Who’s Sitting Next to You on the Subway? An R Train in September

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/whos-sitting-next-to-you-on-the-subway-we-asked.html

by fern12 • 9 years ago

219 100 9 years ago

This is great. People everywhere I go are incredibly friendly, especially in New York. It's always fun to take a moment, act like a human, and talk to people. Not because you want to sell them anything or buy something, but simply because being social is part of being human.

One of the things that bothers me about individual automobile travel is how isolating it is. I want to interact with people and experience local art and culture, of which there is a lot in the NYC subway. We're a communal species.

humanrebar5• 9 years ago

One of the things that bothers me about individual automobile travel is how isolating it is. I want to interact with people and experience local art and culture, of which there is a lot in the NYC subway. We're a communal species.

You can make phone calls and listen to local podcasts in a car. You get better exposure to architecture, nature, and automobile design in a car than in an underground train.

I want to interact with people...

You must be riding other trains because on the trains I have ridden, everyone is extremely efficient at avoiding eye contact.

superplussed• 9 years ago

That's mostly true, but then try living for a few years in Germany and then your perception of what it means to avoid eye contact will vastly change :)

brndnmtthws5• 9 years ago

Real life is so much more interesting, IMO. Also there's far more that you can only experience by walking or riding a bike around the city.

JohnTHaller• 9 years ago

You can make phone calls and listen to local podcasts in a car. You get better exposure to architecture, nature, and automobile design in a car than in an underground train.

You can listen to podcasts and music on a train as well. You can even make phone calls (much to the annoyance of the rest of us). Some of us spend a lot of our train time above ground. Some of the views from the NYC subway in the parts when it's not a subway are fantastic.

chrisseaton• 9 years ago

Ha ha is that how you aspire to feel when you travel in public or how you actually feel? Because it sounds nice but then you try it and you realise many fellow people are unpleasant, annoying or offensive.

vintageseltzer• 9 years ago

It’s obviously a mixed bag (and sometimes dreadful), but IMO it’s a lot more fulfilling to live and travel in the real world among real people than some aseptic Uber-only lifestyle (which many of my friends unfortunately prefer).

brndnmtthws5• 9 years ago

You experience life however you choose to experience it. If you go around with a shitty attitude about things, you'll probably have a shitty experience.

Lambdanaut• 9 years ago

unpleasant, annoying or offensive.

You define pleasantries, annoyances, and offenses, and that attitude of setting yourself above so many others by default without spending the time to understand their unique human stories is going to cut you out of many fullfilling human experiences.

I can only imagine you have a far more difficult life than I, if your world is populated by such annoying characters.

Buttes• 9 years ago

I take the bus everywhere and that's not been my experience at all. Might depend what city you're in.

wyager• 9 years ago

I love interacting with strangers when the median interaction doesn’t involve a homeless person asking/threatening you for money. I would emphatically not describe the NYC subway as a good social experience. (Speaking from personal experience as of the last five minutes.)

dionidium4• 9 years ago

If you think the NYC Subway is bad, you should try the light rail in smaller cities where most people don't use transit at all.

New Yorkers have no idea how good they have it.

Spooky232• 9 years ago

Do you live in NYC? Spend actual time in the subway? How long?

brndnmtthws5• 9 years ago

I live in NYC and take the subway almost exclusively.

neom3• 9 years ago

Depends on how fucked up the subway is and what line you're taking, some days it's an hour a day, some days it's 2 hours a day, but I never spend more than 2 hours a day on it.

crazygringo• 9 years ago

As a response to the children comments who don't believe this...

I also love the (NYC) subway when it's not completely packed. I very rarely interact with someone on the subway, but the people-watching is fascinating -- I can't think of anywhere else in the world where you can see such a cross-section of humanity, of so many races, cultures, clothing styles, income levels, and everything else.

And I feel the same way about automobile travel being isolating. In the subway, it's not about interaction, but you feel a little bit more a part of humanity and all the interesting people doing all their interesting things.

Eyas• 9 years ago

And once in a while, you do interact-- often out of the blue, and briefly, but those conversations can be much more real than anything you'd expect.

I'm not approachable by any means, but I've had interactions where people told me about losing a significant other, how uncertain they feel having just moved to the city, dealing with illness, etc.

My impression is that many areas where the culture is social/polite, brief interactions with strangers are usually pleasantries and small-talk. Perhaps some in this thread had such experience, and are unsure how a place where the people are seen to be so rude to strangers can possibly have positive, enriching, interactions with strangers on a packed subway.

fern12• 9 years ago

In the subway, it's not about interaction, but you feel a little bit more a part of humanity and all the interesting people doing all their interesting things.

I rode the Blue line in the DC metro area for 5 years, from Arlington/Alexandria to Farragut West. Coming from car-centric LA, I hated many aspects of it at first (walking on icy sidewalks, sitting next to people picking their noses, etc).

But it was a fascinating exercise in people-watching, which I love. I saw so many of the same people every day - a young man with ankylosing spondylitis (which I didn't even know of, prior to seeing him), a grumpy-looking lady who always wore black flats with no socks, even when it was snowing, etc. It was always interesting to see who gave up their seats to pregnant women, and who was too buried in their smartphone.

One time, the Blue line got stuck before the Rosslyn tunnel, and I saw one guy get so worked up about it, I thought he was going to have a meltdown. Then, there was an elderly Korean man who would get on at different stops, and start singing in Korean, and you would see people from all walks of life trying to exchange furtive glances with one another. I kind of miss it, at times.

PoachedSausage• 9 years ago

Commuting by bike is also a much more communal experience.

Its easier to stop and help or talk to someone when you're not enclosed in a box. My best experiences are stopping to help people with punctures and once while waiting at a junction stopping for a chat with a friend that I had not see for a while.

rospaya• 9 years ago

It's always fun to take a moment, act like a human, and talk to people.

I find this very American behaviour. Talking to strangers (unless in a social event) is considered weird and not socially acceptable in large parts of Europe.

In 20+ years of daily public transport usage, I've had maybe a dozen interactions with random people on trams and busses outside of standard "where does this line go" or "is this your stop" conversations.

xelxebar• 9 years ago

I live in Tokyo and have done this quite a bit, but it makes me feel like such a Gaijin that I don't do it anymore.

出る杭は打たれる The nail that sticks out gets hit.

Maybe that sentiment has sunk in. Perhaps loneliness is a pervasive feature of living in a big city.

kchoudhu2• 9 years ago

Wow, they actually found a running R train.

AznHisoka• 9 years ago

I think you are mistaking the R for G

colmvp• 9 years ago

It's been years since I've lived in NYC. Is G still the ugly sibling of every other line?

nycdotnet• 9 years ago

where time goes to die

donretag• 9 years ago

Many years ago, my friend and I play something we called the N train game. Traveling from Manhattan into Queens, we would guess which stop the white people would get off in Manhattan. Only us "ethnic" white people went into Queens, the rest (American white for lack of a better term) did not.

Now all of that is over. Everyone got pushed into the outer boroughs. There is a hipster bar next door to the building I was born in. Unimaginable twenty years ago. I left my hometown due to cost. Twice the price for a city that is half as fun as it used to be. But this article still shows the amount of diversity in the city.

umanwizard2• 9 years ago

I think “Anglo-Saxon” is the term you’re looking for

acjohnson553• 9 years ago

Probably not, at least in the sense of literal English heritage.

There's definitely a White American identity, which is an innovation owing to suburbaniztion and television. Previously ethnically diverse white people assimilated as they left ethnic enclaves for the burbs. And for white people with deeper American roots, migration broke down regional American identities. It's a concept known as ethnogenesis.

While some insular white American identities persist in rural and small town America (Appalachian and Cajun come to mind), it's largely recent immigrants contrasting against a monolithic White American identity.

drpgq• 9 years ago

It's interesting as a percentage how many artists/musicians there are.

gz5• 9 years ago

The fact we are all on the subway for the same basic purpose subliminally provides a democratizing, unifying and human environment.

The person next to you is different than you but is also the same as you. The person is real - not a media concocted persona based on how the person may look, what groups he may belong to or how the media interprets and communicates her assumed motivations.

Digital is great but there are still 24 hours in the day, so the opportunity cost for many of us, including me, is often human interaction. I for one am trying to increase my time with humans on the R train, and decrease my time with personas on social media.

humanrebar5• 9 years ago

I don't know. It's hard to feel magnanimous when you have an armpit in your face and someone else is blocking the door to get off the train.

human interaction

Honestly, my relationship with the person next to me on the train feels more like the relationship between two cows on a cattle car.

Maybe you're riding a different line at a different time of day or something.

mc32• 9 years ago

I feel the same way with the exception of traveling as a tourist and you're taking more time to know and absorb your surrounds.

In most other cases the cattle car cows analogy is pretty apt.

theWatcher37• 9 years ago

Except from an individual experience a train is one of the least efficient methods of travel.

Long waits at each stop, and tons of stops in between me and my destination, never reaching top speed for Long...

Meanwhile when it does stop I still need a car or bus to get to my destination. This is true in European cities as well, where the stop count gets absurd.

twobyfour• 9 years ago

With all the stops it's still way faster than driving through midtown at rush hour. And I don't know where you're going in NY or whether you're capable of walking, but pretty much any destination in Manhattan and large swaths of the outer boroughs are within a 10 minute walk of the subway. I would not count that as needing a car or bus to get to your destination.

aninteger• 9 years ago

Did they do this on the weekend? I ride public transit every day of the work week. I see lots of the same people. I don't understand how the answer to the question of "Where are you going?" is not "work" more often.

jtmarmon• 9 years ago

well it's obviously not in rush hour due to the few people standing, so I'd bet it's the weekend or middle of the day

humanrebar5• 9 years ago

If it were rush hour, there wouldn't be enough room to write notes on a moleskine, let alone have a conversation.

YaxelPerez• 9 years ago

One of they people said there was no school that day. It's safe to assume it was on the weekend.

johansch• 9 years ago

Awesome journalistic idea + execution, but so much scrolling back and forth. Would have been neat with some mouseover popups or something similar.

acjohnson553• 9 years ago

Yeah, I was kind of thinking, what if each picture stuck to the top as I scrolled. Could have been a good opportunity to do something clever with web presentation.

j7ake• 9 years ago

The diversity of occupations is refreshing. I imagine New York City is particularly unique in this respect. Are there cities that are similarly diverse in occupations ?

humanrebar5• 9 years ago

Basically every U.S. city has people in each of those occupations. In fact, most of those occupations are more or less essential in every city. There might be a few more people in creative occupations than is typical in the U.S., but that sort of thing varies withing NYC, even. Riding a different train in a different neighborhood at a different time of day will have more mechanics, doctors, or engineers.

sotojuan• 9 years ago

Outside of industry towns I think it's the opposite that is rare - a large city will almost always have a diverse workforce. Perhaps the Bay Area (which is not "one" city) is unique in that it's largely centered around technology. Even then I bet it's still fairly diverse.

BucketSort3• 9 years ago

I started a subreddit a week ago on a similar premise. I like how simple these interviews are and how they paint a human picture. We hardly know each other, and I feel like that causes a lot of issues. I also liked playing the game of trying to read their backstory by the picture, then seeing if I was affirmed by the blurb. I got the methadone guy because his gruff look, nails, and torn bag. I was disappointed by the ebony Cleopatra blurb, I thought I was going to be in for a ride there.

I was on the subway a few months ago when this mother left her kid at a different stop accidentally ( I'm sure he was safe ), maybe not the nicest thing to do, but I was in NYC for taking pics and got the moment here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUlPWUMguSmtfh86RQymrzWcPC4L9YH8...

an_ko• 9 years ago

Where can I see this subreddit?

BucketSort3• 9 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/FacesOfAmerica/

As I said, I just started it, so it has nothing yet, but I did find it serendipitous that this piece touched on a similar thing.

tomjakubowski• 9 years ago

Your Instagram link 404s for me.

rohan1024• 9 years ago

Probably his account is private.

BucketSort3• 9 years ago

Doh, I did noobishly link a private instagram post. Here's a imgur version ( not the best quality ): https://imgur.com/a/iXYby

raldi2• 9 years ago

This is what I wanted http://windowshots.reddit.com to be, but despite everything I could think of to try to shape the community, it mostly turned into a competition for prettiest vista.

clydethefrog• 9 years ago

Since when is [subreddit].reddit.com possible?

chis• 9 years ago

This is a great idea. Got me imagining living all these other people's lives.

https://www.reddit.com/r/windowshots/comments/2v53wb/1_am_th...

neom3• 9 years ago

"How do you like living in New York? I feel like my life is going according to plan. Everything is in my control, so I think that is a good feeling. "

...uh oh. Quarter life crisis in 5...4..3..

brailsafe2• 9 years ago

lol

Erwin• 9 years ago

If you like this, you will enjoy this: http://www.humansofnewyork.com/ -- many touching stories and great portraits. The author started in NY but has traveled the world, doing the same type of short interviews with people in Iran or Iraq.

advertising• 9 years ago

If you like this you’ll like humansofnewyork

The guy who started it quit his job and decided to do something like 1,000 interviews or something like that with no real goal. a portrait of each human and asked the same line of questions but they usually got more personal.

Turned from a website to coffee table books and now makes millions and has a penthouse in the city.

Also lookup New York nico.

therealdrag0• 9 years ago

Reminds me of the book "Up in the Old Hotel?".

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210783.Up_in_the_Old_Hot...

ordinaryperson• 9 years ago

Two years ago I got on the NYC subway, the 3 train, headed to work near Columbus Circle, and after a few recent arguments (people stepping on my feet, accidentally dumping water on me) I'd resolved to be more zen during the crowded morning rush hour. I'd just read this article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2960791/Commuter-swe...) that morning about a guy who said FU to a commuter, only to be interviewed by him later that day, and I said, I have to be more tolerant on the subway.

Anyway, I sat in the last seat reading a book when, at Chambers St, a large middle-aged white woman sat down next to me and elbowed me in the stomach -- hard. Dude on her right immediately got up, wanting no part of it, and she slid over, taking up both seats, then proceeded to mutter profanity at me. "F'ng a----. Motherf----er." etc etc.

Not even sure why she was mad at me, I guess she wanted more room, but I was on the end and I'm relatively skinny (32" waist, FWIW) so I'm not sure what the beef was. Just crazy, I guess.

Normally I would angrily confront a stranger who just punched me in the stomach and started swearing at me for no good reason but I thought, "Hey, I just resolved a few hours ago to be zen on the subway, am I going to break my new resolution on the first day?"

Fast-forward through the rest of the subway ride, I said and did nothing while she kept muttering profanity (and staring right at me). We got off at the same stop but I grabbed a beverage while she went her way.

Five minutes later I entered the lobby of my office and there she was. She turned around, saw me, and went white. as. a. ghost. I was worried I'd have to call 911.

Turns out she was a contractor who had just started at my company that week, and her direct boss was a good friend of mine.

My friend didn't fire her (right away, anyway) b/c she needed the help and just found the story funny but they did end up terminating her two months later because (surprise surprise) she had an anger problem. They actually waited for her to leave for the day, then called her and told her not to come back in b/c they were afraid of what she'd do in person.

Moral of the story: don't get into commute rage fights. They're not worth it! And you never know who you're getting into a fight with. Be nice to people on the subway.

songshu• 9 years ago

Plus you will be filmed and put on YouTube if the confrontation lasts more than a moment. This alone is enough to inhibit me.

alexasmyths• 9 years ago

Anyone who would do that has some mental health problems.

That's really weird, best to just avoid and not engage.

EDIT: to anyone who thinks that by 'engaging you're going to help' I suggest you're probably wrong. Someone randomly punching others, staring at them and shouting profanities is not going to be 'convinced' of anything, especially in that state. Also I'll double down and say that anyone that does that has a problem that needs addressing. That is way outside the bounds of 'I'm having a bad day' or 'In a bad mood' or 'I was triggered' etc..

perseusprime11• 9 years ago

I once tried to engage in a ‘Deepak Chopra’ way and asked if the person (15-17 year kid) needed any help, and started offering unsolicited advice about staying calm and being friendly to people. The situation escalated pretty quickly to the point he went crazy on the entire subway car and started using profanity against anyone who even looked at him. Note to myself: don’t engage. World is not the same as what you see in movies or tv shows.

brailsafe2• 9 years ago

Having now spent some time in a proper city, I'm pretty well in agreement with this. Though I often find it's more of a shocking display less often than it's actually violent. It's a tough thing to pinpoint in people though. Is this person going to be violent or are they just dealing with a voice in their head? More often than not, when I've spoken with these people it's been an amicable interaction and they're just dealing with their situation. This would likely be different if I weren't trying to treat them as an equal—which they are—and instead attempting to give them "advice" or confronting them.

For those who think otherwise, try putting yourself in someone else's place. What would it be like if heroin was the only thing silencing the voice in your head telling you to kill yourself or others? What if the system that aids you alternative ways of dealing with that condition was non-existent? What if all those things are true, but also your family is dead or has abandoned you?

alsetmusic• 9 years ago

My father was a teenager walking to a job interview and tried to hitch a ride. He called someone an asshole for not picking him up. When he got to the job, that person owned the shop.

I think he actually still got the job.

Theodores2• 9 years ago

Another reason to go Zen is that it does not get you there quickly if you go all confrontational on someone.

As a cyclist I never get into altercations but others do. I wonder how it will work out for them the next day when the road has to be shared again.

steinuil• 9 years ago

I've heard from a few cyclists about people they cycled with who got into pretty violent fist fights with some people, some even had to call an ambulance after that.

My suggestion is to always apologize even if you're not in the wrong, because getting into fights, or even angry, for silly things like that is not worth it.

notl4wy3r• 9 years ago

One time I was biking behind a man who flipped off a pickup truck after it did something inconsiderate on the road. Then driver of the truck tried to ram him and almost succeeded. That really brought home to me that there are contexts where expressing your anger can be really counter productive, no matter how justified it is.

faithers8• 9 years ago

I think you will really find the website humans of new york to be interesting if you are into NYC and looking at people.

gene50• 9 years ago

It's funny when we take a moment to behave like a human being with all people. It is not necessary to gain any benefits from this behavior but we gain by being social which is a part of being human.

jdlyga• 9 years ago

I take the N/W train into the city every day. You'd be crazy to talk to other people on the train. Everyone has the attitude that they don't want to be bothered and to just have a peaceful commute.

jackewiehose• 9 years ago

What’s your biggest fear?
I’m afraid I’ll die before I can upload my brain to the cloud and live forever in a video game.

If you think that's a good idea you should watch "Black Mirror".

cgag• 9 years ago

To convince me otherwise? Seemed grand to me.

viach• 9 years ago

Let's automate it: "Who is X next to you in Y" - and there are tons of ideas for articles actually!

Who’s Sitting Next to You on the Subway? An R Train in September

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