Tuesday, September 16, 2014

“It’s a big city, Somebody’s going to drop something.”

"And somebody, if the item is sufficiently treasured, is going to try to pick it up. These are the fishermen of the (NYC) subway system, cobbling together homemade instruments to pluck items from the tracks and release them to a grateful city."
They have lifted bikes and basketballs.

One worker, Bob Devine, recently recovered the detritus of a lover’s quarrel: a bag of clothes hurled beside a third rail in the Bronx during an argument.

“We’re O.K. now,” the man told Mr. Devine, repacking his jeans.

For as long as there have been subway tracks, New Yorkers — haggard, perpetually busy and forever jostling for space — have been dropping things on them.
But in recent years, the workers say, the rigors of the job have multiplied, with smartphone proliferation and in-station Wi-Fi producing a more distracted ridership and sending more phones tumbling to the tracks.

“That’s job security,” said Mr. Devine, a 30-year veteran of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

There is the occasional aggrieved passenger, chafing at the response time if a crew is traveling from another call at a far-off station. But almost universally, riders are appreciative. A few have tried to tip the workers, though they say they have never accepted.

“A little hug, we take,” Mr. Geraghty said. “I usually tell them, if it’s a man: ‘Take your wife out. Have a good time on us.’ ”

8 comments:

ricpic said...

Haggard, perpetually busy New Yorkers. What a joke. There are more layabouts per square mile in NYC than in Peoria, guaranteed. This is true of any "world city" by the way. Reminds me of the opening of Celine's Journey To The End Of The Night in which he observes an accident on the street in Paris and is stunned as first hundreds and then thousands gather to gawk. What were they all doing before the accident happened and how come they don't have something to get back to, he thinks and then exclaims "Bien sur" (but of course) they were all hanging around, at their apartment windows, in the streets, waiting for something to happen, something to break the boredom. That's NYC to a tee.

Michael Haz said...

This story makes me fell good about New York, not that that matters, but it does.

I haven't spend much time there at all, but I have a perception that New York is a cold, angry, miserable place, populated with pushy, obnoxious people. Maybe that perception was formed by television, and by the students I met who were from NYC when I was an undergraduate.

Friends and a relative who routinely travel to NYC for business and tourism tell me that the people they have met there are nearly without exception happy, kind, and friendly, very much like the man in the story who seems happy to be of service to others, and doesn't need tips, just a nice thanks.

Maybe I need to go there for a few weeks.

The Dude said...

I should have dropped my ex- on the third rail.

But I'm not bitter.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Firemen get to retrieve cats from trees for cute little girls and lovable old ladies.

Or maybe that's just a myth.

KCFleming said...

I said you wanna be droppin' somethin'
You got to be droppin' somethin'
I said you wanna be droppin' somethin'
You got to be droppin' somethin'

It's too high to get over (yeah, yeah)
Too low to get under (yeah, yeah)
You're stuck in the third rail (yeah, yeah)
Cuz that pain is thunder (yeah, yeah)

ricpic said...

Pogo has finally lost it!

Keep that closet available for me, Pogo, that's all that counts.

KCFleming said...

Plenty of room here, plenty of room.

sakredkow said...

I haven't spend much time there at all, but I have a perception that New York is a cold, angry, miserable place, populated with pushy, obnoxious people.

Every time I go I'm more impressed by how friendly people are. I remember some horrific things from 70s and 80s though. It's a much nicer place than it was then.