Letter 3: On Subways

New York subway

In this strange new reality that I’d like to call life-after-COVID but unfortunately is still very much life-within-COVID, I’m grateful for the silver linings that have spun themselves into existence, one of which, for me, has been the lack of a daily commute. That those substantial chunks of time spent on the subway have been replaced with rolling out of bed at far too late an hour and commuting the few feet to my desk has suited me just fine.

In more recent months, I’ve ventured back onto the subway, not yet traveling into work but just running the odd errand here and there. While I value the time that working from home permits me to save, I’ve been reminded of and reminiscing about underground travel.

Perhaps it’s my predisposition to both sentimentality and melancholy, but to my mind, subways have always held great aesthetic appeal. The strange combination of their futuristic quality – electrified underground transportation – and their often aged and crumbling reality – dark, damp pits in the recesses of the metropolis – has given subway travel its slightly dystopian flavour. Pummeling through the dark, encapsulated by a metal tube. The clandestine nature of a snaking network of movement and activity below the city’s surface. Metal, grime, electricity.

On a social level, they provide a tableau of the 21st century, strangers pressed up against each other during rush hour but feigning complete obliviousness to the existence of those around them. No pretense for interaction, a litany of unspoken rules, the small but present potential for danger brought on by enclosed spaces and barrierless platforms.

Berlin U-Bahn

During a visit a few years ago to the National Museum of American History, I came across the exhibit on power machinery and reacted to it in the way I imagine an eight-year-old boy might, awestruck by might of industrial engineering. Artefacts that were particularly enthralling: the steam-powered pistons that generated electricity for the country’s subway systems in the early 20th century, metal behemoths that vaulted up what was probably a storey or two and descended the same length beneath the floor through a glass viewing portal. This experience mirroring the small thrill of standing on a platform, enveloped by a gust of wind as the train roars into the station.

When travelling abroad, subways are my preferred mode of transportation, both because of their obvious practical benefits (zero social interaction, the certainty of a path on fixed tracks) and because they often capture the character of their respective cities.  

The New York subway, iconic in its dilapidation.

London’s Piccadilly line where the automated announcements sound suspiciously like Joanna Lumley (Sweetie darling!).

The garish colours and sharp geometry of the tiles lining Berlin’s modernist U-Bahn stations.

The older of the Paris subway cars that require passengers to unlock the doors themselves.   

They are a way to pass the time, people watch, day dream, eavesdrop, simply escape as you travel aimlessly and yet never really go astray.  

Of all the qualities of the subway, perhaps the most perfect is the sound. There is a section of the subway line near the house where I grew up that travels above ground for a short distance. At night, the stillness makes space for the sound of the rhythmic clatter along the tracks, lulling the city to sleep.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.