A Vortex for My Common Sense

Every. Single. Time.

It’s Sunday. It’s raining in New York. It’s newsletter time.

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Something weird always happens to me at the 50th Street CE subway stop. 

When I walk into that station, it’s like my brain short circuits and anything I ever knew about taking the subway is ejected from my consciousness. I don’t think I’ve ever easily taken the train from the 50th Street station. 

Okay, that’s not entirely true. When I lived in Harlem, I would take the C train from that stop relatively frequently. That trip always seemed to be fine on my end. I can’t speak for the MTA. There are things that happen with the MTA that I’ll never understand. I’m not sure the MTA understands what’s going on there either. 

So, I’ll get more specific. Something weird always happens to me when I try to take the E train to Queens from the 50th Street subway stop.

This feels like Midtown’s fault. What even is Midtown? It’s a well-known capitalist hellscape. It’s one huge Con-Ed bill. It’s avoiding eye contact with tourists and comedian bookers. It’s that little flash of joy and the one tear I get in the corner of my eye every time I hear the first notes of the overture of a Broadway musical. It’s memories of a Hell’s Kitchen rooftop. It’s COOKIES. It’s…not all bad, I guess. 

Midtown does feel like a vortex. It’s a vortex for my common sense. 

On Tuesday, I was out and about with my friend Alex. After getting the aforementioned cookies, we prepared to part ways at the, you guessed it, 50th Street CE subway stop. Before she continued on her journey home, I said very specifically that I feel like there is something weird about this subway stop for me. There never seems to be a train like there should. Or I always miss it. Or I hit the subway stop just as planned work begins and the train I need disappears from the schedule for the station altogether. That was the last thing I chose to say for the evening. We said our good-byes and I took a breath and descended the stairs. 

As I was swiping my card, I was pleased to see that I should only have to wait three minutes for the next train. I walked to the platform edge, glanced up at the sign that says which train stops here, saw both the letters ‘C’ and ‘E,’ put my earpods in, and artfully leaned against a pole. Casually. Like I had been leaning on this pole my whole life. Effortlessly. So. very. cooly. 

Three minutes came and went and no train. I pulled up the MTA app on my phone to watch the arrivals schedule so I wouldn’t have to walk back and forth to the overhead board. Another train was supposed to arrive in like five minutes. “Okay,” I thought. “Good. Maybe that first one was just an anomaly.” 

I continued to wait and there continued to be no train. Occasionally there was a crackly announcement from overhead (God, is that you?!) that seemed to indicate a train was arriving but, unless it was a ghost train, I saw none arrive. With every train that came and disappeared off the MTA app, I sighed heavily. After about a half an hour, I was frustrated and decided to walk to another stop with another train I could take. “Another wasted fare,” I thought. 

As I walked towards the turnstiles, I happened to turn my head to the left. 

Of course, there was a very clear sign that pointed to a lower level platform for Queens trains. It’s huge! And tile! And literally if I had scanned around at all, it’s something I would have seen.

It felt important to me in that moment to look back at the sign that hung over the platform I was just standing on. To hopefully confirm that I’m not entirely daft but rather, just a little unobservant. Sure enough, it did mention the E train but it was for the late night E train which would start running through the top platform hours later. But I did see an E on that sign! I just didn’t read enough of the sign to get the information I needed. 

I chuckled my whole way down the stairs to the lower level platform and was on a train only about five minutes later. Well, thirty-five minutes after I had entered the station. Quick trip.

Here’s the thing, I’m certain I have been in that exact situation a few times before. Some of those other times, I may have figured out that I needed to be on the lower level platform but, honestly, most of the time I probably missed it entirely and left the station to find another train. Making this mistake feels like something you should only have to do once before it seeps into your head. It’s a mistake much like one I made early on in my time in New York: I stood on the West 4th platform for upwards of an hour waiting for an express train only to finally figure out that the express train had long stopped running that day by the time I wanted to take it. EXCEPT, I did actually learn that lesson. I do actually now understand the timeline of an express train. 

The 50th Street CE station is a place where I make the same mistake multiple times and never seem to learn my lesson. It’s a station that wipes my memory somehow. I’m a new New York bébé every time I stand on a platform that I believe is for the E train but is clearly marked for the C train. I turn into Samantha from like August 23, 2013, taking my first train on my first full day living in the city, hoping that I understand the difference between uptown and downtown. This station is a hazy past, an overly confident present, and a delayed future. This station is, for sure, the epicenter of the Midtown vortex.

This mistake made me laugh for a long time. It made me shake my head in a very good-natured way. Because, you know, there are some things in life that are very big and very hard and very awful. I have a whole list of them I’m working my way through. But there are some things in life that are small and quick and easy to manage. After so many big things, it can feel like a luxury to have a small complaint that is a funny story to tell. It can feel like a moment of joy to know that this thing, this moment, is very handable. It can feel like a gift to know that from this “wrong turn”, you’ll still get to where you need to go. 

So, if my biggest problem for a half hour is only that I waited at the wrong spot for a train, I’ll take that as a win.  

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Programming Note: Next week, December 17th, will be my last newsletter for 2023. We’re going into the holidays and I plan to Rip Van Winkle-it until the new year. You know, fall asleep under a tree, grow a beard, and try again in 2024. And try again I will. I’ll be back in your inbox on January 7, 2024. 

I feel like next week’s newsletter will end up being a lot of lists. You know, a round up of the year that was 2023. …which might be a bit of a wild card but what the hell. If you have any topics you’d like to see covered in a list (best things you read, best whatever whatever) feel free to send them along. See you next week.