The "Creepy" NYC Subway System In 1990

[Music] for three and a half million New Yorkers every day there isn't much choice with the subway most of us don't take limousine we can't even afford to take taxis all over the place bosses in New York buses take forever if a better or worse that leaves us on the trains for an hour two hours every day so you think New Yorkers would be great experts on the subway forget about it most people know their line they know their regular stations they know where they get on and off that's about it it's almost impossible to become an expert on the whole subway system it's amazingly huge 25 lines 6334 cars [Music] 312,000 advertising posters 3500 cops 720 miles of track 6000 trips a day and at Transit Authority headquarters in downtown Brooklyn 63 vice presidents what do they all do no one knows there are lots of misconceptions about the subway crime a one thing you know what's the most dangerous time to be on the subway middle of the night right wrong there is more crime and I'm talking about violent serious crime between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon than at any other time that's just when the kids are getting out of school there are more subway criminals than ever before and they're getting younger and younger every year no one has any reliable idea of how many homeless people and panhandlers are on the subway but some stations and some lines certainly have more than their share most people think immediately of Grand Central but the cops have been cracking down there lately that has sent people scattering the e train probably has more homeless people than any other line and especially on cold days the reason it never goes above ground so the warmth stays in the cars the thing to remember if I can handle this is they always prefer trains where the door is open in between cars that makes the IND lines a bad bet the doors on those trains are kept locked so to move from car to car you have to wait till the train stops get out and race up to the next car that's bad for business New York panhandlers are no dummies they know this and they choose their trains accordingly any kind of help handling trains is crowded and at rush hour all the trains are cat the most crowded train absolute sardine train it's the Lexington Avenue Line and East Side of Manhattan the absolute busiest platform is at Grand Central on the four five and six at precisely 5:30 in the afternoon keep your hands by your side please and don't breathe too deeply [Music] the lease Crowder to the ghost stations a handful of these abandoned stations are scattered around the system dark graffiti covered looking so forlorn they don't fit into the Transit Authority's current plans a few years ago the TA tried to figure out some way to make money from the ghost stations one idea was to use the old stations as nightclubs through discotheques but no one could ever figure out how to deal with the danger of trains barreling through all night at 30 or 40 miles an hour ghost stations aren't the only creepy thing in the subway you've ever been inside a subway bathroom recently the Transit Authority is boasting about the public toilets in the subway 105 stations they say now have public restrooms well it turns out that most of them are still chained shut just like this one you want my advice you go before you they're home just when you think things can't get any weirder you won't pass the sign that sends shivers down your spine my god what goes on in the ejecta room ejector rooms ghost stations there's subway oddities but in a sense that's what the subway is all about millions of people millions of bizarre tiny all living together in uneasy families

Channel: Ellis Henican

Views: 1,617,053

Keywords: NYC, subway, Ellis Henican, 1990s

Id: 5LFxrPhNGAk

Length: 5min 38sec (338 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 21 2015