The New York City subway is unreliable and dirty. The F train always smells horrible, the G is never on time. The A and the C are either overcrowded or have nonfunctioning heating or cooling systems, leading to a train-car full of sweaty and impatient New Yorkers in the summer. There is usually a surplus of tourists not knowing where to go, being unsure which train heads where, and you always worry about them not getting to their destination, but, simultaneously, you’re too late to school or work to stop and help them. On more than one occasion I have also been that confused tourist, having missed my stop so many times that I have lost count.
The subway is all of these things. The subway is a nightmare on a good day, and even worse if you are already late to school, but I love it more than any other location in New York. The subway is full of languages, of colorful clothing, with businessmen and fast food workers sitting next to each other. This is a community, a lifestyle, that I would never have experienced if I hadn't moved to New York. It was terrifying at first and felt almost threatening, but now, the subway is the place in New York where I am most comfortable. I will, without hesitation, stay on the train until Broadway-Junction, despite my stop being Jay St., if I am engrossed enough in my state of mind. This has also happened accidentally.
I have found refuge in the subway on multiple occasions - the first time I was prescribed antidepressants, I sat on the the subway from Jay St to 125th street, before I transferred and went back home. After an especially upsetting meeting with my therapist, I brought a book and took the F train four stops more than I had to, which made me late to my guitar lesson. It’s a place where everyone is trapped in their own worlds and minds together, and it is an environment that has become my own space, somewhere I go when I want an escape.
And the subway is how I’ve learned to love New York. It’s dirty, smelly, crowded, and sweaty. It’s full of tourists with cameras and businessmen in suits. There are most likely more squirrels than people. It is an intimidating, lively place, with skyscrapers and brownstones and piles of trash on the sidewalks, and it is everything that my small hometown was not. I could barely understand English when I moved here, and it was even harder when every New Yorker spoke so fast it was a miracle if I caught even one word. Despite being unsettled by the relocation from a Swedish suburb to one of the most diverse and urban places in the world, I have found a fascination and attachment to this city that radiates around the subway. It is a representation of all that New York is, and is a part of who I have become.
