The New York Times has a wonderful story today about, of all things, the last stops on New York City subway lines. It's an interesting and unique delving into a part of this city's untapped psyche.
The Curious World of the Last Stop
Separately, each of these various lines are, as the story indicates, rather lonely and sad places. You're at the end of something, you can go no further. Yet they're also, a in strange way, exciting places -- you can start the whole journey over again, you can be at the beginning. If you've ever gotten off at a last stop or got on at the first stop, you'll know what I mean.
By putting these various stations together and in their own unique context, this story creates a sort of strange community, an end of the line community. As you might imagine, most of these stops are located at the very edges of the city, way up in the Bronx, at the bottom of Manhattan, or on the fringes of Brooklyn and Queens. But scattered as they may be, when you put them together, they seem more than the sum of their parts somehow.
And isn't being more than the sum of its parts what New York City is all about?
(New Lots Avenue subway stop, last on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 line pictured above.)
The Curious World of the Last Stop
Separately, each of these various lines are, as the story indicates, rather lonely and sad places. You're at the end of something, you can go no further. Yet they're also, a in strange way, exciting places -- you can start the whole journey over again, you can be at the beginning. If you've ever gotten off at a last stop or got on at the first stop, you'll know what I mean.
By putting these various stations together and in their own unique context, this story creates a sort of strange community, an end of the line community. As you might imagine, most of these stops are located at the very edges of the city, way up in the Bronx, at the bottom of Manhattan, or on the fringes of Brooklyn and Queens. But scattered as they may be, when you put them together, they seem more than the sum of their parts somehow.
And isn't being more than the sum of its parts what New York City is all about?
(New Lots Avenue subway stop, last on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 line pictured above.)
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