Metadish, Fresh from NYC

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

It’s probably the best thing in the world when you are on the F train between Boadway/Lafayette and West Fourth and your cell phone beeps because you have a text message. It comes as such a surprise that your heart jumps with elation. You also feel as if god favors you because he is permitting communication between yourself, who is underground in a squalid tunnel, and someone in California.

Don’t feel too special because that’s just the way it is, now.

Although there is not special wiring that allows this to happen, there are several factors that attribute to this miracle of communication. Proximity of antennae and the street are among some of the biggest reasons.

The lines with the most powerful signal on the platform are the 2/3 and the 4/5 along the Upper East Side. So, it might be a good idea to plan your day around this and pass the knowledge along to your friends.

Some people are not so excited about subway passengers’ ability to talk on their phone underground.

David Simmons, 54, of New Brunswick, N.J., outside the 34th St. A/C/E station said, “I think it’s rude. If you want to read, you can’t. You can’t concentrate on what you are trying to do.”

He should probably go the library if he wants to do that. Doesn’t he know that he looks like a showoff when he reads on the train?

Besides, as Representative Anthony Weiner of Brooklyn/Queens pointed out, “Without emergency cell service, you can’t say something when you see something.”

This is a good point. Before, when we were on the train, we were absolutely isolated from the “above-ground” world and could not even rely on something like telling the conductor when an emergency situation arose. We are glad that he utilized the ever-present anxiety about terrorism to promote such a worthy cause.

Gift of gab in subway [New York Daily News]

Share This