Response 4 of 5: Underground Movements: Modern Culture on the New City Subway by Sunny Stalter-Pace
By: Mariam Esa
Sunny Stalter-Pace’s Underground Movements: Modern Culture on the New City Subway considers various views of the subway as voiced by numerous people. The book in a sense represents the city by providing a wide array of subway stories that reminds us of the countless perspectives to be found in New York City. Throughout the course of this book, we are introduced to ideas of the dangers of the subway, the artistic expression of it, the way it portrays diversity, and much more. It allows us to see just how integrated the subway is in making New York City what it is.
The subway entered an “era of disrepair” in the 1960s-1990s. This era was filled with a high crime rate that was reflected in the writing of that time. Dystopian descriptions of the subway became very common and it makes me wonder if it was easy for people to continue using the train during that time. Crime was not the only fear linked with the subway; there was also the possibility of being trapped between tunnels or the fear of a cave-in. While it was a place once linked with fear, it also served as a means of artistic expression. People utilized the subway as a means of conveying ideas or of asserting their presence in New York City. Asma Ahmed Shikoh is a Pakistani-American artist that recreated the NYC subway map with Urdu writing. She found this to be deeply individualistic and it helped her “build a personal territory within the city”(172). I found this story to be amazing; an immigrant using her creative abilities to alter something that was impersonal to her into something personal. It was her way of letting others know that there she is there and that she belongs. It was a way to make her feel more at home.
The next time you are on the train, look around you. Who are you sitting next to? How many people are there and more importantly, how different are they from one another? The subway serves as glimpse into what the city as a whole holds- a diverse place, filled with people from very different backgrounds. It serves as a sort of a neutral territory where you can come into contact with people that may differ greatly from you. Sunny Stalter-Pace believe that “the subway is a symbol for present-day city dwellers because it offers continuity through an individual’s history and serves as a shared experience among New Yorkers who always seem to lead lives very different from one another”(167). The subway cannot be described in simple terms. It is a myriad of things, stories told through perspectives of people of different backgrounds; it’s deeply integrated within the city or rather it is a representation of the city itself.
Questions:
Would you say being able to efficiently navigate the subway makes you a New Yorker?
Do you agree that the subway can be seen as a representation of NYC as a whole?
