Armageddon: MTA breaks down!

It's raining just now as though I was on a back lot in some movie studio. Sheets of rain that are just to strong and constant not to be fake. Even the double-decker tour buses which have tourists covered in plastic riding on top in awful weather, are empty. I'm considering my empty stomach, and even emptier fridge, and going out in this. There is also a very real fear of flooding.

Three evenings ago it rained like this the entire night. I woke up to a sort of Armageddon, if the end of the world was very first-world and the final battle of good vs. evil took place in Manhattan and not on Tel Megiddo. That is to say, the subway system wasn't working.

Da-da-daaaaaaaaah (crash of lightening)

I know it doesn't sound that awful, "So the subways aren't working, big deal" and as a suburbanite I would agree with you. But there are no cars! And it was a rainy hot day, which is just cruel really. When you weren't soaked you were standing in Sahara-like heat, and you were soaked just the same with sweat. I was trying to get from home up at 123rd and Broadway down to the UN on 46th and 1st, on the opposite side of the island. I headed over to the M60 just an avenue over. Because I live fairly high up, and it was early, only around 8:20, I was able to get on the bus without much shoving. It's the ride from there on that was hellish.

At first people were just shocked. People on the bus were making calls to family and friends to find out if the 6 train or other trains further east or south were working. It built a little camaraderie between 4 of us as we shared information; every train line was flooded and not working. Whenever we thought of getting off the bus to see if a train line was working. we would be confronted by dozens of people waiting at the bus stop to try to board our bus. Paying soon became passe as people surged onto the bus, through the front and back doors.

The bus was incredibly crowded, and I found myself slipping in between people to get to a spot towards the center of the bus. People bottle-necked at the front and back entrances. It's just like on the subway everyday; people are screaming at each other to make room at the doors and the middle is pretty open. Usually it was packed, but when there was room in the middle of the bus, still no one would move for fear of losing their new found breathing room. So I called out "Move into the middle, there will be more room!" and sometimes people would listen and listlessly shuffle toward me, but usually not. There was an especially rude man who kept screaming at people trying to enter the bus "Don't you dare get on MY bus! There's no room on MY bus!" and I called back, in a cheerful tone, "There's plenty of room on my bus, just come towards the middle!" As we got further downtown the bus only stopped every 10 blocks instead of every 2, and would pull away from the crowds that had grown to a 100 people at each stop.

By the time I was in the east 70s, I just had to get off. The usual NY crazies had been caught up in the frenzy and frustration so that people were yelling and singing alternately. So off I went to walk the last 20ish blocks. I arrived at the UN for the Peace Education conference, but that is another post...