Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York

For years, Randy Kennedy's columns were the most enjoyable part of the NY times. Their combination of humor, sociology, and history made them a great window on life in NYC. This compilation of his best columns does not disappoint - it has the token suckers,the subway performers, the pigeons that ride the train and the dreaded leg-spreaders. Every New Yorker will thoroughly enjoy this book. Even if you don't live in the city, you'll find these vignettes of the great subway melting pot enjoyable.

Too many books about the New York City subway system are content to impress the reader with their data gathering and mounds of trivia. Others focus on its history and/or social and economic impact on the city. Many of them are quite good, most are not. However, Randy Kennedy's "Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York" is a welcome break from all that. Part anecdotal, part instructional, part historic, and part sheer joy, "Subwayland" offers a great deal more than statistics. What Kennedy has proven, in a way, is that the subway system isn't just a transportation option. The subway is a city under the city. Let me take it a step further, the subway is another New York City underneath New York City, complete with its own eccentrics, complexities, codes and rituals, dangers, and attractions.I ride the subways at least 10 times a week, and have done so since I was a kid growing up in the 1960s. There are plenty of others like me in this regard. But "Subwayland: Adventures in the World Beneath New York" will surprise even the most ardent and experienced subway rider. Many times I found myself smiling in acknowledgement, and muttering, "That's right! I never really noticed that before!" There are many great moments like that in this book. I recommend it highly and it makes a great companion to Brian Cudahy's "A Century of Subways".Rocco Dormarunno, author of "The Five Points"

Randy Kennedy's "Tunnel Vision" column was the highlight of my New York Times subscription for nearly three years. It would be hokey to say that I learned more from the Times in Tuesday's Metro section than I did from every other article, op-ed and feature throughout the rest of the week. But it's also true.I love New York City, and I love the subway. It wasn't always that way -- I voluntarily fled the tri-state area at age 17 to go to college in points south, and later in points midwest. I came running back to the city eight years later, a victim of the fact that Toledo's bus system stops running at 5 PM and on Sundays, and am never leaving again. The subway is now the backbone of my NYC experience. For $70 a month I can take unlimited rides from the southernmost corners of Brooklyn, all the way to Union Square or the Upper East Side. Without having to save 15% or more on car insurance from GEICO.Every weekly "Tunnel Vision" column, several of which are reprinted for this book (sadly without the original photography) is either educational or, more importantly, hilarious. The most memorable columns discuss those who opt to spend their lives in the subway: as employees, performers, or, sometimes, residents. Several columns are also devoted to the rats and pigeons (if there is a difference between the two) who are an integral part of the city's 468 stations -- even more so than the vanishing token booth clerk.No contemporary book about the city would be complete without a collection of columns about 9/11. Kennedy interview the motorman who drove under the towers as the first plane struck. He inspects the damage done to the tunnels after the buildings fell. He even found the man whose job it was to update the official subway map as each line reopened.Everyone has a subway story and, of course, not all of them could be covered in this book. I've love to know more, for example, about the group of men on the Broadway line who burst into cars and announce "Do you know what time it is? It's doo-wop time!". I would like to know why, while riding uptown on the Lexington Avenue line after seeing the final "Lord of the Rings" picture, one of my traveling companions was assaulted by a man dressed as a horse, who proceeded to gallop away down the car. I would even, heavens preserve us, like to know more about the most hated man in New York City: the guy who recorded the 200-decibel "Stand clear of the closing doors, please!" announcement that plagues the newest cars on the IRT lines and the L train. Does he ever ride the train, cover his ears at every station stop, and mourn, "What have I done? What have I done?"

I just picked up this book this past weekend and have not been able to put it down since. This is an amazing collection of articles from an amazing author. Arcticles can be loaded with interesting facts about the subway, funny amusing notes about the people that interact or work on the subway, emotional in depth examinations of the multitude of characters, actors, and preformers who inhabit the subway. All together it is one of best, most interesting books I have pick up in recent years. I highly recommend it to anyone that lives in NYC, lives near NYC, has thought about living in NYC, or even nows where NYC is!

Randy Kennedy's book is a wonderful compilation of the weekly articles he wrote in his "Tunnel Vision" column, which appeared in the New York Times. Randy's perception of the people of New York does not suffer from a narrow "tunnel vision". He comes from a farm town in Texas, population 1400, and yearned to see people he didn't know. Well he got his wish and has carefully observed the strangers who bring life to the New York City subway. I must admit to a bias, as I am one of the characters that he wrote about, but the book is really about New York City and the way in which the subway has been the daily crucible which has formed the New York persona. In the columns, some of the people Randy sought out and spoke with usually go unseen and unnoticed by the general public. He spoke with and observed subway track workers, motorman, subway musicians, transit police, emergency medical workers, conductors, passengers who lean on poles or block doorways, people who fell in love on a subway platform, subway evangelists and so many more people who press against you every day.2004 is the 100th anniversary of the opening of the New York subway. There will opportunities to appreciate the beauty of the stations and to ride some old subway cars. But Randy's book is not really about the hardware of the subways. It's a celebration of the software, the people who ride it, work in it, entertain us in it, live in it and are fascinated by it. I highly recommend it to any New Yorker who rides the subway and has lost the wonder of it all.