot, 871 Fifth Avenue (July, 2005) 

Transit Museum

Transit Museum Store

Museum of Broadcast Communications on The Honeymooners

The Honeymooners

The Honeymooners

The Honeymooners Theme Song

Ralph Kramden statue