New York Subway: Difference between revisions
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▲{{quote| ''Stand clear of the closing doors, please. *BOOP-BOOP*''}}
Twenty-three lines, 468 stations, 5 million daily riders, 1.5 billion yearly riders (at $2.25 a pop, soon to be $2.50)...and it's in the red. Probably the most famous subway system in the world. Not the first, certainly not the best, but the one everybody seems to know. Administered by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA. According to [[That Other Wiki]], the subway trails only the metro systems of Tokyo, Moscow and Seoul in annual ridership and carries more passengers than all other rail mass transit systems in the United States combined.
The trope here is that the subways of [[New York City]] are hot, grimy, filthy, encrusted with graffiti, and magnets for street crime. While this was once [[Subways Suck|basically true, subway cars haven't fit this bill]] since 1990. Some common representations, however, ''are'' true:
* The subways do not run on anything that resembles a schedule. Residents don't expect it to, out-of-towners get frustrated, and the MTA still tries to claim that [https://web.archive.org/web/20131031053242/http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/schemain.htm their official schedules have worth].
* Trains have a tendency to break down at inconvenient times. Actually, worse than breakdowns are scheduled service interruptions for maintenance, which can make traveling on the weekends difficult. At least the MTA is smart enough to not mess with commuter hours.
* The cars are full of panhandlers and napping vagrants. Panhandling is illegal in the subways, and patrons have mastered the art of ignoring it, but it's still common for someone to enter a subway car and tell a sob story, ending with "if you can help me out at all..."
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Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[Sinister Subway|miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[Beneath the Earth|waiting to be inhabited]] by [[Morlocks|something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line, which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (They're claiming a 2016 completion date now. Bets?)
Also, their Arts for Transit project practically makes the subway an art museum! Sample the collection the next time you're in town, or sample them [https://web.archive.org/web/20101027071911/http://www.mta.info/mta/aft/ here].
Although much of the subway operates underground (roughly 60% of its stations), the system does include large sections of elevated track, particularly in the outer boroughs.
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This has led to the former IRT lines still being colloquially known as "the IRT", while the IND and BMT designations are little-used outside the [[Fandom]]. Whatever you do, [[Berserk Button|do not]] refer to lines by color. The most famous cars that shout "New York Subway", the "Redbirds", once the canvas for graffiti artists, have all been decommissioned and used to build an artificial reef in New Jersey. Modern cars are slightly more generic looking.
Unlike many similar subway systems that use a zone system or calculate fares based on the entry and exit stations, the New York subways are flat-rate: pay once when you enter, and you can go anywhere the cars will take you, be it one stop away or to the opposite end of the city. Originally costing a nickel, it's now $2.25 for entrance,<ref>Er, sort of -- a single-ride ticket is $2.50, but a swipe deducts $2.25 from a reusable farecard, and adding $10 or more to a farecard gives you a discount that brings the effective cost down to about $2.09. Got all that?</ref>
Additionally, the MTA runs a complicated system of buses, Staten Island (the [[Redheaded Stepchild]] of New York City) has its own elevated train line across the island, and there are several separate local rail systems primarily for commuters:
* The Long Island Railroad (LIRR), [[Exactly What It Says
* Metro-North, serving <s>upstate New York</s> southern New York State suburbs like Westchester County, as well as the Connecticut suburbs.
* NJTransit, serving Northern and Central New Jersey.
* The Port-Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH), connecting the [[Sixth Ranger|"sixth borough"]] of Jersey City and Hoboken to lower Manhattan.
Unlike many other cities, the NYC subway runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.<ref>
Inevitably, any TV show or movie [[Big Applesauce|set in New York City]] has at least one subway scene. Listing all of them would just be silly.
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* ''[[The Taking of Pelham One Two Three|The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3]]'' is a hostage-taking heist film set on a NYC subway car.
* ''[[Turk 182]]'', with a [[The Last DJ|pissed-off First Responder]] turned graffiti artist as the hero, the graffiti-proofing of the subway system is a plot point. He hijacks the mayor's train and sandblasts it with "Turk 182".
* ''[[
* ''[[The Warriors (
* ''[[Money Train]]'', about two fired transit cops planning a robbery of a federal reserve shipment being transported via subway car in order to pay off gangsters and get back at their asshole boss. Inspired a brief spate of terrorist attacks against window cashiers in [[Real Life]].
* ''[[The Cowboy Way]]'' went from a subway scene to a "chasing the train" scene straight out of a cowboy movie. Yes, really. Horses and everything!
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* ''[[The French Connection]]'' features a car/train chase under the BMT West End El (then the B line, now the D line) in Brooklyn. A less famous scene takes place on the Times Square - Grand Central Shuttle.
* The river of slime in ''[[Ghostbusters]] 2'' actually located in on the abandoned pnuematic transit system tubes. Later on, Egon, Ray, and Winston explore real abandoned subway line and run into a ghost train.
* The [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (
** In the first movie the Foot attack April in a subway too, and she gets saved by Raphael.
* ''[[Men in Black (
* ''[[The Visitor]]'' has a pivotal scene, and its final scene, there.
* ''[[Mimic]]'' centers around a breed of bugs that evolve in abandoned subway tunnels and eventually adapt the ability to blend into populated subway terminals. The main characters also discover a massive abandoned subway station.
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* The original 1933 version of ''[[King Kong]]'' has the title ape tearing up a section of the Sixth Avenue Elevated line in Manhattan (which has long since been demolished).
** The 1976 remake of King Kong also has a scene when the titular ape destroys part of the BMT Astoria El in Queens.
* ''[[Hellboy (
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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* Twice in ''[[CSI New York]]''.
* A couple of ''[[News Radio]]'' episodes have a subway scene. One early episode has them trying to cover a subway accident, but all we see is Matthew standing in a pitch-dark tunnel waist deep in water.
* The opening intro montage of ''[[The Equalizer]]'' featured the subway, likely due to its publically-perceived link to vigilantism (with the [
* ''[[Seinfeld]]'' has an entire episode set in a subway car.
** ''[[Seinfeld]]'' also has a subplot involving Kramer getting bored waiting for the subway and deciding to run down the tunnel (wearing pants he intended to return at the store). Everyone expects him to have to dodge a train coming down the tunnel, but the actual story is that he slipped in mud and ruined the pants.
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* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' referenced the 'street crime' cliche in a flashback, showing how Spike killed a previous Slayer in a subway car.
* The ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' episodes "Lo-Fi" and "Mayhem" take place in New York City, and deal with urban terrorism. In "Mayhem", Morgan pursues one of the UnSubs down into a subway station and onto a deserted section of track. It appears as if the suspect is going to commit suicide by train, however {{spoiler|he grabs onto the electrified section of track instead, electrocuting himself}}.
* ''[[
** Jack gets a case of bedbugs, and is denied the use of a company car and refused by taxi drivers. He becomes lost on the subway and the passengers refuse to even talk to him.
* On one episode of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', Barney tries to prove that you can run a marathon without training first, and ends up paralyzed on a subway car. "I've been to where the trains turn around. Ted, you don't ''ever'' want to see where the trains turn around!"
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* Similarly, Jennifer Lopez named her first album "On the 6" because she used to ride the 6 train from the Bronx into Manhattan while still trying to get her big break.
* The Bernhard Goetz incident is referenced by the song "Executioner (Bernie Goetz a Gun)" by British neo-prog band Pallas.
* "[[The Lamb Lies Down
== [[Theatre]] ==
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Sin and Punishment]]'' has a dream sequence of the future that takes place on a runaway subway car in Long Island, complete with monster infestation. It's literally the only scene in the game that isn't set in Japan.
* The Liberty City version of the subway appears several times in ''[[
** The Liberty City version of the subway also appears in ''[[
* ''[[The Darkness]]'', where it serves as the [[Hub Level]].
* [[No More Heroes]] features a level that takes place in a subway station, and later on an actual train used to get to a distant fight. Both were obviously inspired by New York subways.
* Appears in ''[[
* ''[[Def Jam Series|Def Jam]]: Fight For New York'' has a level set in a subway station.
* ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' has a small section of the game take place inside a subway tunnel in New York City, complete with a boss fight. One of the tracks has a huge gaping hole at one end, which Aya notes that it would cause one hell of a train wreck.
* Though not the subway proper, ''[[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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