Inwood, Broadway at Isham Street

Mary Sargent © 2010 ………………….….. click to enlarge

Las stop, las stop.  You'll always get a seat on the A at the 207 Street Station.

See map.

Inwood, No. 1 Train Between 215th and 207th Street Stops

Mary Sargent © 2008 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

Okay! We're finally in the present. This was not a proper photowalk, but a few opportunistic photos before and after meeting Luka for dinner at Henry's, but at least it's now.

I'm always a little uneasy shooting photos of strangers head on, but I think of Travis Ruse and his great subway shots and how he never tried to hide what he was doing, and I just raise my camera and click away. This woman looked at me after I took her photograph, so I smiled and said I was looking for Christmas shots and she made a good one with her gift wrap. So that was okay and when she got off, she said goodby. So far, so good.

Inwood, Elevated Subway Platform at West 215th Street

Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

Going home after my pre-Thanksgiving dinner walk last Thursday, I've just gotten off the uptown train and I'm looking across to the downtown platform.

You can almost imagine this guy is staring down at the Manhattan River. Except, of course, there is no Manhattan River. That I know of.

Inwood, 215th Street Subway Stop

Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

This morning, it was like this: I was out of current photographs and had to get some today. I had had X-treme insomnia last night and was semi-comotose, longing for my bed. But here I was at the subway stop, on my way to work, toting my camera, staring blearily across the tracks. I managed to focus (my eyes) and there it was: my photograph for tonight.

Now all I had to do was get through the day.

Note: you won't see what I saw unless you enlarge it.

See map.

No. 1 Train, Stairs at Dyckman Street Elevated Platform

Mary Sargent © 2007 …………. click to enlarge

The things we do every day, unquestioningly. Go down these stairs? Well, okay. If that's the only way to get to the street.

See map.

No. 1 Uptown Train Between West 96th and Dyckman Streets

Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

I guess we've all felt like this from time to time, riding the subways.

Inwood, No. 1 Subway Dyckman Street Platform

Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

I'm standing on the downtown platform at the Dyckman Street No. 1 subway stop, looking east, across to the uptown platform. Probably wouldn't have taken this shot in the summer.

See map.

Inwood, No. 1 Train Between 215th and Dyckman Streets

Mary Sargent © 2007 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

I HAD to get out today to photograph because I had nothing current to post tonight. This has happened only once before – on New Year's Day when I set it up on purpose. Devoted readers may remember that it rained on New Year's Day, and I stayed home and pulled up a photo from the archives. And so rain was predicted today as well, but it seemed to be an on and off kind of thing and I thought I would make it between raindrops. Wrongly. So I took a subway ride, got a few shots inside and a few outside on the covered elevated platforms.

This first one is looking east out the window of the No 1 train between 215th and Dyckman. I would love to paint from this photograph. Sometimes I really miss painting.

Inwood, Dyckman Street Subway Stop; A Train

Mary Sargent © 2006 ………………………… click to enlarge

Last Saturday, I didn't have much time, so I decided to just do a short trip and pick up a couple of little streets one subway stop down. Staff Street and Henshaw Street. Ever hear of them?

Let me digress a moment and tell you about my dinner last night with Barbara Lubbies (at the Hi-Life, no less, but too cold to eat outside), who suggested adding links to maps of the streets being walked. So I got all excited, being encouraged in my map obsession, and herewith is the first. Find Staff and Henshaw Streets. Try the aerial view, too. I tell you, though I find much to deplore on a daily, if not hourly, basis, I have to marvel at the abundance of good stuff to be had these days.

But first a subway shot. I adore the subways, don't get me wrong, but I've long had this image of coming up out of the subways into daylight, as if coming out of hell into the blesssed light of redemption. And I've thought of doing a photographic series of those images. Just another of the many random thoughts I have. Here's one of them, anyway. That's real sunlight coming down those stairs.

By the way, for all you restaurant/saloon fans, the Hi-Life, though promising retro authenticity, brought me a whiskey sour in a martini glass. Naturally, I deplored it.

Upper West Side, No. 1,2,3 Subway stop at 96th Street

Mary Sargent © 2006

So leaving the neighborhood, I took a final few shots from the subway platform. This is one of the ones I like. If you want to see nothing BUT subway shots, check out Express Train, the wonderful photoblog of Travis Ruse who commutes from Park Slope to Midtown and posts a subway shot every day.

Someday I’m going to make permanent links to these sites I mention. I’ll get to it.