Once upon a time in a world before Instagram, there lived a melancholy girl in pre-gentrified Brooklyn; a halcyon place where chains were snatched off delicate necks while descending into the inferno of the IRT (which didn’t mean “In real-time.”). Graffiti was permanently tattooed on the walls and wrapped around each limb of the underground prisoner called “The Subway.” Whatever religion you practiced or didn’t, you prayed that you would not emerge from your screeching sardine can as a fatalistic statistic on the front page of the NY Post. In a cell-phone free era, when that creepy guy would lean against you while you were gripping the messianic pole that was the lesser of the evils of falling into some zombie’s vacant-eyed visage, you were unable to document your molestation or even monetize the incident by calling a personal injury lawyer. Viral wasn’t a positive adjective. Riding the train was like playing “The Squid Game:” Every single day.
By now you’ve assumed (correctly) that I was that kid. When my mom would don her trench coat over her sleepwear, along with her dark sunglasses; (lest she committed the felonious fashion crime of leaving the house without her perfectly made-up face) to drive me to the train station, I would remove any jewelry, put on my game face (think Jen Psaki at the podium) and avoid eye-contact as I held my breath through the turnstile of the suffocating underground tomb. I know that it is difficult to conjure up an image of life before earbuds, but unless you were vigilant in guarding yourself like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, you could die. Your death could be fast, i.e., being shoved onto the train tracks, or a slow and painful demise by a thousand cuts. (Hopefully not with a dull knife). If there had been a thing called the “internet,” I would’ve googled “bulletproof vest” before you could announce “Stand clear of the closing doors.”
One sweltering day, as I escaped to my personal haven of riding between the train cars and singing Barbara Streisand songs at the top of my lungs (kids, do NOT make this the next “tik tok challenge”) the train stopped abruptly. The fact that there was no air conditioning nor air exacerbated the urban irritation and downright disgust of the exhausted passengers. I always thought that breathing was a fundamental right, but I guess I was wrong. You were better off NOT breathing the putrid combination of sweat, fear, and the homeless panhandlers who were understandably aggressive. They never frightened me. It was the strong untamed kids whose eyes reflected the hostile urban jungle they were raised in that terrorized many of my daily trips. It wasn’t unusual for my purse to be grabbed or to be pushed down and ogled by a herd of teens. It got so bad that I was chased down by a gang with no cop in sight. I was lucky that I bumped into an angel; a guardian one. Though it wasn’t Curtis Sliwa, it was an angel wearing a red beret and jacket. That guy saved my life. Cue the harps.
Well, on the day the train stopped... for 30 minutes, I realized what purgatory must be like; total darkness, stationary air, and literally no light at the end of the tunnel. After that near-death experience, I took my meager savings and decided to take taxis home from Manhattan, but in those days, the yellow cabs refused to go to Brooklyn; it was too dangerous.
The good ol’ days were NOT good. NYC was ecstatic when Giuliani cleaned up the city. Say what you will; he single-handedly reduced crime and made it safe to ride the subways and walk the streets. Sadly, those days have come around again.
I think New York could use someone like Guiliani. #fullcircle #Brooklynmassacre
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