Well I suppose I am a little late in posting these pictures… but that is the problem with me, I take so many damn photographs I am late with posting up all of them. Plus my shoulder still hurts quite a bit, so by the time I get home from work after using the computer all day, the last thing I want to be doing is messing around on my own computer. I guarantee you that a big part of it is probably poor posture and sitting hours at a time in front of the computer making silly websites. I’m trying to catch up though, I swear. I still have train-related Japan and Canada photos I’d love to post, timetables to scan (I purchased a new scanner for this!), plus photos from the Transit Museum’s newest exhibit, highlighting the Arts for Transit works around the MTA network.

In addition to the exhibit, there were also a couple tours through the museum to see some of the Arts for Transit works. A few weeks ago I went on one of those tours, we went to see Departures and Arrivals, by artist Ben Snead, in Jay Street-Borough Hall station. The tour ended with a trip to Ben’s studio, where we got to see some of his previous work, and the things he is currently working on.

Departures and Arrivals is a glass mosaic, based on original paintings by Snead (these paintings are actually at the Transit Museum for the exhibit). Snead’s work often pictures insects, reptiles and fish, and with this mosaic that theme carries through. On the tour Snead discussed why he chose the various animals displayed on the wall, and perfect for a train station where people come and go every day, the underlying theme is the migration of these animals. All of those displayed in mosaic form – sparrow, lion fish, koi, parakeet – are all animals not native to the city, they were introduced by people, or migrated on their own. The beetle, which is screened onto the larger white tiles, is a species native to this area – though it is disappearing due to humans encroaching on its habitat.

Mosaics always amaze me, as I figure they aren’t the easiest thing to create, and rather labor intensive. Although Snead created the initial design, it was from his paintings that the mosaic was fabricated by Franz Mayer of Munich. Snead mentioned that there was a bit of color shifting from his original designs, but it came out very well. If you look closely the piece is not entirely created from many small tiles, there are some larger pieces of glass used for feathers, and for beaks. This was partially done to save money, I remember hearing during the tour, but I don’t see it as hurting the piece, I rather like the effect.

I am so eagerly waiting for my WTF subway shirt. But it hasn’t arrived yet. So in order to console myself, (and in my boredom) I created some more amusing subway WTF-ness. Now not only can Metro-North hate me, but NYC Transit (I still love you, I swear!) can hate me too! And maybe even Parker Brothers, who publish the game.

Instead of Community Chest (what the hell is that anyways?), I opted to replace it with the “Service Change.” For pieces, I figured it might be amusing to throw in a delightful subway rat, and even a pigeon in there. If you bought the “extended version” of the game, there would even be a special “limited edition” Sadie the Subway Cat piece. Gotta market that stuff! And everybody loves cats!

As for the properties in the game, and how I determined where each of them belong, I used the 2009 Subway Ridership Facts & Figures. Blue, green, and yellow properties (the highest value) are the top subway stations, system wide. Red represents Manhattan, Orange is Brooklyn, Magenta is Queens, Light Blue is the Bronx, and the top subway stations for each (not counting any stations previously used). The Purple spots are the bottom two stations in the subway system by use. Instead of the four railroads typically used in Monopoly, there are the other MTA entities: Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road, Long Island Bus, and the other half of NYC Transit, the bus system. There are no “utilities” but instead MTA Bridges, and MTA Tunnels.

Oh, and in order for you to get thrown in jail, you are caught with a copy of the master key.

By now you’ve probably heard of the unauthorized WTF posters popping up in the subways. It has been big news in the New York area, and online. They were designed by the Working Families Party. They would have even paid the MTA for the advertising space… had the ad not been rejected. If you need a bit of amusement in your day today, I suggest checking out ABC 7′s video regarding the subject, complete with reporters attempting to use acronyms at every possible chance, and old people getting interviewed that have no idea what WTF means.

But those posters are so yesterday, old news. Now you can wear your very own WTF T-Shirt. All it takes is a minimum donation of 14 dollars, and you can then ride the subway in style! I ordered mine last night… once it arrives I’ll certainly take some pictures, and possibly post them up.

The only thing I keep thinking is that MTA made things worse by rejecting the ad. The whole rejection has been getting a lot of coverage, had the ad actually been put up would people be saying as much? Would these T-Shirts even exist? Maybe not.

Search engines are amazing, magical things. You type stuff in that box, and wow, it just miraculously finds what you need! Provided you type in something relatively normal, that is. Like cats. You can find a crapload of stuff on the internet about cats. Normal people might search for something like that. Even people that are more or less outliers in the whole scheme of “normality” might search for cats. But if you are typing into google, her panties get wet on the train ride, you are a sick bastard.

Apparently I do have readers that are in fact sick bastards. Every few weeks I fire up my statistics log of the site, and I can view what people type into search engines in order to find this blog. And many people find it by typing in Harlem Line. But apparently the number one thing people want to know about is about drinking beer on the trains. Yes, you can drink beer on Metro-North. But it would also be great if instead of leaving your empty bottles/cans on the train, you dispose of them when you get off. I mean, that is a perfectly relevant query. If you are the type of person that wants to get drunk on your way to the city to get drunk. Or to drown your sorrows after work. If you ask google about drinking beer, I don’t think anything bad of you. But if you search google for free videos of asses groped on buses or trains, you are a sick bastard.

The other big thing that people search for and end up finding my site, are about dogs riding Metro-North. They want to know if dogs can ride, and if they are charged a fee in order to ride. Yes, small dogs can ride Metro-North. We do ask that you keep the dog on a leash, or in a crate, as to not disturb other passengers. Service animals are of course, always accepted. There is no fee for a dog to ride, but it is always up to the conductor as to whether your animal is bothering other passengers. I suppose animals riding the train is a valid query. Maybe you were heading down to the ASPCA in the city and were going to adopt a new family member? Certainly you would want said family member to be able to ride the train back home. But if you wanted to know can fat people ride the train?, well, you aren’t a sick bastard, but you are an asshole.

Honest to god, do you think I am kidding? My stats are even arranged into spectacular graphs.

Are you ready to lose a few IQ points? Because I can lead you down into the bowels of civilization, beyond the darkness, beyond the subway rats. These are the layers of hell. And what do people in hell search for on the internet?

i shit trains – You may want to have a doctor look at that
why man places hand down pants while sleeping – I don’t know, but you may want to have a doctor look at that too.
guy shows his butt on the hudson line - Was this man mooning your train as it sped by? Were you hoping there would be pictures?
the fattest guy to show his butt crack on a metro north train seat – were you hoping there would be pictures of that too?
pictures of pee puddles – Please, seriously, please tell me why you would want to see that?
smelly water on mta trains – Yes, I believe that is found in a place that most people call the bathroom. If you have any sense, you don’t even sit anywhere near that car
i saw a pigeon get run over by a bus and i like it – What do you mean by “like”? If you fapped to it, not only are you a sick bastard, but you also are going to straight hell. Would you prefer the aisle or window seat?
get rid of metro north conductor – Were you looking for a how-to book? How to get rid of your conductor in three easy steps, so you can ride the fucking train and not have to pay, currently available for preorder on Amazon.com.
lady pilot fucking lady passengers – Well we do know that some guys have fantasies of doing it with female train conductors on trains. It would be quite logical for people to feel the same way about pilots, right? Though currently I do think there is a general moratorium on joining the mile-high club, because if you are in the plane bathroom for anything more than five minutes, there may be an emergency landing, and you’re going to get cavity searched to determine whether you have any dynamite stuck up your ass. So please folks, stick to trains. But not my train, thanks.

So tell me now… do you feel more stupid than you were five minutes ago? I certainly do. Tell all your friends to google I ride the harlem line, and preferably not other complete bits of sick nonsense. Otherwise I may be forced to inform them that they are a fricken sick bastard.

Every single day we go through, we are bombarded by advertisements. On the television, billboards, and even on our commutes. All Metro-North stations and trains have plenty of advertisements themselves. And on some of the newer trains, they are even testing video boards for advertisements. I have yet to see one of those. But before you know it, I’m sure all the trains will have them. The MTA needs the money.

But I think compared to a lot of other advertisements, Metro-North train ads end up getting looked at a lot longer than most other advertisements. Which, if you are an advertiser, might be a good thing. Take a billboard, for example. You drive by it, or walk by it, and there is only a small finite amount of time where you are actually looking at it. On a Metro-North train, it is impossible to not see an ad. You are essentially sitting in a tin can for an allotted period of time, probably around a half hour, possibly more. You are looking forward, and the ads are just there. Subway ads are sort of there, but you really can go through an entire ride ignoring those, as they are smaller, thinner, and higher up. If an ad is good, there is a good chance a possible consumer is going to look at it, and for a long time. Longer than the few split seconds that some ads get. I’m sitting here for a half an hour. I need something to do.

Just by facing forward, you are going to see a bunch of ads. It is inevitable. You will see them.

Most days I ride the same train, in the morning or the evening. And I sit in the same car both rides. So often times I see many of these ads quite frequently. There are some that I like, and some that I hate. But some of my favorites are the ones that take into account the location and audience of the sign. Whoever designed them understood that they can possibly be looked at for longer periods of time. Because like I said, sometimes I need something to do.

My current favorite ads that are in rotation on Metro-North trains are some ads for Marks Paneth & Shron. I’m not a big city businessman, so I am hardly the target audience, but the concept was intriguing. Each poster has a puzzle. That puzzle gives me something interesting to do while I commute to work. I get the idea of the ad at first glance, yes. But there is the added intrigue of completing a puzzle, if I happen to look at the poster longer than that initial split second.

Two of the Marks Paneth & Shron ads

Another favorite poster of mine were advertising a book, by Dean Koontz I believe. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of it. The ad had a photo of a book, and a phone number that you could text with your cell phone. When you texted the number, it would periodically send you story excerpts of the story to read on your phone. Personally, I think this is an awesome idea. It advertises your product, it gives people something to do on the train, and it transcends this sort of boundary between the physical world, and the virtual. Japan is a bit more advanced in connecting their ads to online information and websites. Many ads there have QR codes, which is a type of barcode, but it can hold much more data than the UPC codes we are used to on our products. Use your camera phone and take a picture of the code in the ad, and you are automatically forwarded to the ad’s website in your phone’s web browser. Maybe we’ll see that here at some point in the future.

Example of what is called a “design qr code” that I made. If you had a QR reader on your phone, like Japanese cell phones do, you would be forwarded to MTA’s new website (mta.info)

Anyone else have ads that they really enjoy? Other than the Sweet Million ads? (I know a lot of people find my blog searching for pictures of those ads online. They are pretty damn cute. Yay, kitties and puppies!)

You may not know it, but across the globe there are several working cats that reside at train stations. One of the most famous is named Tama, she is the “Super Stationmaster” at Kishi station in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. In New York we too have a “working cat” – you can call her the Subway Cat. Her name is Sadie, and she resides at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn.

When I first encountered Sadie I was downstairs at the museum taking photos of all the different subway cars. When I entered the money car they have on display, I saw a cat lounging on one of the shelves. I leaned out the door of the car and shouted to my friend, “Hey! Get over here now! There’s a cat inside this car!” I must admit I was surprised, as I wondered where the cat came from. But then I noticed a tag on the collar, which read “Sadie, Transit Museum”. Sadie was adopted from a shelter by the museum, and is not the first feline resident. Previously there was a cat named Token. Token disappeared one day (one museum employee I talked to is convinced Token was just taken home by somebody, as opposed to disappearing on his own). Sadie stays at the museum, though on long weekends or holidays she goes home with one of the employees.

But as I said, Sadie is a working cat. Sadie’s job description is rodent control. Though I’ve never been able to get a straight answer from anyone whether she has actually caught a subway rat before. Some people are disgusted by that. “She catches the RATS in the SUBWAY and you TOUCHED her?!?!” She has a bell on her collar, which apparently scares the rats away. If you go to the museum to see Sadie, be sure to note that she is grey and white. She is not brown. If you see something large and brown running around, it is probably a Sadie-size subway rat.

Upon a visit to the museum, I had this conversation with the ticket collector:
Me: So is the rat catcher around today?
Him: The what?
Me: The cat. Sadie. Is she around?
Him: (Laughs) She’s around somewhere, probably catching more Z’s than rats though!

Whether she catches rats or not (I have been assured that she has at least caught some pigeons though), Sadie has become somewhat of a mascot of the Transit Museum. In the gift shop you can purchase a stuffed cat, with her picture on the front of the package, that comes with markers so you can decorate her. If you ask me though, they ought to play up the mascot role a bit more for her. Maybe get her a mini cat-sized conductor’s hat to wear (yeah right). Or maybe even use her in some advertising, or the educational programs for children.

Supposedly the aforementioned cat, Tama, brought a million dollars into the local economy just by being cute, and encouraging people to ride the train. Hey Sadie, want to go save the W and Z trains? I hear the MTA could use a little money.

In other news, I continue planning my own trip to Japan in April. I will be posting my train adventures, and hopefully I will be able to go to Kishi station, and meet the “Super Stationmaster” herself!

This timetable was uploaded by usroadman. Clicking it will bring you to the original image, posted on webshots.