CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Jumping the Turnstiles

Photograph Source: Enrique Vázquez – CC BY 2.0

Bob Dylan’s “all night girls whispered escapades out on the D Train.” Billy Strayhorn told us to take the A Train and “Listen to those rails a-thrummin.’” The Last Poets felt the white supremacy in the air as the wheels clicked in the Black rider’s brain: “Eighth Avenue, Seventh Avenue, Sixth Avenue/ I-N-D, B-M-T, I-R-T.” Me, I rode the D Train between Fordham Road and Columbus Circle four evenings a week in the Fall of 1973 to get to my job serving pastas and sauces in a restaurant kitchen on 59th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. When I wasn’t working or in class that Fall, I took the D Train all the way to West 4th and hung out in the Village and the Lower East Side. Like most residents of New York, I rode a few other trains; some had letters and some were numbered. I was a fan of the MTA. It cost thirty-five cents a ride then and the turnstiles weren’t built to kill. I rarely jumped the gates, but sometimes I had no cash or tokens and didn’t feel like walking north across the city. So, I jumped the turnstile. The Yippies made it a political statement, a statement which I was not against supporting.

Author Fred Naiden has his own story to tell about his life in the New York transit system. A porter, a motorman and always a rider, his new book Railroaded: A Motorman’s Story of the New York City Subway, tells that story. As if to provide more context, Naiden also narrates a colorful existence as a tenant on Manhattan’s........

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