James Danziger presents a short history of subway photos, starting with photos of sleeping Japanese salarymen on trains and then moving to Walker Evans, Bruce Davidson, etc. Some of my favorite subway photos are from the Moscow subway...Stalin look-a-likes, huge guitars, and many sleeping people.
Nice TV ad for the Madrid Metro...a view of the city from underground.
I love the way she leans every so slightly to the side as the train passes.
A Metaphor for Something, part 1 in a series
In a stairway leading down to the subway platform of the N/Q Canal St. stop, a pair of doors face each other on a landing. About every three days for more than a year, I've seen graffiti painted on both doors. Each time, the day after the graffiti appears, so does a fresh coat of cream-colored paint. By my count, those doors are covered in at least 100 coats of paint and must be more than an inch thicker than they were last year.
Update: Probably looks something like this if you cut it open. (thx, emmet) Or this.
Subway map geeks rejoice:
Transit Maps of the World is the first and only comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth. Using glorious, colorful graphics, Mark Ovenden traces the history of mass transit-including rare and historic maps, diagrams, and photographs, some available for the first time since their original publication. Transit Maps is the graphic designer's new bible, the transport enthusiast's dream collection, and a coffee-table essential for everyone who's ever traveled in a city.
Found out about this from Boing Boing, where Cory has a quick review.
A tshirt featuring a subway map representation of the human gastrointestinal system. (thx, sami)
Update: Oh, and I plumb forgot the Threadless Metropolitan Cardiac Authority tshirt. (thx, sam)
The NYC Dept of Transportation is introducing compass decals to be placed on sidewalks at subway exits to help orient disembarking passengers. I thought I'd posted a link about this idea before on kottke.org, but the only reference I can find is a discussion about compasses on manhole covers. (thx, erik)
Update: Aha, here's the entry. John has more.
Timelapse animated map of the NYC subway that shows the order of the subway lines being built. See also the history of the NYC subway, photos of the IRT's first stations, and if you really don't have anything else to do for the next hour or so, an extensive trove of historical NYC subway maps.
New publicly released data shows that some NYC subway lines are exceeding maximum capacity, both in terms of the number of riders per car and the number of trains per track.
Designer Eddie Jabbour is on a mission to make a new NYC subway map. The NY Times recently had a piece of Jabbour's efforts. The new map reminds some of Massimo Vignelli's 1972 classic map: too abstract for its own good. Here's Vignelli talking about his map in an outtake from Helvetica and some background on the controversy surrounding it.
The top 11 underground transit systems in the world. The London Tube is #1, NYC is #7, Hong Kong is #10. (via rob)
New Google Maps features
Not sure when these features were added, but Google Maps now displays public transportation stops (NYC subway, the T in Boston, the L in Chicago) and building outlines for metropolitan areas. Here's a shot of the West Village in NYC:
Tiny but useful improvements. (thx, meg)
Walking through the Union Square subway station is like playing the Star Wars arcade game. I go through that station every single day and I never noticed that. For shame!
Photos by Bill Sullivan of people going through NYC subway turnstiles. I love the moments of recognition depicted here. (via dooce)
Photos of patterns taken from public transport vehicles. Gotta make it ugly enough to hide the stains, I guess.
Wesley Autrey jumped in front of an oncoming subway train to save the life of a man who had fallen on the tracks. I read this before I left for work yesterday and imagined the scenario when my train pulled into the station. I'd hope I would do the same thing as Mr. Autrey did, but that train moves awfully fast...
2007 trend maps
A pair of trend maps for 2007, both based on subway maps. The top one depicts the top online companies/brands & how they're connected while the bottom one deals with ideas (with the River of Consciousness standing in for the Thames).
Both maps were found in this article about internet predictions in 2007. I don't know about you, but I find these types of maps fun to look at, but completely inscrutable informationally speaking. Surely there's a more enlightening way to present this information than in Tube map form.
Santas riding the NYC subway in 1987. Seeing graffiti on the subway always amazes me.
Prewalking: walking down the subway platform so that when you board the train, you'll be close to the exit or transfer point when the train reaches its destination.
Update: Photo of the Way Out -> tube map, which marks which side of the train to exit from and where exits/transfers are for each station. (thx, tom)
Update: Exit maps are available for the Toronto and Toyko subways. (thx, adam)
Where do Craigslist's Missed Connections occur in NYC? Gawker has the breakdown by location and subway line.
A paleontology grad student, while idly inspecting a bronze cast of a dinosaur skeleton on the wall of the subway station, notices that the dinosaur in question was not cannibalistic as previously believed. Man, good science can be done *anywhere*.
Michael Frumin tried to get some NYC subway data from the New York City Transit Authority through Freedom Of Information Legislation for a project he wanted to do, but they denied his requests. "Given a database of anonymized Metrocard 'swipes' over some small period of time, Frumin imagined that a multitude of explorations could be embarked upon. Below is a concept sketch for one specific project idea -- a visualization, for each station in the system, of the range of locations in the city that people travel to from that area." Nice Minard-esque prototype map.
Taste of the New York Subway System is a directory of NYC restaurants organized by subway stop. Wow.
Morning subway demographics in NYC. Early morning blue collar workers give way to late morning white collar workers. (via capn)
Old 70s song about the subway from Sesame Street. This went totally over my head as a kid, but as a NYC resident, it's awesome. On the subway. Subway!
Set of photos depicting NYC in the 80s. Everytime I see pictures of subway cars covered with graffiti, I marvel at how clean the cars are now.
Even native New Yorkers are often disoriented when exiting subway stations, so why doesn't the MTA print a little direction indicator on the pavement near the exits? Better yet, download the stencils provided here and let's do it ourselves.
Representation of the London Tube map if the stations were sponsored by products or companies. I love the Pizza Hutney, Upministry of Sound, and iPoddington stops. Rather DFWesque. (via bb)
Dorian Lynskey "[charted] the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map", much like Simon Patterson's The Great Bear. (gs)
Responses to People on the 6 Train That Hopefully Convey My Feelings in a Polite Way. "Thank you for so gently cupping my ass when we came to a stop."
Update: The author of this list has a blog with some quick-witted observations of NYC. (thx, robert)
Subways and buses are still running in NYC, but the Transport Workers Union has called for a partial strike that will start on private bus lines and if no agreement has been reached, will spread elsewhere.
Wow, an interactive transit map for NYC. I haven't kept up with all the Google/Yahoo Maps subway mashups, but this one is pretty impressive. Click start and end points and it tells you which subway to board and how long the trip will take, including walking time.
Watch the kids get into a good old fashioned font fight in the comments about fake signs on the NYC subway. Don't miss your chance to read "it's Helvetica, bitches" in a context where it makes complete sense. (thx, j guns)
Hong Kong wrap-up
Ok, one last wrap-up post about Hong Kong and then we're focusing on the matter at hand in Bangkok (short summary: having a great time so far here). So, three things I really liked about/in Hong Kong and then some miscellaneous stuff.
1. Octopus cards. I really can't say enough about how cool these cards are. Wikipedia provides a quickie definition: "The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used for electronic payment in online or offline systems in Hong Kong." It's a pay-as-you go stored value card...you put $100 bucks on it and "recharge" the card when it's empty (or when it's even more than empty...as long as your balance is positive when you use it, you can go into a HK$35 deficit, which you pay when you recharge the card). You can use it on pratically any public transportation in the city: buses, trains, MTR, trams, ferries, etc. It works with vending machines, at 7-Eleven, McDonald's, Starbucks, and the supermarket. You don't need to take it out of your wallet or purse to use it, just hold it near the sensor. Your card is not tied to your identity...there's no PIN, you can pay cash, they don't need to know your credit card number, SS#, or anything like that. They even make watches and mobile phones that have Octopus built it, so your phone (or watch) becomes your wallet. Mayor Bloomberg, if you're listening, NYC needs this.
2. The on-train maps for the MTR. Here's a (sort of blurry) photo (taken with my cameraphone):
The current stop blinks red -- in this case, Tsim Sha Tsui (blinking not shown, obviously) -- with the subsequent stops lit in red. If the next stop connects to another line, that line blinks as well. A small green arrow indicates which direction you're traveling and there's an indictor (not shown) which lights up either "exit this side" or "exit other side" depending which way the doors are going to open. Great design.
3. Muji! We located one in Langham Place (an uber-story mall) in Mong Kok (for reference, the store in Silvercord in TST listed on their site has closed). Muji is kind of hard to describe if you've never been to one of their stores before (and if you live in the US, you probably haven't because they're aren't any, aside from a small outpost in the MoMA Store). Adam (see previous link) roughly translates the name as "No Brand, Good Product", so you can see why I like it so much. They sell a wide variety of products (take a look at their Japanese-only online store for an idea of what they carry); at the Monk Kok store, they had snacks & drinks, some furniture (made out of sturdy cardboard), their signature pens and notebooks (a display of the former was completely surrounded by a moat of teenaged girls, so much so that I didn't get a chance to test any of the super-thin pens), some clothes (including some great pants that they didn't have in anything approaching my size), dishes, cosmetics, bath products, and containers of all shapes, sizes, and uses. I wanted one of everything, but settled for a couple of shirts (with absolutely no logos or markings, inside or out, to indictate that they are Muji products).
m1. Big Buddha, worth the trip. It'll better when the tram from Tung Chung and back is built, although then you'll miss the boat ride (fun) and the bus ride (harrowing at times).
m2. The Peak Tram. Touristy, but also worth the trip. The weird/ugly anvil-shaped building at the top is currently under construction, so the views will be much better when its finished. Go at night for the best view.
m3. The view from the waterfront in Kowloon of the Hong Kong skyline at night is one of the best in the world.
m4. Speaking of, Hong Kong is a night-time city. All the buildings are lit up, there's a nightly light show at 8pm (think Laser Floyd without the music), and buildings that appear monolithic in the daytime transform at night, either by disappearing into the darkness while leaving a graceful trace of their outline or acting as huge screens for projected light shows. Reminded me of Vegas in this respect.
m5. We had tea in the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel (go for the view, it's incredible) and the live band played the theme song from The Lord of the Rings. I tried to get a recording of it with my phone (iPod was back in our hotel room), but it didn't turn out so well. Very weird; we were cracking up and expecting the theme from Superman or even 3's Company to follow.
m6. Oh, I'm sure there's more, so I'll add it here as I think of stuff.
Dateline: Hong Kong
We've arrived in Hong Kong, over-stuffed on airplane food and our bodies have no idea what time it is. Apparently there's a time change of some sort. (Why was I not told about this?!??!) On the way over, in between naps, stuffing my face, and shooting withering looks (in my imagination) at the jerk business man seated to my right, I observed on the TV screen that we were passing directly over the north pole (geo, not magnetic). This seems a bit crazy, but the earth isn't flat and it spins, so you've got to go north to go south.
Even though we seem to have lost a few days to travel and international date lines, we set out undeterred this morning to explore the area around our hotel in Kowloon. The city didn't seem to be awake as early as we were, but we saw plenty of places to head back to later in the day and week. And people are doing tai chi in parks all over the place, wherever the mood strikes them. Our hotel and the promenade nearby both have free tai chi classes some mornings; we're definitely going to do that one of these mornings. We also saw an impromptu musical performance and fan dancing in Kowloon Park near the Chinese Garden.
After walking for a bit in the market areas around Shanghai & Temple Streets, we purchased Octopus cards and hopped on the subway, which we've been told is one of the best in the world. Fast, clean, and the signage is great. I'll try to remember to take a photo of the on-train maps with the direction arrows...very handy.
An ode to the NYC subway's 7 train. "What is remarkable is the sense of transference that occurs. Manhattan is an international place but it brings all the world into its orbit. Queens reverses that."
Subway maps that you can put on your iPod. Currently available: DC, NYC, Boston, and Hong Kong. Good one for the 50 Fun Things To Do With Your iPod list. (via coolhunting)
The Onion: Police Search of Backpack Reveals Explosive Bestseller. "The Union Square bestseller is the latest in a series of dramatic items discovered in New York since random subway bag searches began. On July 27, a hip-hop CD containing over 75 F-bombs led to the suspension of train service for 18 hours."
A citizen's guide to refusing NYC subway searches. "As innocent citizens become increasingly accustomed to being searched by the police, politicians and police agencies are empowered to further expand the number of places where all are considered guilty until proven innocent."
Ugh, riders on the NYC subway are going to have their bags randomly searched by the NYPD. "People who do not submit to a search will be allowed to leave, but will not be permitted into the subway station." What the fuck?!?
A list of weeds you might see on the subway. Including iPodpea, Prickly Metscap, Mumblecane, Dozing Slabface, and Edgy Sweatnettle.
Woman goes into labor on the F train this morning. Aha! That's why my train was so slow this morning.
Ask and ye shall receive: Google Maps with the NYC subway stops on it. A little flaky in Safari, but works well in Firefox.
Google Maps launches in the UK with London Tube stations right on the map. Google, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please do the same for the NYC subway. Please?
