Almost any journey in the city that spans more than a few blocks starts underground.

 

You start with that memorable descent into a pungent, dirty subway station that leads you into the labyrinth that is the New York City subway system.

Dodging between steel pillars and frantic passengers, you skip steps and speed walk your way to the platform, only to end up waiting anyways.

As the next train arrives, you hop on and compete in a music-less musical chairs game with random strangers to find a seat for a ride that should take ten minutes, but you know always ends up taking twenty.

Before the train stops, you’re already standing by the nearest doorway ready to be the first person out and as soon as the train jerks to a stop and those doors open…

You’re rushing to the nearest exit while simultaneously trying to orient yourself in your head so you can know whether to take either the North East or South East exit, but you fail so you end up just taking the closest one and then

 

A magical thing happens.

 

You slow down.

 

The dark, musty subway station transforms into a whole other world as you ascend up the staircase. The ominous scene of never ending subway tunnels is replaced with the feet of bustling pedestrians and then the sight of honking cars, interweaving and operating in a structured system of beautiful chaos. Above, you see a landscape of monstrous buildings that scrape the sky and hold thousands of people living their private lives that you will never know.

 

It is in this fraction of a second, standing at the top of the staircase between three worlds –– the one below, around, and above you –– that you confront what is the stratified city

 

Before the riptide of people sweep you back into reality and you rush towards that somewhere that sent you on this journey to begin with.

 

-Isabella Joseph