Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Category: New York City

Posts about living and daily life in New York City.

  • Man Got Wedged Between Train and Platform at Union Square Station Last Night

    Last night there was an accident in the Union Square train station that required an ambulance and firefighters to respond.

    I first realized there was something going on when I was trying to board the train at a station further uptown on the same line.  An announcement was made in the station saying that the express trains would all be running on local tracks in the area around Union Square.  The express trains left on the usual track, but after leaving the station they switched over the local tracks, which seemed to make the trip take a lot longer.

    When the express train pulled up to the local platform in Union Square I made sure to pay attention to where I was stepping.  Sure enough, there was an almost foot long gap between the side of the train car and the platform.  It seemed dangerous.

    Emergency responders in Union Square station, where a man was wedged between the train and the platform.Right across from me there was a train sitting on the track in the center of Union Square station.  It was sectioned off from the rest of the station by yellow tape.  All but one of the stairs heading up to the next level were being sectioned off as well.  The area was also full of firefighters, medics, and, of course, spectators.

    Emergency responders in Union Square station, where a man was wedged between the train and the platform.

    I asked a couple that was standing there watching what had happened.  They told me that on the other side of the train from where we were, there’s a moving platform that closes the gap between the train car floor and the platform, for safety reasons.  It’s supposed to help prevent people from falling between the train and the platform.

    Emergency responders in Union Square station, where a man was wedged between the train and the platform.

    Well, somehow, a guy got ahead of himself and maybe didn’t wait for the platform to move, so he got himself wedged between the train and the platform.  He must have been stuck in there pretty good, too, because they couldn’t just retract the platform.  The firefighters I saw had hooks and crowbars to try to get him out.

    After the guy had been freed from the train, emergency responders disappeared quickly.

    I never saw the guy, but a few minutes after I got to the station, a firefighter told us the guy got out and he was ok.  He had remained conscious the entire time and had been talking to him.  So, everything ended well, but it was a really interesting scene, with the area packed tight with emergency responders and a whole train cordoned off.

    Emergency vehicles outside Union Square station.

    Emergency vehicles outside Union Square station.

    New York City’s subway system is by no means new.  It’s falling apart in a lot of places and the whole thing could use a facelift.  I’m sure you could tell that from the photos.

  • NYC Crazy: “You need to back the fuck up off me, bro.”

    Today, on the way home, I got another dose of crazy while using public transit.  While I was standing on the platform, waiting for my train to show up, I saw a coworker, so we started talking about some crazy stuff that had happened during the day.  When the train finally arrived, we snagged some open seats and talked until we got to my stop, Union Square.

    This is where things took a turn for the bizarre.  As the train pulled into the station and started to slow, I stood up and crossed to the side where the doors would open.  I gripped the rail with my right hand, the one that runs from the floor to the ceiling at the end of the row of seats, and I held my hat in my left hand.  There was a guy standing in front of me.  He was a black man, and well dressed.  When the train stopped, the doors didn’t open right away.  He looked over his shoulder at me.  Then he shifted a bit and turned half towards me and mumbled something.  I didn’t quite catch it so I just ignored him and put my hat on, so my hands would be free for the climb up the stairs from the platform into the station.

    When the doors opened and we started to get off the train he said something to me again, but I still couldn’t hear it over the noise, so I leaned a little closer to him and said, “Pardon?”

    “You need to back the fuck up off me, bro.”

    Uhhh.  Well, we were walking with the group of people all rushing for the stairs, so I didn’t give it too much mind.  It’s not like a person can expect to have a lot of free space in that situation.

    When we turned the corner of the rail and started up the stairs, the guy looked back and when he saw me, he jumped a bit, like he was surprised, and then bolted up the stairs, taking them three at a time.  When he hit the top, he took off at a dead run through the station.

    The woman next to me gave me a questioning look.  I shrugged and said, “Crazy fucker.  He thought I was following him or standing too close to him or something.”  She just smiled and shook her head, as if she’d seen it before herself.  I suppose she had.  New York City seems to be half full of crazy people at any given time.

    I understand that people have a desire for personal space, and that desire is magnified when living in a congested city, constantly surrounded by people, but this guy’s reaction was unreasonable given the circumstances.  I wonder what exactly set him off this time?  I was dressed in business casual, chatting with another person in business casual, and I didn’t act oddly when I positioned myself to exit the train at a stop, so it’s not realistic for him to have thought I was a potential robber.  It’s also not reasonable to expect to have no one behind you when exiting a train at a station, or when climbing the stairs to the platform.

    In any case, this just reinforces the fact that when you’re in New York City you have to stay aware of the people around you.  You never know who might snap, or when, or why.

  • Do You Have An Unlimited?

    metrocard_skirt-435x326Twice now, on my way home, I’ve passed through the turn-styles at Union Square and had a guy ask me that question.  In fact, I’m pretty sure it was the same guy, though I could be wrong, since the last time this happened before tonight was about a week ago.

    So, what’s it mean?  Well, when you ride the mass transit in New York City you have to use an MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) MetroCard, which is what the skirt in the photo is made out of.  People are creative aren’t they?  Anyway, you can get these things and add amounts to them and use them until they run out, or you can buy a weekly or monthly unlimited ride card, which saves you money if you travel frequently.  Unlimited cards are a lot more convenient too because you get them and then you just don’t have to worry about what your balance is, or when you need to add more cash to it.  You just use it until it expires and then you toss it and get a new one.

    So, the problem with some guy asking people if they have an unlimited card is that he wants you to swipe it on the turn-style so he can get a free ride.  On the surface, this may not seem like a bad thing, especially if he’s had a bad day and lost his somewhere, and can’t afford his trip home.  It’s also possible that he’s scamming people and never buys a card and is trying to get a free ride all the time.  That’s bullshit.  We pay, so should he.  Or, another possibility is that he’s an undercover cop working with a partner that will write out tickets to people who let him use their card.  Any way you look at it, it’s not the best idea to let a person get a free ride on your card.  It’s just not worth the risk, or worth letting someone else be a cheapskate while you pay for what you get.

    Funny story about this though.  I saw a whole family of about 6 people, obviously tourists, all use the same card to go through the turn-style.  They should be glad there weren’t any cops around.

    (Photo credit: Subwayblogger via edstern on Flickr.)

  • New York City Express Train Gymnastics and Dancing

    A night or two ago I was on the express train, either the 4 or 5 (they run the same track), heading to Union Square, and this guy announced that he was going to give us a performance.  He reached into a plastic bag on the floor and turned on his radio.  Then he did some gymnastics and dancing using the bars in the train that you’re meant to hold onto.  I was a bit worried that he might accidentally kick someone in the head, maybe me since I was sitting so close.  He pulled it off without incident though, and it was definitely entertaining after a long day, so when he asked for a handout afterwards, quite a few people gave him some change.  I gave him a dollar.

    I never hand out money to beggars, because it annoys me and there are plenty of social programs to help them get a job, but I don’t mind handing out a little cash to someone that’s working for it, even if it’s just a minute long show on a subway train.

  • I Finally Met New York City Crazy And It Was Old And Wielded A Cane

    Yesterday was Black Friday, a day notorious for being a retail hell, with people going crazy over sales.  The shops weren’t the only place that crazy was breaking through to the surface though.  After a long day at work, I was on my way home.  I had just gotten back downtown and was waiting at a bus stop to transfer onto a cross-town bus for the last part of my trip.  When the bus pulled up, a few people got off and then a woman went up the steps and started dropping change into the fare box, so I followed behind her, ready to dip my card into the machine.  When the woman ahead of me finished, I dipped my card and paid my fare and right as I did, a woman with a cane pushed past the first lady boarding the bus and started shouting, “Getting off the bus!  Getting off the bus!”

    I stepped back as far as I could to give her room to get by.  Now, I assume this woman was nuts, because instead of stepping past and going down the stairs, she spread her arms out and pushed up against me, then hit me with her cane repeatedly, all the while shouting, “Getting off the bus!  Getting off the bus!”  She didn’t continue on.  She just stood there looking at me, whacking my legs with her cane.

    Not being in the mood to be slowly bludgeoned to death by an old woman with a cane, I pushed her away from me and said, “Get off the fucking bus then.”  She started yelling at me and hit me in the arm with her cane.

    Right away, the bus driver said, “Hey, why you messin’ with dat old woman?”

    My first thought was, ‘Are you fucking serious?’ and I said to him, “Because the bitch hit me with her cane.”

    The driver replied, “She’s trying to get off the bus.”

    I told him, “That doesn’t give her an excuse to start hitting me with her cane.”

    The driver said, “Well, you should have let her get off the bus before you came up.”

    So I said, “I was already up here and paid.  I backed up and gave her plenty of space.  She had plenty of room to get down.”

    He said, “Well, you could have gotten back down and waited for her to get off.”

    At this point, I’d reached the end of my patience, with the driver being a moron and the woman still yelling at my back so I said, “Fuck no.  She had enough room.  She can go fuck herself and so can you.”

    Then I walked back into the bus to find a seat.  As I was walking away, the woman yelled at me, “You asshole!”

    So, I looked back over my shoulder and said, “Ya, fuck you!”  Then I sat down and waited.

    It took quite a while for other people to start coming on the bus.  I guess the old woman was making a big show up there.  The buses are double length, with a swivel section in the middle, so I don’t know what, if anything, more was said.  Maybe she was being extra slow getting off the bus as her final act of retaliation for not putting up with her craziness.

    The next guy to get on the bus came and sat down across the aisle from me and said, “Hey yo, I saw that whole shit go down.  That bitch was crazy.  Fuck that driver.  He made an issue out of that shit because of the color of your complexion and that old lady’s complexion, tryin’ to make that shit all racial.  That woman had no business hitting you with her cane.  I saw it all man.”

    Then a lady sat in front of me and said that the old woman is lucky she did that to someone with an even temper, because if I had been a “bad” person, I might have done something nasty to her.  She said the woman must have a problem with her head.

    It’s true.  You never know what kind of person you’re talking to or what they’re capable of, especially in New York City, where crazy people are so common.  I’m not going to beat up someone that’s obviously mentally imbalanced, but I’m not going to stand there and let them assault me and then just smile about it either.

    To clarify what the guy that sat across from me was saying, the driver was black and so was the woman with the cane.  I don’t know if it was a racial issue, but it seems odd to me that the driver just automatically assumed I was at fault.  He didn’t seem to have a problem with the first woman who got on the bus, who was also black and in the old woman’s way.  It was just me.

    So, I guess you could say this was a double dose of crazy, crazy crazy and crazy racism crazy.  Like I said to the guy that pointed it out to me, though, this is just another day in New York City.

  • The Homeless in New York City

    A homeless man and his makeshift 'home' in New York City.

    New York City has always had homeless people.  Ever since I can remember I’ve seen homeless people in the streets here in New York.  They used to be a lot more obvious.  You’d see them laid up in doorways or in front of store windows.  Since then, the police have become more active in rounding them up and sending them to homeless shelters.  I imagine the guy in the photo above, who was setting up a ‘home’ for himself in a parking lot is no longer there.

    You might wonder why these people would choose to live on the street if there are shelters set up for them, but I’ve heard horror stories about these shelters.  To start with, there are only so many beds available, so you have to be there early to claim one.  You also can’t have anything with any value, because it’s common to be robbed in these shelters, or worse.  I imagine the potential violence a person could be subjected to is much worse for homeless women.  In a way, it’s safer for them to try to find a place in the streets to hole up for the night.  Not that they’re immune to being robbed or abused in the street.

    I can’t help but wonder how drastically the level of homelessness has increased given the current economic problems the country as a whole is facing.

  • Crazy People on NYC Trains

    Since I returned to NYC, I haven’t had the distinct pleasure of encountering any crazy people on the trains yet, but I haven’t given up hope.  It’s wildly entertaining, as long as they don’t turn violent, and there’s definitely no short supply of weirdos here.

    In case you weren’t aware just how crazy they can get, I’ve pulled a few samples from YouTube, for your viewing pleasure:

    (Warning: It’s not likely that any of these are suitable to be watched at work or around small children.)

    On an early Sunday morning. The girl taking the video was on her way home from the club. At one point, she calls the girl taking the video a whore.
    This woman sings a little song about lesbians and “batty boys”.
    I think the caption on the video itself says it all.
    Sounds like she really doesn’t like her mother, especially her breasts and her ass.
    Crazy guy just acting weird.
    Guy talking to himself, almost gets hit by the train as it enters the station.

    Yup. It seems like this sort of craziness is part of the daily commute.  I’ve seen some weirdos, but not on the train yet.  My favorite was a meth head that was standing still and kept leaning forward until she almost fell over, then jerking back upright, over and over in the middle of the sidewalk near Union Square.  I can’t wait til I have a chance to upload some videos of my own to share!

  • Unveiling Christmas Window Displays (Bloomingdales)

    Rolling out the red carpet at Bloomingdales.

    I happened to be up by Bloomingdales today and they were literally rolling out the red carpet.

    Red curtains covering the windows at Bloomingdales.

    They also had red curtains covering the windows.

    I remembered hearing something on the news about Christmas displays being revealed at another store and they made it come across as a big deal.  I’m surprised that in a city like New York, something as trivial as the unveiling of Christmas window displays is newsworthy.  Of course, since it is such a big deal, I’m curious to know what’s behind those curtains myself.  I suppose I’ll see the next time I pass through.

    Some people aren’t quite as patient as I am though.  There was some guy walking back and forth.  I thought he was talking to himself at first but then I realized he was holding what looked like one of those Flip video cameras.  Maybe he was using UStream or something, or just recording.  I don’t know.  Anyway, he tried to get in behind the curtain and got shooed away.  He was laughing about it into the camera, saying he got busted trying to peek in.  Later, I swear I saw the same guy on the TMZ segment on Fox 5.  The guy I saw on the street looked just like the chubby white guy on the show.  Could be coincidence.  Who knows?

  • Sometimes It Pays To Dig In The Trash

    Sometimes It Pays To Dig In The Trash

    Just yesterday I saw a copy of Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson lying on the street in East Harlem. I’d have picked it up if it weren’t wet from the rain. That’s a damn good book. I gave a copy to my wife as a gift one time. If you haven’t read it, it’s worth it, and it’s a short read so you don’t have to spend a lot of time with it, just a lot of time thinking about what it says!

    So, what’s today’s book find? Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests; Is America Breaking Apart?; and Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination. The last one will probably be the most interesting of the three, to me anyway. It covers interesting topics like “From Ashes to Cyborgs: The Era of Reconstruction (1945 – 1960)” and “”Gotta Catch ‘Em All”: The Pokemonization of America”. Is America breaking apart? is a discussion about American society and how it adapts to overcome social problems. That should be an interesting read.

    Anyhow, that’s $67.75 worth of books (before taxes) that was just sitting on the street, heading for the city landfill if no one claimed them, and those are just the ones that we picked up. Thinking about it, I should’ve taken them all and put the rest on eBay. Not everything that’s sitting on the curb is really garbage, especially when it’s a book.

    Of course, a book is about the only thing I’ll take from the curb. I’m not about to wear clothes from off the curb. That’s just gross. Now, let’s just hope these books didn’t have any bed bugs in them. If you haven’t heard, there’s a huge infestation of bed bugs in New York City right now, everywhere from private homes to public schools to 5 star hotels.

    Disclaimer: Clicking the links in this post will take you to Amazon.com shopping pages. The links are affiliated, meaning I get a cut if you buy them from Amazon.

  • A Simple Solution To Avoid Having To Repeat Yourself

    A solution to avoid having to repeat yourself.

    My mother’s apartment building has a security desk at the door, which is manned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, etc., etc.  Since there’s always a guard sitting there, rather than taking the time to check their mail by finding their key and opening the box, people constantly asked if the mailman had come by yet.  This building houses (rough guess) at least 300 people.  Now imagine if, say, 50 of those people asked you every day if the mailman had come by yet.  Irritating, right?

    So, one of the guards came up with this simple solution.  She wrote the question on a piece of paper, tacked it on the wall, and then created a reversible Yes/No sign to hang on the wall.

    The only thing that reduces the effectiveness of this solution is that this building houses a group of people who are blind, and I don’t see any braille on that paper.