Since the first line connected Lower Manhattan to Harlem in 1904, New York�s subway has never ceased running. There were brief blips of interruption after 9/11 and in the last decade for hurricanes and blizzards, but for more than 115 years the rumbling on the rails has kept the click-clack heartbeat of New York. A second, tunneled city that, like the skyward metropolis above, never sleeps.
Last week, for the first time, the trains stopped running in a planned shutdown. Between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., the subways and New York�s 472 stations began closing for a nightly cleaning to disinfect trains. It�s a humbling concession for a swaggering, all-night town that, as much as anything, shows how the coronavirus pandemic has seized the gears of New York, one of the world�s hardest hit cities.
Except for commuters fleeing to the suburbs, the entire concept of �last train� is anathema in New York. London, sure. Boston, of course. Even Tokyo. But not in New York. Through the night, trains have always shuttled early-morning workers and late-night revelers. A four-hour shutdown may not seem like a drastic change given all the transformations wrought by the pandemic. But in New York, it means a tear in the fabric of the city.
�Without the subway, New York does not work. People are saying now, �What happens if people drive after the epidemic has passed?� Well, they can�t do it. If all the people who wanted to drive in New York drove, you�d have to pave over Long Island to park all of the cars,� says Kenneth T. Jackson, a history professor at Columbia and author of �Empire City: New York Through the Centuries.� �It�s more important than the public schools. It�s more important than anything.�
Even at a time when New York remains on lockdown, stopping the subway for even four hours has an enormous effect. Ridership in April was down more than 90%, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority still estimates that 11,000 had been using the trains during that overnight period. Many are essential workers and others � caregivers, custodians � can�t afford not to work.
The subway, where a ticket for the price of a slice gets you anywhere in the city, has been called the great leveler of New York. Remove that for even a few hours, and those scales tip.
�You see the growing gap between the haves and have-nots everywhere in New York City. This really rips that Band-Aid off,� says Clifton Hood, author of �722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York.� �Most professionals are, by and large, able to work from home. What you�re seeing now is the people who had no other choice.�
The homeless have borne the brunt of the shutdown. Typically, some 2,000 homeless people rely on trains as a warm place to pass the night. Now, at 1 a.m., they�re met at end-of-the-line stations by police (some 1,000 officers were used for the first night�s shutdown), hundreds of cleaners and a handful of outreach workers who can steer people to shelters or hospitals. On the first night, 139 of the 252 homeless people engaged accepted some support, the city said.
�What the city�s doing now is using the police to move people to the streets and further out into the open,� said Giselle Routhier, policy director for the Coalition for the Homeless. �It�s a visible manifestation of our policy failures to address homelessness.�
Sarah Feinberg, the interim president of the MTA, says it can�t be the transit system�s duty to care for the homeless.
Cities around the world are contemplating how they safely function with more normal levels of ridership. New York�s subways were already under criticism for overcrowding; some 5 million use New York�s transit system on an average weekday. Current social distancing protocols would not be feasible, says Feinberg.
�I don�t think anybody feels like they really know when ridership will come back and at what level,� Feinberg added. �It will come back. We have no option in New York City.�
For now, the arteries of New York remain momentarily blocked. The city sleeps, so long as the sound of sirens doesn�t wake it.
But as hard as it is to imagine New York, in all its diversity and density, reanimated, it will happen, historians say confidently. A mass of humanity will again board the express. After 9/11, some predicted the end of the skyscraper and that people would fearfully turn away from turnstiles. Instead, a building boom followed and ridership soared.
�I prefer to think about the shutdown as more akin to a spring cleaning than an augury of doom,� says Mike Wallace, author of �Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.� �For all the horror of the last weeks, New York has weathered other calamities and its resilience should not be underestimated.�
(AP)
