A Subway is More than Just a Sandwich Shop

by Steve on March 24, 2010 · 0 comments

March 24 - On this date in 1900, New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck broke ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Anyone who's lived in New York City knows, the subway system has good and bad aspects. The cars nowadays are in better condition than those between the 1960's and 1980's. Back then it seemed the subway was a free-for-all of crime and graffiti. Looking back before that we would see people from all walks of life, many dressed in hat and tie, or furs and pearls. The subway helped New York become what it is today.

Walker Evans, who died in 1975, was the first to use the subway as a lens on society. From 1938 to 1941, he took some 600
photographs of passengers, although the work was unknown to the public until 1966, when the Museum of Modern Art mounted an exhibition of his portraits. The photos were taken by Evans with a 35mm camera hidden under his coat. They were published in a book entitled Many Are Called. It's simply fascinating to look at these real people, totally relaxed on the subway, and makes one wonder where they were coming from and where they were headed.

Those people in 1938 knew nothing of world war two. They had no televisions waiting in their homes. They had never heard of fast food. Their society was held together by rules that would be cast aside within the next four decades.

Down in the subway, many things became so familiar that they became invisible to the average rider. The advertisements, the roll signs showing the next stop, the handles (once porcelain-covered) for standing passengers. Lots of that old subway memorabilia can be found on eBay today. See how much you've forgotten...