Miss Subway and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

The New York subway system is an acquired taste. For me it’s always held the lure of adventure – with danger lurking in the shadows. So it seemed fitting that during my trip to New York last week, I make a point of seeing The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. My daughter, Daphne, seemed less excited about the prospect of seeing a film we both knew would be replete with violence and loss of life.

Denzel Washington plays Walter Gerber, the hero of the film and a character epitomizing decency and street smarts. Risking his life to save other lives and perhaps restore his own reputation, Gerber comes into his own with the shooting of the train’s motorman -- sending the message that the hostage takers want to deal with Gerber, who’s been demoted as punishment for alleged corruption as a manager -- and not the supervisor who treats Gerber poorly.

Perhaps the film’s most touching moment comes with Gerber’s wife asking him to bring home a gallon of milk. It’s her way of assuring herself that he will come home alive at the end of the day.

Feeling that I was watching Tony Soprano in his more endearing moments telling Carmela how the world works, I loved watching James Gandolfini play the Mayor. The prototypical, eminently practical New Yorker, he’s riding on an elevated train in Brooklyn when he gets word of the hostage taking.

When his aide suggests having a car and driver meet him at the next stop, he insists the subway would be faster. After the aide elicits passenger protests by insisting that the train go express to end of the line, the Mayor overrules him.

I rode the New York subway system as recently as last week, when I asked Daphne, and her husband, Etan, to meet me in Jackson Heights for a tour of the old neighborhood. Following my daughter’s instructions, I took the train to Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street, and was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I got from my hotel in Manhattan to Queens.

The station had been renovated and expanded since my early childhood, but I still enjoyed the gritty feel of walking under the El. It occurred to me that areas in the immediate vicinity of elevated trains -- regardless of locale -- are populated by the newest immigrants, along with ethnic restaurants, check-cashing stores, and travel agencies specializing in flights back to the homeland.

Memories of the New York subway system, both recent and distant, came to mind:

1) Dad’s frequent warnings not to walk between the subway cars, lest I literally fall through the cracks. Any time such a death was reported in the news, he made a point of calling it to my attention, especially when it involved someone whose educational credentials suggested he should have known better.

2) A news account of a student from New York’s High School of Music and Art being pushed in front of a rushing train --thanks to a deranged man not taking his medication, a young violinist lost her arm.

3) Fears about Daphne being on the subway headed to Queens on the morning of 9/11. A student at Columbia Journalism School, she had been assigned to cover the primaries. My fantasies about terrorist incidents on trains were unfortunately reinforced by news accounts of riders in Japan being gassed.

4) Boarding the train at Roosevelt Avenue with Mom and my brother so we could meet Dad in Manhattan and go ice-skating at the Wollman Memorial Rink in Central Park.

5) Images of the Miss Subway of the month interspersed with the advertisements for vocational schools plastered inside the cars. More often than not, this model passenger was a Caucasian with her hair done up in a beehive requiring lots of hairspray, lived in one of the outer boroughs, and worked as a secretary in Manhattan.

What are your own memories of the New York subway system?