Zoo York

"A car is useless in New York, essential everywhere else. The same with good manners." - Mignon McLauglin, American journalist and author

One of the first things I heard about New York is that if you need cheap entertainment, you can't go wrong with a $2 subway ride. When I first started riding the subway I was seeing something I had never seen before. That is until I started seeing it over and over, and I became one of those native New Yorkers who wouldn't even blink if a streaker came through the train.

But here are some examples of things you might see on a typical train ride or on the platform:

• People playing all sorts of instruments: guitar, drums, accordion, violin
• Lady singing opera
• Breakdancers in the station AND in moving train carriages!
• Homeless beggers proclaiming their homelessness and asking for donations
• People who work for homeless shelters looking for donations
• Kids who are selling candy
• Barbershop/doo-wop groups
• Magicians - very good ones too
• And if you're lucky - Borat and his chickens

Strangest things I have seen:

• Sitting on the 1 train on my way home from a long day, and I was looking at the guy next to me. He was a younger, Eminem-type guy, listening to beats on his headphones and writing lyrics on a notepad. Across from me there was a middle-aged man sitting down, trying to write compose music, scribbling on sheet music. What are the odds?
• Sitting on the 1 train on my way downtown, sitting across from me is an older man who has head twitches and uncontrollable tongue and mouth movements. As his head and neck move around awkwardly, he is trying to roll a cigarette - only he has no paper, tobacco, or filter - only a train card. So he keeps rolling and licking this train card, with no result. I must have watched him the entire train ride.
• One day I sat down quickly on a train, only to find a large dude lying across the seats next to me. Absolutely no movement from the dude. I watched him for over a minute, and I was starting to think he was dead. I look at the other people on the train, there's a few people looking at him. Just as we start considering CPR, the dude snorts himself awake, then back to sleep. Phew.

And probably one of the most annoying things is that most people don't let passengers off the carriage before they jump in. Crazy.

But all that said, I have never seen so many random acts of kindness on public transport. So many people offering directions to people just look lost. People giving up seats. Bus drivers who wish everyone well as they change shifts. I think it's one of the safest PT systems I've been on.

Best $2 I ever spent.
DN