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<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-21%20at%201.03.10%20AM.png" width="842" height="499"/></p>
<p>After four days of unpacking into our studio apartment, we met the downstairs neighbor. An unhappy man, and thankfully not too tall, because when he pointed into his open apartment door and at his obvious ceiling, it was the same height as the top of the doorframe. This extremely low ceiling was essentially our apartment's wood floor. We never caught his name-- he was very serious, still pointing at the ceiling earnestly, and speaking with great concern. </p>
<p><br>
<strong> </strong><em><strong>"We hear EVERYTHING, all times of the night and day, loud, booming, late at night… banging, and scratching the floor. We are RIGHT HERE. Everything you do, every move. We hear everything. We wonder, why you do this… how… how can anybody make so much noise?"</strong></em><strong> </strong></p>
<p><br>
Our faces must have shown shock; we had no idea somebody lived down there-- we'd thought the doorway was the building's basement entrance, or a storage room. He somehow looked even sadder as we explained how we didn't know that he, his wife and two children lived a mere seven feet below us, and his look of grief suggested that our deep apologies and explanations were not helping.</p>
<p> <br>
I empathized with our neighbors as soon as I recalled the big furniture puzzle that we'd been solving right above them since our first day in town.</p>
<p> <br>
We had moved all of the boxes and small items to one tall corner, then began shuffling things around until we had found the dog's couch, then we had dragged the massive couch, but wait-- all of the other furniture had to be moved first, to the other side of the room, temporarily, before being moved back to allow for the couch's eventual location. </p>
<p> <br>
Everything was dragged across that wood floor a few dozen times a day as we had solved this complex domestic puzzle. It took four days, and apparently late nights, for us to stop moving the couch around. Bonnie the dog was finally pleased with it's location, so we were finally finished moving in. To punish us, our neighbors would never smile or laugh again. </p>
<p><br>
Now that we felt obliged to creep around on the hardwood floor like little mice, it was time to get out of the confines of the apartment, and venture down into the famed New York subways. The mission: We would go <em>downtown, </em>and then we would return <em>uptown. </em>Bonnie, noisily eyeing her leash, would have to stay behind this time. </p>
<h2><br>
A Hound Goes to New York </h2>
<p><br>
As we quietly left, her loud barking reminded me of our driving trip to New York, and her help with getting us ahead of schedule along the way. <br>
Less than a week earlier, driving through some long state on the way to New York, we'd stopped after dark at a place we'll call the <em>'No Pets Inn', </em>and we'd smuggled Bonnie, the medium sized leopard hound, into the hotel. It was late, we were tired, and we had wrapped her in a blanket and walked in the front with some other less wiggly luggage, to the room, to bed, goodnight. </p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-21%20at%2012.55.43%20AM.png" width="388" height="292"/><br>
It was the barking. The barking of a medium sized hound at the break of dawn inside a hotel room, that's what gave us away. Security was at the door, they explained the thing about no pets, which would require us to leave immediately. They were right, and we barely had time to be properly ashamed of ourselves as we'd more driving to do, a city to inhabit, and trains to catch. </p>
<p>This brings us back to our fourth day in the city; Subway Day.</p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-21%20at%201.07.56%20AM.png" width="616" height="454"/></p>
<p><em>86th Street Entrance to subway</em></p>
<h1> <br>
The Subway </h1>
<p><br>
Dog now barking safely inside the NYC apartment, the plan this day was to ride the trains; Downtown, then back Uptown-- a test run, a simple plan. We simply walked down the subway entrance stairwell at 86th St., and at the bottom was a steel gate which opened easily. Passing this first obstacle with ease, we looked around for clues on how to begin. There were only a few people around the platform, and an urgent rushing sound seemed to haunt the tunnels as we read the signs. <br>
It was $2.00 to ride the train. A machine would spit out a paper ticket, and it was good for only that day, is the way I remember it. <em>(later a plastic 'MetroCard' was introduced, but in Sept. 2004 I remember a paper ticket)</em> </p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-21%20at%201.12.43%20AM.png" width="270" height="269"/><br>
That first experience in the subways is surreal as a memory now. There were things that we saw in the subways that day that I still have to wonder if they were real or not.</p>
<h2>Subway Grime</h2>
<p> <br>
Standing on the 86th St. platform, the train tracks below had puddles of putrid-looking water gathered between them in the low spots, and along the far wall across the tracks several wet, greasy rats were marching along a concrete abutment, without a worry. </p>
<p> <br>
This was the first real <em>New York grime</em> that we'd seen. Central Park had plenty of rats, but it was kept clean-- the whole Upper West Side of the city was generally cleaner than one might expect. The subways, though, had a bad reputation to uphold-- these subway rats looked pitiful, and all of the city's dust, oil and soot dripped down around and on them, seeping from above, proudly gathering years-thick around these tunnel rats and the veining electric tracks. </p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-21%20at%201.31.11%20AM.png" width="567" height="296"/><br>
Eventually the silence of the platform was washed away with an urgent echo, and from the tunnel a light appeared, followed by a train, and then the horrifying squeal of the brakes, which served as a screeching alarm as it eased to a stop before us. The doors opened, we stepped in like pros, and the doors stayed open.</p>
<p> <br>
Was something wrong? Before we could think about it, a voice came from a speaker somewhere in the train compartment, <em>"Stand clear of the closing doors!" </em>We were clear, the doors closed and we took off down the tunnel with a clatter. </p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-20%20at%207.45.28%20PM.png" width="363" height="608"/><br>
Little maps on the walls in the train compartment were available, but we seemed like the only ones who dared examine it. Worried about looking too lost, and supposing that the map was probably bait for tourists in this big city-- we soon felt like we were <em>downtown </em>enough, and decided to get off the train next time the doors opened. </p>
<h2>Downtown</h2>
<p><br>
The doors opened, we got out, and there was a small band playing; a plastic five-gallon bucket made a drum for the duo, as a tiny amp coughed out something dissonant from a kid with an electric guitar, together bashing out some primal groove, fixed as an island surrounded by moving crowds of people flowing in streams into different corridors and ramps with steady intent. </p>
<p>These were the New York millions, right here on this platform-- they didn't venture up to 88th Street, at least not in throngs like this. In the confusion, we joined a stream, and blended with the flow, desperately looking for signs to show where we were going. The plan was to get on a train going 'Uptown', and back to the sky and free flying wind. </p>
<p><br>
<strong> OBEY, CONSUME </strong></p>
<p><br>
This is the surreal part of my introduction to the subways. <em>[The following account actually happened, though I have no proof. We decided later that it was an art installation on the beams above an underground walk, but for our first time in, it was sobering to see.]</em> </p>
<p><br>
We found ourselves merged into another moving crowd on a broad underground ramp, descending towards another presumed train platform. Above, to my shock, I saw a black and white sign on the horizontal beam spanning the walkway, saying simply "OBEY". </p>
<p>Yes, exactly like in the movie <em>'They Live'. </em>on the next beam, another black and white sign, this one with the word "CONSUME", and as we descended <em>(we were utterly lost now) </em>the signs continued with every beam, until we reached another hub. My partner and I had both seen the eerie signs as we walked down the ramp with hundreds of other people, but nobody seemed to be looking anywhere, everybody was just moving along, too busy to look. </p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-20%20at%2010.00.53%20PM.png" width="767" height="481"/> <br>
The long ramp ended, and we found a map that had a couple of people already looking at it, so we bravely walked up and stared at it, as if we knew what to look for-- and as panic found us again, we saw a red line going North on the map, and it was close enough to home, so we chose the <strong>'1' Train</strong>. As I recall, it dropped us somewhere on Broadway, and we gladly walked the rest of the way back to 88th St. under the welcoming sky.</p>
<p> <br>
We tried to figure out later where that ramp was with the creepy signs, so that we could take pictures, but we could never find it again, and for the two of us, at two dollars a ticket, it cost eight dollars just to go anywhere and get back home on a train, so those signs, while not forgotten, would have to remain a legend and a mystery. </p>
<p><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-21%20at%202.09.52%20AM.png" width="662" height="374"/> <br>
New York City is a busy place, and that afternoon I was back to my peaceful familiar trails in Central Park with Bonnie the hound, expanding our explorations of the park a little more every day. After the endless subway ramps and creepy art on the walls of that underworld, the paths and trees of Central Park were already feeling like home. Bonnie, the medium-sized leopard hound, seemed to agree. <br>
<br>
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------------ <br>
<em>thanks for reading this part II of my story</em> <br>
<em>here is </em><a href="https://steemit.com/story/@therealpaul/upper-west-side-story-page-from-a-year-in-new-york-city"><em>LINK</em></a><em> to the first part of this account</em> </p>
<p><em>images thanks to Pixabay, Google Earth and a Manhattan subway map</em></p>
<h2><img src="http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/beehelicopter/Screen%20shot%202016-12-20%20at%206.43.46%20PM.png" width="412" height="101"/><br>
<em>@therealpaul</em> </h2>
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