You know those nights when a baby–no, a toddler– when a young individual makes high pitched yelps, refusing to be silenced by their parent or guardian… it’s late.
I realize that I end up dozing during most of my commute. I drop in and out of consciousness. I used to think about the neighborhoods through which I sped on a daily basis. No longer do I give myself the luxury of thinking as I’ve been taken over by fatigue.
When people ask me where I am from, I say the Bronx. I don’t take the Metro-North or a special express bus to or from school, I take the 5 train. When I tell people I take the 5 to the end of the line they either nod saying “yea” with obvious unknowing or look confused, like the Bronx is a lost land.
After 86th street when all the white-collar workers exit the train car, that is really where my commute begins.
There are a few mornings; usually in the beginning of the school year when I get on my train early enough to see the sun rise. I am not already fatigued from the work that will later make my eyes sag and back bend under the weight of a pack that seems to get heavier with every step. Before these memories cloud out the calm and peace I experience on the first early mornings of the school year, I take in the pinks and purples that soften the sky as I bump along out of the Dyre Avenue station and my day begins to unfold.
We are chuckling along, bumping and jerking, and before the days when I am half awake and barely conscious of my surroundings, I make note of first five stops I pass and how they look outside of my metal boxcar. Baychester Avenue–that is where all the people get off before I am left alone going to my stop. Gunhill Road–that is where the Golden Krust is and the NY Public Library that I used to go to on walks with my kindergarten class a decade ago. Pelham Parkway–this stop is underground. We pass Morris Park and then arrive at the first major stop, at least in my opinion. East 180 St. connects the number 5 line to the number 2 line before the two lines split to go in separate directions further uptown in the Bronx. Here is where my mental clock wakes me up to see people jetting across the platform trying to catch the number 5 going express to 3rd Avenue/149th St.
The number 5 line to Eastchester/Dyre Avenue used to be the main line coming up from Manhattan, and only in 1957 was an overpass built to connect it for the people from the White Plains line. Yet the sprint across the platform still seems too far. But I am not getting off at this stop, so I sit and wait and maybe fall back asleep.
I don’t want to make it sound like there is nothing in the Bronx but…. Aside from whizzing past the West Farms Square Station at an entrance to the Bronx Zoo on my way to 3rd Avenue/149th Street, the 5 line is more like a nice train on which to catch a nap or listen to music–which is what I see most of its commuters doing. What I like to watch and see is the change in demographics as we move into Manhattan and past the 125th street stop. I also like to do this when my parents drive into the city. I believe it is 103rd or 110th street where I see the noticeable difference. My dad told me once that at the crossing of 96th street there was such a drastic difference in the atmosphere of the community. The same can be seen in the comparisons of the 125th street and 86th street stations. Not that any hole in the ground is ever clean, but comparably speaking, the difference between the two stations really defines where the Manhattan begins and the Bronx ends, exactly what is that grey area called Harlem, and to which area the slumbering commuters belong when they say they are from New York.
