Getting Off the 1 Train

A few weeks ago, as I was lazily browsing the number-one procrastination utility “that connects you with the people around you” and determinedly trying not to write my thesis, I noticed a new program on Facebook called “Subway Status,” which allows users to post their subway line on their Facebook profile. The profile of this particular Facebook-stalking victim proclaimed, “My train is the 1 train!” To most at Columbia this observation might seem mundane. I, however, found it particularly striking only because during my last nine months as a student at the University, my train has not been the 1, but the B and C trains.

Cathedral Gardens—the Barnard dorm on Manhattan Avenue and 110th Street and my home for the whole of my senior year—happens to be one block from the C and B local trains. Overall, I found the C and B trains to be an unexpected perk of the faraway existence one finds at CG. Traffic on the C and B trains is much lower, the cars more spacious, and the stations newer. When I first rode the C train from 14th Street to 110th, I was pleasantly surprised that I arrived home in less than 20 minutes, and this semester, when I interned in Midtown East, the B train—with a transfer at the 7th Avenue stop to the E—proved to be a much faster route to 48th and 3rd than the 1 train ever could have been.

Yet the B and C trains are not the 1. Constant and steady, like a long-term college girlfriend, the 1 train shows up, at all hours, on every day of the week—except on those weekends when she decides to throw a hissy fit and skip all the stops between 96th and 125th! But its absences are so rare that one takes its constancy for granted. Moreover, excluding its four stops into the Bronx, and also the Times Square-Grand Central Shuttle, the 1 train is the only train in the MTA system with local service exclusively in Manhattan. One could ride the 1 train from Baker Field to South Ferry and visit almost every major landmark in the city along the way. Over the years I had frequently heard my peers moan, “Uh, how far is that from the 1 train?” or “Does that mean we have to transfer?” at the thought of going somewhere more than three long blocks from Broadway.

The B and C are far more complex. Both trains have counterpart express trains (the D and the A respectively) which run on the same line, but make no stops between 59th and 125th Streets. The B train only runs on weekdays between roughly 5:30 a.m. and 9 p.m., and the C train is frequently substituted by the A train during late-nights or weekends. Conversely, the D train, which is easily mistaken for the B, almost exclusively runs express. Moreover, the D/B line and the A/C line split at 59th Street to follow different routes through the city, the former crossing Rockefeller Center and Herald Square, and the latter following 8th Avenue up to its Fulton Street cross into Brooklyn. In all, the four trains create quite a confusing tangle of destinations and stops, all on the same line! It took several weeks before I could get on a train—either at 110th Street or anywhere downtown—without frantically checking the train’s letter and listening for express or local service to determine where I would wind up.

So when I happened upon my friend’s Facebook proclamation, “My train is the 1 train!” I felt a distinct pang of nostalgia. In my eager anticipation of graduation, I had forgotten that leaving Columbia means leaving the 1 train behind. The past year has provided ample practice navigating the complex web of trains that traverse the greater metropolitan area of New York, but I realized that for many at Columbia, life after graduation will provide the first confrontation with other forms of public transit.

Perhaps this seems an obvious observation. But only a few of the class of 2008 will likely dally long in the Heights. Most will be off to find apartments in the outer boroughs, or even to far-off places like Boston, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco. Imagine the possibilities: riding the N from Astoria to Midtown, the J from Marcy Avenue to Broad Street, or the 2 or the 4 from Franklin Avenue to Wall Street or Bowling Green. These places sound foreign to most Columbian ears, and they are—not to mention the unthinkable idea of riding the Metro, the El, the T, or BART.

Graduation demands that we step out into the real world, and moving away from the 1 train is in fact an apt metaphor for the trials and adventures that await us. They will be confusing, unpredictable, and frustrating, but we will be more experienced, worldly people as a result. So go ahead. Take a leap, plan your next great transportation adventure, and take comfort in remembering that the blue and white tiles of the Columbia University stop will always feel like home.

The author is a Barnard College senior majoring in political science. She is a member of the Editorial Board.