Culture

120 Years of New York’s Subterranean Literary Muse

Published

3 hours ago

August 30, 2024

120 Years of New York’s Subterranean Literary Muse

By Erica Ackerberg and Tina Jordan

The subway isn’t just buried in the bedrock of New York City — it’s embedded within its fiction, too. These archival photographs and literary quotes transport you through time.

Within a day of its opening on Oct. 27, 1904, the New York City subway was already inspiring lyricism: The Times marveled at its “olive-green woodwork, the unfamiliar air, the darkness alongside, and the sudden shooting into beautiful white stations like nothing that the elevated ever had.”

That’s just one day. Give novelists 120 years of packed daily commutes, late night rides home from bars and restaurants, early morning trips to the beach, and now the subway isn’t just buried in the bedrock of Manhattan, it’s burrowed deep within New York novels of the last twelve decades, a source of wonder, despair, quotidian boredom.

Join us as we ride alongside fictional characters plucked from the works of Edith Wharton, Ralph Ellison, Sylvia Plath, Lee Child, James Baldwin and so many more.

“Faces, hats, hands, newspapers jiggled in the fetid roaring subway car like corn in a popper. The downtown express passed clattering in yellow light, window telescoping window till they overlapped like scales.”

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos

She and Mrs. Robichek edged into the sluggish mob at the entrance of the subway, and were sucked gradually and inevitably down the stairs, like bits of floating waste down a drain.

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

Now it seemed very warm in the subway car. The fan in the center of the ceiling was motionless. A bead of sweat splashed a panel in the story about the firespewing Flame, lean and balletic in the great Lou Fine style, that Joe had been pretending to read. He closed the comic book and stuck it back in his pocket.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

The train came bopping into the old drab station like some blazoned jungle of wonders. The letters and numbers fairly exploded in your face and they had a relationship, they were plaited and knotted, pop-eyed cartoon humanoids, winding in and out of each other and sweaty hot and passion dancing — metallic silver and blue and cherry-bomb red and a number of neon greens.

Underworld by Don DeLillo

Magically the five o’clock people came to life, bounced out of their subways, jumped out of their elevators, bells rang, elevator bells, streetcar bells, ambulance bells, the five o’clock people swept through the city hungrily, they covered the sun, their five o’clock faces looked eagerly toward Brooklyn, Astoria, the Bronx, Big Date Tonight.

Turn, Magic Wheel by Dawn Powell

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’m stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers — goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me at every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Speed

In 1904, the express subway ride from the Brooklyn Bridge station to West 96th Street took, on average, 14 and a half minutes, a feat that dazzled both real riders and fictional ones.

The train rushed into the blackness with a phallic abandon, into the blackness which opened to receive it, opened, opened, the whole world shook with their coupling. Then, when it seemed that the roar and the movement would never cease, they came into the bright lights of 125th Street. The train gasped and moaned to a halt.

Another Country by James Baldwin

Pelham One Two Three came down the track. The amber and white marker lights at the top were like a pair of mismatched eyes. Beneath them, the sealed beams, which were the real eyes on the train, seemed by some optical trick to waver, to flicker like a candle in the wind. The train came on, as always with the appearance of going too fast to be able to stop. But it came to a smooth halt.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three by John Godey

He found himself, next, slipping northward between the glazed walls of the subway, another languid crowd in the seats about him and the nasal yelp of the stations ringing through the car like some repeated ritual wail.

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

Crowds & Delays

Think the subway ever ran smoothly? The first day it was open, not only was it packed with “subway sightseers,” but travel “was considerably interrupted by long stops that nobody could or would explain clearly,” The Times said. “The effect was to knock the schedule to smithereens.”

For the past century, just like the rest of us, literary characters have been squeezed, smashed and hassled.

She detested New York subway trains for their grime and their noise, but even more for the claustrophobic nearness of so many human bodies, the rush-hour jam and jostle of flesh which seemed to neutralize, if not to cancel out, the privacy she had sought for so long.

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

The subway pulled into Times Square, disgorged passengers, took more on, shut up its doors and shrieked away down the tunnel. Another shuttle came in, on a different track. Bodies milled in the brown light, a loudspeaker announced shuttles. It was lunch hour. The subway station began to buzz, fill with human noise and motion.

V. by Thomas Pynchon

An R train fat with people was sitting in the station making awkward attempts at sliding its doors shut.

The Fuck-Up by Arthur Nersesisan

The Subway at Night

“At night,” The Times wrote, “the alienation of one man in a crowd gives way to the solitude of a few waiting at desolate stations for long empty trains. These are the night workers, the lovers going home from an evening out and the loveless for whom the subways represent warmth and security.”

One of fiction’s most iconic nighttime riders is Lee Child’s peripatetic tough guy, Jack Reacher, who once encountered a suicide bomber on an uptown 6 train at 2 a.m.

I was riding the subway, in New York City. The 6 train, the Lexington Avenue local, heading uptown, 2 in the morning. I had gotten on at Bleecker Street from the south end of the platform into a car that was empty except for five people. Subway cars feel small and intimate when they’re full. When they’re empty they feel vast and cavernous and lonely.

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

They descended the subway stairwell at Astor Place and as they waited on the platform, then boarded the 6 train, felt it shut them out against the other night riders, whose heads lolled with the train’s movements on the weary sticks of their bodies, felt it shut them against the whole city everywhere around them.

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

The empty, air-conditioned subway car moved over the Manhattan Bridge and into the city. The sky was purple, and the half-lit moon peeked out beneath a pink cloud. Whenever the car made an abrupt stop, I slid farther down the blue plastic seats.

Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

Most of the time, he didn’t mind riding the subway. It was a fast trip, and the clattering tracks and flashing lights kept a person distracted. But at times like this — idled without explanation, in the overheated darkness — it was hard not to think about just how deep under the earth the express track ran, or the mile of blackness that lay between him and the next stop.

Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

People-watching

“Mark my words,” an “observant citizen” told The Times in 1904, “the subway is going to boom the newspaper business. When you get in, there’s nothing to look at except the people, and that’s soon a tiresome job.”

Tiresome? Tens of millions of riders — real and fictional — would disagree.

Only a few people. No one near her. She folded her arms and rested her head on the seat in front of her. Cool. It cooled. Yes, it was cooler and her head was beautifully warm and she would have Vinnie again and next time, some time, he would kiss her.

Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby

The girls were bright birds of paradise, the men, her artist’s eye noted, were gay, vital fauns. In the subway beside the laughing, happy groups, white faces showed pale and bloodless, other coloured faces loomed dull and hopeless.

Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset

Things whirled too fast around me. My mind went alternately bright and blank in slow rolling waves. We, he, him — my mind and I — were no longer getting around in the same circles. Nor my body either. Across the aisle a young platinum blonde nibbled at a Red Delicious apple as station lights rippled past behind her. The train plunged. I dropped through the roar, giddy and vacuum-minded, sucked under and out into late afternoon Harlem.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

There was so much noise that Ma and I could speak little on the subway ride there. There were two boys about my age sitting across from us. As the taller one got up, a bulky knife fell out of his pocket. It was sheathed in leather, the black handle grooved to fit a large hand. I pretended I wasn’t looking and willed myself to be invisible.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

We are 15, and are learning to memorize the subway lines as if they are the very veins that run through our bodies.

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades

Nobody who’s lived in New York for more than a few months understands why a girl would actually like the subway. They don’t get the novelty of walking underground and popping back up across the city. … Belonging in the rush, locking eyes with another horrified passenger when a mariachi band steps on. On the subway, she’s actually a New Yorker.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

Most of us stand clear of the closing doors; others step through and write what they see.

Continue the ride with these 12 books.

Culture

Are you smarter than a college football referee? Take the rules quiz they have to pass

Published

12 hours ago

August 29, 2024

Press Room

Are you smarter than a college football referee? Take the rules quiz they have to pass

How difficult is it to be a college football referee? Let’s find out how smart you are.

Officials are often the target of frustration for fans, especially after questionable or missed calls. But they aren’t noticed when they make the right call, which happens the vast majority of the time.

To give you a sense of the types of rulings officials have to know and deliver instantly, we’re letting you take an actual Ref Quiz.

Earlier this summer, I sat in on the Mountain West/Conference USA officiating clinic outside Dallas, led by former Big 12 referee Mike Defee, the coordinator of officials for both conferences. The clinic focused on standards, new rules, training tips and game logistics. It also included a multiple-choice quiz for the officials, featuring questions about various in-game situations. Other conferences hold similar clinics.

“The test is built to be a well-rounded test of the rule book to make sure they’ve spent time having a good working knowledge of it,” Defee said. “They’re required to pass it or they don’t get a schedule.”

A passing grade is 70 percent, and crew head referees are expected to score higher. All of the Mountain West and CUSA core officials passed it this year, Defee said, but a few developmental officials did not.

I myself was humbled with a 48 percent score when I took the quiz at the clinic, so you won’t see me on the field. The original quiz was 27 questions, but we’ve narrowed it down to 15. We’ve also clarified some language to make the game situations easier to understand. Let’s see if you’re smart enough to be a college football official.

(Note: Readers who are using our app on an Android device may need to use two fingers to scroll through the quiz. Still unable to get the survey? Try this direct link.)

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(Photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)

Culture

Are the FedEx Cup playoffs ‘silly’? Yeah, but Scottie Scheffler knows why

Published

23 hours ago

August 29, 2024

Press Room

Are the FedEx Cup playoffs ‘silly’? Yeah, but Scottie Scheffler knows why

Two weeks ago, Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world and the current leader of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, called the premise of the entire competition “silly.”

“You can’t call it a season-long race and have it come down to one tournament,” Scheffler said in Memphis, Tenn. “Hypothetically, we get to East Lake and my neck flares up and it doesn’t heal the way it did at The Players, I finish 30th in the FedEx Cup because I had to withdraw from the last tournament? Is that really the season-long race? No. It is what it is.”

In Scheffler’s mind, the FedEx Cup playoffs instead identify “the guy that plays the best in these playoff events,” not the best player throughout the season. Take Keegan Bradley, the 50th and final player to make the BMW Championship, who then won in Denver on Sunday to shoot up to No. 4 in the standings. He’ll start this week’s tournament at 6-under-par, just four shots behind Scheffler. Bradley has a solid chance to win the $25 million bonus at the end of this week in Atlanta.

“I would use Keegan Bradley as a great example of what the playoffs are,” Scheffler said Tuesday. “You can have somebody who has had not their best year, and then all of a sudden he turns it into what could be his best year or one of his best years on tour.”

At its core, what Scheffler is describing is not a season-long competition. All reasonable points, right? Why are we calling this a season-long race if that’s just not what it is?

It’s more complicated than that. The bone that Scheffler is picking with the Tour Championship is exactly why the format was changed to the “starting strokes” model in 2019. In the tour’s eyes, by giving strokes to each player based on their place in the standings at the beginning of the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup is balancing the responsibilities of being a season-long race and one that ends with one winner.

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The PGA Tour wanted the FedEx Cup to culminate with a single tournament and a single champion: The player who wins the Tour Championship also wins the FedEx Cup. It’s flashy. It’s (somewhat) easy to follow. The broadcast won’t need constant cuts to a dizzying graphic of the points system changing in real time. We can just watch a golf tournament that is simply just a golf tournament — but with $25 million on the line.

In its previous format, the Tour Championship effectively had two champions: the player who performed the best at East Lake, and the one who finished the points list on top. Most famously, this led to the scene in 2018 where fans swarmed Tiger Woods in the 18th fairway after he won the former, but Justin Rose won the latter.

Now, points freeze before the Tour Championship, and they turn into strokes: Scheffler is starting the week at 10 under, Xander Schauffele at 8 under, Hideki Matsuyama at 7 under, Bradley at 6 under and Ludvig Åberg at 5 under. Then Nos. 6-10 begin at 4 under. Nos. 11-15 are at 3 under; Nos. 16-20 at 2 under; No. 21-25 at 1 under and No. 26-30 at even par.

The FedEx sponsorship permeates the PGA Tour’s playoffs system. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

It’s still confusing. And Scheffler still isn’t into the whole thing. What does the FedEx Cup mean if it isn’t an accurate representation of what the PGA Tour calls it: a season-long race?

“I think we need a season-long race. I think the FedExCup has been really good for our tour and for the game. I think it’s something exciting to finish off the year,” Scheffler said. “Personally, I thought the old format, I didn’t have a ton of issues with. Personally, when I watched it I found it kind of interesting who was going to end up where, and I didn’t necessarily mind that the winner of the Tour Championship wasn’t the winner of the FedExCup. It provides a little less volatility, which is the negative.”

“In terms of the season-long race, I think, yeah, I would have deserved to win the season-long race with winning the amount of times I did and winning a playoff event, but at the end of the day then we get here and it would be like, well, the thing we worked all year to have a great finish on TV for is now over.”

Therein lies the problem: the importance of “the product.”

Scheffler gave a long, honest rant about the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup format Tuesday. Some of his answers were so long that Schauffele, next on the media schedule, had to wait his turn in the corner of the media tent for nearly 10 minutes, listening to Scheffler give his take. You can tell Scheffler has thought about this subject extensively. In doing so, the world No. 1 didn’t just identify the problem with the FedEx Cup playoffs. He pointed out exactly what is stalling the PGA Tour as an organization in general.

Scheffler’s recognition of why the Tour Championship doesn’t make sense — and his acceptance of that reason — is telling considering the state of the professional game. In the face of the LIV threat, the PGA Tour has been plagued with conflicting priorities tearing it in different directions. What do the players want? What do the fans want? What do the TV networks want? It doesn’t matter. None of it can happen without the sponsors — they keep the tour running, and they always win.

“Really, it comes down to the guys putting up the money for us to play with,” Scheffler said. “At the end of the day, we have sponsors for our tournaments, and they’re going to want it a certain way, and if FedEx putting up the kind of money they’re putting up at this event, we’re going to have to play it the way they want to play it. It’s just as simple as that.”

So despite sharing his opinion in recent weeks, Scheffler concluded his news conference by saying that going forward, he isn’t interested in sharing his opinion on this subject, at least in the public eye.

“All I can do is show up and compete and give my input where it’s necessary,” Scheffler said. “Sometimes sitting up here giving my input can get blown out of proportion.”

Scheffler knows where he can be valuable, and he knows where he can’t. That’s just where we are right now with the PGA Tour. And that says something.

(Top photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

Culture

‘Disgrace’ that Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson had to ‘crawl off’ train – ParalympicsGB chief

Published

1 day ago

August 28, 2024

Press Room

‘Disgrace’ that Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson had to ‘crawl off’ train – ParalympicsGB chief

ParalympicsGB chef de mission Penny Briscoe said it is an “absolute disgrace” that 11-time Paralympic gold medallist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson was forced to “crawl off” a train.

The former wheelchair racer arrived at London’s King’s Cross on Monday evening on a London North Eastern Railway (LNER) train but there was no one there to assist her. Baroness Grey-Thompson had booked assistance to help her off the 19.15 train from Leeds but missed it and took the 19.45 train instead.

She says she “had a contract” and should have been assisted off the train but after 20 minutes, no one came.

“So I decided that I would crawl off the train,” the 55-year-old told the BBC.

She continued: “Trains were meant to be step free by January 1 2020. It’s exhausting. I was really angry last night. I can just about do it (get off a train) but there are lots of other disabled people who can’t and would have been stuck until who knows when. In this day and age it’s not right.”

Briscoe, speaking from ParalympicsGB house in Paris, said: “It’s the lived experience of disabled people on a daily basis. It just doesn’t get reported.

“You should, as a disabled person, be able to get on and off a train and go about your daily living but the reality is far more difficult than that. We’re trying, as ParalympicsGB, to inspire a better world for disabled people. We want change and our athletes want change. There’s still so much to do, and we can’t let our foot off the pedal in terms of demanding that change and creating a more equitable society.”

An LNER spokesperson told the BBC it was investigating the incident and was “sorry to understand there was an issue”.

ParalympicsGB chef de mission Briscoe (Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images)

It is the first time Paris have hosted a Paralympics and Briscoe has said the City is “on an accessibility journey”.

“We know their bus services are a hundred per cent accessible,” she added. “The fleet of buses they’ve brought in for the athletes have six accessible wheelchair spaces on every bus. We know Paris have become more accessible because of the Games. Their metro system is a work in progress.

“The number of accessible bathrooms in hotels in Paris is still an issue, especially the older hotels. It’s one or two per hotel and that isn’t enough if you’re welcoming disabled athletes or spectators into the environment. It’s an accessibility challenge that is global. We had it in Tokyo.

“Paris’ objective in terms of legacy is to use the Games to create a more accessible society for Parisians and we have to support them on that journey, it doesn’t happen overnight.”

Baroness Grey-Thompson won a total of 16 Paralympic medals across the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m and 4x100m relay between 1988 and 2004. She is ParalympicsGB’s fourth most decorated athlete of all time.