Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York [Paperback]

Randy Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2004

Since the doors of the first subway train opened in 1904, New Yorkers and tourists alike have been fascinated, amused, amazed, repelled and bewildered by the world-within-a-world that lies beneath the city.

Now, as the subway celebrates its centennial anniversary, the creator of The New York Times's award-winning "Tunnel Vision" column leads us on an extended tour of this storied subterranean land, revealing:

* Its inhabitants: the Tango Man, the traveling magician, Mayor Bloomberg
* Its wildlife: the subway-riding pigeons, the Fulton Street cat, the blind mules
* Its customs, taboos and secret histories: door blocking, leg spreading, pole hugging, even, yes, token sucking
* Its government: the sheriff of Grand Central, the Ethel Merman of the shuttle, the motorman who drove the last No. 1 train beneath the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
* Tips for the first-time traveler: how to get a seat, how to get a date, the fine art of "pre-walking"

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Love it, loathe it or simply view it as the most efficient way to get from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side, the New York City subway system is an urban wonder: running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Kennedy says it boasts 468 stations, 656 miles of passenger tracks and 6,400 cars, which might carry up to 200 passengers each. It also offers New Yorkers and visitors alike "the gift of proximity"=an "enforced neighborhood" that makes New York "more... cohesive than a city its size ever had a right to be." So argues Kennedy, author of the New York Times column "Tunnel Vision," in the introduction to this collection of three years of his musings on train buffs, poetically inspired token booth operators, singles cars, token suckers, subway performers, track workers and underground fauna. Thematically organized into sections like "Underground Government" and "Wildlife," the travelogue of the world beneath the city offers a wealth of fascinating sketches, such as the A line's pigeon stowaways in Far Rockaway, the misanthropic comic at 53rd and Fifth and the man who built a replica of a motorman's cab in his bedroom ("When I show it to people, right away they know I'm not married," he says ruefully). Trivia abounds: the E train is the best train to sleep on; some of the subway's early construction was thanks to blind mules; 27 of the retired Redbird cars form an artificial reef off Delaware; and a recent Lost Property Unit auction offered 285 beepers, five violins and a box of tambourines. 7 b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“On every page of this handsomely-written collection, Randy Kennedy has taught me something new. Everything I cherish about the subways is here: the underground community of solitude, the performers, the lunatics, the sinister desperadoes, the professionals who move us through those tunnels in speed and safety, along with the abiding mysteries. If these pieces don't get the remaining subwayphobes out of their stalled autos and into the city's greatest daily marvel, nothing will."
- Pete Hamill

"...to read his notes from the underground (and the elevated) is to know that Kennedy crafts city stories on a par with the marvelous Joseph Mitchell's....he discovers Gotham at its scrappiest--the most American place in America.. A"
- Entertainment Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (February 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312324340
• ISBN-13: 978-0312324346
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #677,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Professional & Technical > Transportation > Mass Transit

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tunnel vision, March 27, 2004

By 

Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York (Paperback)

Randy Kennedy's "Tunnel Vision" column was the highlight of my New York Times subscription for nearly three years. It would be hokey to say that I learned more from the Times in Tuesday's Metro section than I did from every other article, op-ed and feature throughout the rest of the week. But it's also true.

I love New York City, and I love the subway. It wasn't always that way -- I voluntarily fled the tri-state area at age 17 to go to college in points south, and later in points midwest. I came running back to the city eight years later, a victim of the fact that Toledo's bus system stops running at 5 PM and on Sundays, and am never leaving again. The subway is now the backbone of my NYC experience. For $70 a month I can take unlimited rides from the southernmost corners of Brooklyn, all the way to Union Square or the Upper East Side. Without having to save 15% or more on car insurance from GEICO.

Every weekly "Tunnel Vision" column, several of which are reprinted for this book (sadly without the original photography) is either educational or, more importantly, hilarious. The most memorable columns discuss those who opt to spend their lives in the subway: as employees, performers, or, sometimes, residents. Several columns are also devoted to the rats and pigeons (if there is a difference between the two) who are an integral part of the city's 468 stations -- even more so than the vanishing token booth clerk.

No contemporary book about the city would be complete without a collection of columns about 9/11. Kennedy interview the motorman who drove under the towers as the first plane struck. He inspects the damage done to the tunnels after the buildings fell. He even found the man whose job it was to update the official subway map as each line reopened.

Everyone has a subway story and, of course, not all of them could be covered in this book. I've love to know more, for example, about the group of men on the Broadway line who burst into cars and announce "Do you know what time it is? It's doo-wop time!". I would like to know why, while riding uptown on the Lexington Avenue line after seeing the final "Lord of the Rings" picture, one of my traveling companions was assaulted by a man dressed as a horse, who proceeded to gallop away down the car. I would even, heavens preserve us, like to know more about the most hated man in New York City: the guy who recorded the 200-decibel "Stand clear of the closing doors, please!" announcement that plagues the newest cars on the IRT lines and the L train. Does he ever ride the train, cover his ears at every station stop, and mourn, "What have I done? What have I done?"

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book About New York, Its Subway & Wonderful People, February 2, 2004

By 

Paul Kronenberg (Brooklyn, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York (Paperback)

Randy Kennedy's book is a wonderful compilation of the weekly articles he wrote in his "Tunnel Vision" column, which appeared in the New York Times. Randy's perception of the people of New York does not suffer from a narrow "tunnel vision". He comes from a farm town in Texas, population 1400, and yearned to see people he didn't know. Well he got his wish and has carefully observed the strangers who bring life to the New York City subway. I must admit to a bias, as I am one of the characters that he wrote about, but the book is really about New York City and the way in which the subway has been the daily crucible which has formed the New York persona. In the columns, some of the people Randy sought out and spoke with usually go unseen and unnoticed by the general public. He spoke with and observed subway track workers, motorman, subway musicians, transit police, emergency medical workers, conductors, passengers who lean on poles or block doorways, people who fell in love on a subway platform, subway evangelists and so many more people who press against you every day.2004 is the 100th anniversary of the opening of the New York subway. There will opportunities to appreciate the beauty of the stations and to ride some old subway cars. But Randy's book is not really about the hardware of the subways. It's a celebration of the software, the people who ride it, work in it, entertain us in it, live in it and are fascinated by it. I highly recommend it to any New Yorker who rides the subway and has lost the wonder of it all.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful smart, funny, and in depth emotional read, March 2, 2004

By 

John J. Bedard (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York (Paperback)

I just picked up this book this past weekend and have not been able to put it down since. This is an amazing collection of articles from an amazing author. Arcticles can be loaded with interesting facts about the subway, funny amusing notes about the people that interact or work on the subway, emotional in depth examinations of the multitude of characters, actors, and preformers who inhabit the subway. All together it is one of best, most interesting books I have pick up in recent years. I highly recommend it to anyone that lives in NYC, lives near NYC, has thought about living in NYC, or even nows where NYC is!