The New York City Subways

So many things have drastically changed since I lived in NYC, but maybe nothing has changed more dramatically than the subways. In the 1977-82 era when I lived here, the subways were dirty, mostly not air conditioned, smelling of urine, and there were frequent service outages, track fires, and the people related hazards like muggings, panhandling, street hassles, etc.



As I arrived in NYC on the bus after missing the train in Boston, I walked around Times Square--another dramatic change. Then I was going to hop on the train to get to my hotel on the Upper West Side. I went down to grab the No. 1 local to 79th Street--the train arrived in five minutes (this was 1:30 am). It was clean, air conditioned, and full of people! Earlier when I used to come home late, there would be almost no one on the trains and you could end up waiting 1/2 hour or more.

What an amazing transformation. I'm kind of glad it happened after I left--maybe I would have never left...
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