The Assignment: Ride the M5 Bus from Houston to 181st Street and back. Write a paper on what you see. Looking back, I find this documentation a little unimaginative compared ot what I could have written. Regardless, here's what I saw.
// The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
When confronted with a writing challenge, one effective exercise is to free flow thoughts onto a piece of paper – writing whatever flows through the mind’s consciousness. The point of this exercise is to create a starting point, weed out the less pertinent information, and begin organizing the thoughts and ideas that lend themselves to the theme of the composition. For the assignment of documenting my round-trip ride on NYC’s M5 bus, I accumulated pages of notes detailing what I saw from 6:40 p.m. to 9:20 p.m. I shot as many relevant photographs as I could before dusk and I videotaped part of the long ride from Houston Street all the way to 181st Street. The free flow of ideas is done, and I now know what Charlie Kaufmann felt when he was assigned to write a screenplay of “The Orchid Thief;” completely lost on my theme.
The bus driver starts the bus, with my wife and me as the lone passengers. The first notable landmark we approach is the 4th St. basketball courts on 6th Avenue. I pass this court on my daily commute to school and am always impressed by not just the talented basketball players, but by the crowd of spectators clasping the fence at courtside. This gathering is a testament to the culture that New York City offers, and I am surprised no one has taken the time to do a video documentary on the subject (or why such a documentary, if it exists, is something I know not of).
We continue down 6th Avenue and I see the same book merchants that I see every day on my way to class. I often wonder how these people have come to lead the occupation the lead, whether they enjoy it, and if it truly is lucrative, especially with a competing Barnes and Noble a few blocks up.
By 6:55 p.m., we have passed the street vendors and are on West 12th Street stuck in traffic. I turn to my left to see a man shooting pictures with his camera – the third photographer I ‘ve seen on this trip. At home in Harrisburg, I often enjoyed going downtown and taking pictures; I became so passionate about it that I created a photographic community on the subject. Ironically, here in Manhattan, I have little interest in picking up my camera. Perhaps it’s the fact that the city is so enclosed that I’m not satisfied with a lack in depth-of-field, or maybe I’ve become Pavlov’s dog. You see, I once tried taking pictures in Manhattan (with a tripod), only to be stopped by a member of the NYPD telling me to cease shooting unless I had a permit for my tripod. Then there’s also the fact that, according to the banners on the streetlights, over 1 million photographs are shot each day in New York. Does the city really need to be the subject of another photographer?
With 6th Avenue shut down for what appears to be a street fair, it seems that I’m the only 1st year ITP student to get more than I bargained for out of the trip. After a 20-minute detour, the bus driver steers us back away from the rows of taxis and onto 6th Avenue at 23rd Street.
I am continually impressed at how street vendors and businesses advertise themselves. On 9th Street, I see a wine store that boasts its longevity by proudly stating on its sign that it has been in the business since 1935. I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for this ploy of blatant propaganda. To have paid their rent in this city for so long means something (or so I would be led to believe). To prove that I’m not completely naive, I’ll mention that I tend to ignore pizza shops that claim they are “authentic,” like the one we’re passing by at 14th Street and 7th Avenue. What’s it take to be authentic? I can find an “authentic NYC pizza shop” in Ohio!
By 7:10 p.m. the seats are sprinkled with little more than a half dozen people. Aside from the ramblings of an elderly couple behind us, very little action is taking place, so I return my focus back to the street. It’s at this time that I catch a sighting of my first homeless person. Whereas it’s fairly common to see a homeless person on the subway, I suppose this will be the closest I will be to one on the bus.
About five minutes have passed, and we have just passed 42nd Street. Being the time of night that it is, there is far less activity here; there are less street-side restaurants, and the store interiors are dim. Of course, these same stores have windows lit with merchandise, as if to taunt the passerby. It’s not long before we are passing the Essex House and the NY Institute of Technology.
By 7:30, we are passing yet another Urban Outfitters. How many duplicate stores does one island need? In my short time living here I have seen more Duane Reades and McDonalds than anywhere else. Perhaps that which is most saturated throughout this city is the omnipresent Starbucks. I don’t contrive the same sinful feeling I get from shopping at Wal-Mart, and it’s because I avoid Starbucks as much as possible. It undermines what I believe is a unique property to large cities like New York – the small street business.
The bus begins the long ride up Riverside Drive, which might as well be uncharted territory in my book. As I turn to the left I see a couple at a doorstep apparently saying goodbye. I also, oddly enough, see a Christmas tree celebrate its lone existence on 97th Street. We then begin to approach an enormous pillared structure – Grant’s tomb. I always knew this was in Manhattan, but until this point, I didn’t realize it was on the West side, nor did I realize its extravagance. Either way, I’m glad to have discovered it, as I hope to visit it someday in the future.
We continue deeper into parts of Manhattan that I have not yet ventured. Had we traveled all the way to Yankee Stadium, I would have felt like I was rewriting Dante’s Inferno! Coincidentally, it’s at this time that the first New Yorkers wearing Yankees memorabilia get on the bus.
We are around 141 Street now, and based on the local shop names (San Martin Jewelry, El Festival), I begin to realize that I’m no longer in Kansas. I will admit to have visited Harlem once; I followed the advice of Gourmet Magazine and tried some stuck pig in a run-down vendor’s shop (it was excellent). This was my first time visiting Harlem at night though, and it seemed like a vastly different world than the one we departed from. It feels far more unpredictable than midtown, but based on the street traffic, I tell myself that it can’t be extremely dangerous. With the television evening news’ spin on it, Brooklyn is by far the most dangerous part of New York; Harlem is just a hidden capitol of tourism waiting to be discovered.
We reach West 169th Street and Nicholas Avenue and the Spanish influence only gets more prominent. By this point, everyone on the bus has a foreign tongue. Oddly enough, an automated warning crackles over the bus speakers. A drone voice warns commuters to be on the lookout for pickpockets. What is the significance of this announcement’s timing? I have rode the bus for nearly an hour and a half, watched a number of people get on and off, and only now have heard this announcement. Is this warning based on our current locale? Why only play it once during the ride? Why isn’t it simulcast in Spanish, for that matter?
The romantic view of the Washington Bridge on 181st Street has now signaled the end of route. My wife and I are soon the last people on the bus, and only after the bus driver’s look do we realize that we needed to get off and take another M5 bus back down. I’m not embarrassed about my ignorance, though, since I doubt many people ride a bus round-trip. If I wanted to embarrass myself, I would mention that I just recently realized how the “Stop Requested” sign operates (Sure, there’s a strip on the window labeled how to stop the bus, but until I saw a rider put this to action, I thought this strip was an emergency system).
At 8:10 p.m., we shuffled onto another M5 bus for the trip back. This bus contained some well-behaved toddlers (accompanied by their parents, of course) and a few more gents donning Yankees attire. Now at 150th Street, a young couple comes on-board. From the sounds of it, they can’t get enough of each other. Their make-out session doesn’t bother me so much as the fact that they have to commence directly behind my wife and me. Another couple – this one speaking in German, soon enters the bus and begin examining a their tour book. For the most part, though, our ride back was pretty quiet.
One aspect of this trip that I have yet to mention until now is the amount of what I would call abstract advertising that I was exposed to. For instance, Citibank’s large billboard by the Flatiron Building says “Live Like Your Next Purchase Could Be the Farm.” What does this mean? How does this message apply to advertising? Allow me to share another. Vitamin Water’s posters dawn bus stops with phrases like “Drink Energy, Shake it More” juxtaposed with cartoons of elderly people spelling “Y-M-C-A.” Perhaps my favorite comes from the Kenneth Cole store. displays a sign that reads “40% of American Homes Have Hidden Guns. 97% of American Children Play Hide and Seek. Are You Putting Us On?”
All of these advertisements were outside of the bus. The interior of the bus surprisingly contained more public service announcements than advertisements. The first M5 bus informed riders of a women’s hotline, senior citizen Metrocard discounts, an ad for the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and an ad for a volleyball tournament. The second M5 bus had an ad for FIT, the volleyball tournament, bus safety, NYC safety, metrocard deals, taking a stand for disabilities, and an adult literacy Web site. Had I not taken this bus ride and known which ads were on the bus, I wonder what conclusions I would make about the type of people riding.
By the time we reached our starting point, it was 9:20 at night. The number of commuters had slowly dwindled to just my wife and me by the time we got off at the stop at Houston Street. During my last moments on the ride, I asked myself, “why do people ride the bus?” Sure, I take a bus into the city every day, but in my case, there are few other options. Granted, the subway is not the scenic photographer’s dream, but it is far more time-efficient. Rumors would characterize the bus as a much safer form of transportation, however, I have taken the subway in the late hours of the night and have had no bad experiences.