Commuter War Stories
So I started my morning unpleasantly by mopping up the flood in our kitchen and "dining room" portion of the living room. Thankfully our apartment floor is uneven enough that these sort of things pool and don't spread everywhere. I then walked to Carroll Street where I was greeted by many, many unsmiling faces. After about 20 minutes of the humidity jungle, I left to walk to Jay Street and began to wish that I had chosen a skirt as the bottom portion of my outfit and not jeans. Luckily, at Jay Street things improved as an A running as a C arrived and I spent the next 40 minutes drying off in the relatively air conditioned car. Door to door from Carroll Gardens to west Chelsea: 1.5 hours.
How about the rest of you Brooklynites?
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I walked from Luquer St up Clinton since I knew the trains would be hell. Along the way many people were waiting for cabs and it looked nearly impossible to hail one further up the street. I kept saying, you might do better walking to borough hall (where I was headed).
After a long, unpleasant walk, due to the humidity, I made it to Borough Hall. The 4 was only running to Wall St, but that wasn't an issue since I only needed to make it to Bowling Green. The relative humidity felt like nearly 100% and the temp was around 100 degrees (so it seemed). After 15 minutes of waiting for the train, I was completely soaked and so were the rest of the people packed on my train into Manhatten. At least the AC was working.
Wow did it suck. 1 hour and 45 minutes from Carroll to 57th St and I was a half hour late to do an interview for work.
upper Brooklyn was no better. the L and the G were down so from there I trekked to the JMZ, which though running slowly, was running. when I transfered at Delancy, managed to stuff myself and a very hesitant man with a backpack onto the F. (why must people stand in front of you at the train doors if they don't mean to get on?) ... it took my friend from Prospect Heights twice as long (4 hours!) so I can't really complain ...
Today was the first time this summer I felt the morning heat and humidity was too high to commute comfortably. I made it to chelsea from williamsburg in my usual 20 minutes. Today, like most days, I was glad I ride a bike rather than a train.
I thought I was lucky when the B75 met me just as I got to Smith/9th. Nevermind the people standing on the stairs, it had AC. Less lucky as its creeping up Smith became exponentially Office Space, so by Warren St, it seemed footing it to Borough Hall would be best.
Gushing pores I squeezed onto a 4, hopeful that I'd soon enough be at Grand Central, but, alas, its final destination, I soon learned, would be Brooklyn Bridge. So Round 2 for sweat, traipse past Ground Zero over to the E. A seat, some air conditioning, and a leisurely 45 minutes to 53rd/Lex, allowing me to finish the Times (even the obits!) before my third round of sweat down Lex.
All told, just under 1.5 hours.
I don't mind that weather knocks everything out once in a while, I just can't stand how poor the communication is at at the MTA. Tonight, itt took me an hour to get back from 2nd Ave back to Bergen St. on the F. The announcements were unintelligible, the speaker are so bad. I kept thinking I'd take a cab, and then everyone would get that look like the train was coming. Finally a B came that was running on the F, with BARELY any air conditioning. I guess, in summary, there are lots of problems here that had nothing to do with bad weather.
As if the trip to work wasn't bad enough, once I arrived I promptly spilled an entire cup of coffee on myself and had to buy new pants. Nuff said...
While these war stories pretty rough, plenty of people are in desperate need of real help after losing their homes, cars, etc., due to the storm. Please check this link to see how you can help:
http://rightinbayridge.blogspot.com/2007/08/word-on-street-how-to-help-bay-ridge.html