City Circulatory System

When the subways don't run normally, it is as if New York City suffers a blood clot.

Taken from the Q, crossing the Manhattan Bridge heading toward Brooklyn, looking south along the East River toward the Brooklyn Bridge and the Financial District, on an early, stormy afternoon in late March.

The subway is like the lifeblood of New York City. It carries us where we need to go, allows us to do the things we need to do to keep the whole metropolis humming. It's the pulse, the vitality. 

It is the great leveler, open to everyone - billionaires and celebrities hoping for anonymity, and the straphangers aspiring to have more than a couple of nickels to their name and seeking their shot at fame and fortune.

Paraphrasing a friend's observation, to ride the subway is an act of communal trust, the essence, really of the social compact (she called it a Christian act - my take is, like me, decidedly more secular). Every type of person, from all backgrounds - ethnic, racial, religious, political, economic - coming together in this most utilitarian of pursuits, all headed in the same common direction, packed in a small space, shoulder to shoulder, with the shared interest of reaching the destination.

So when that journey is intentionally, horrifically, maliciously disrupted, attacked, it is like a stab wound that hits an artery - literally, and figuratively, spilling blood - one's fellow passengers - out from the trains. A savage breach of the common trust.

True New Yorkers, those who understand the ways of the life force, wouldn't dream of this, nor abide by it. True New Yorkers will also get back onto the subway again, because it's the most efficient way to get back to New York life.

Fragile, yet sturdy, metal beam of the Manhattan Bridge - surprising all of those rivets, constantly painted to fend off the rust. 

[Edited April 13, 2022.]