I was returning from the theatre with my in-laws last night after a showing of ‘Cat On a Hot Tin Roof’.
After we boarded the Shuttle at 42nd St to go to Grand Central, there was a middle-aged Asian woman standing just outside the door to the shuttle, unsure whether she should enter. Humbly smiling at those of us already inside, she had an urgent question to ask us:
“Manhattan?”
Everyone on board seemed willing to help, but that one kind of threw everyone. Some tried to ask her for more information, but it was clear that the word ‘Manhattan’ was the only wordshe understood. So, with no other real way to respond, everyone just kind of affirmed that, yes, indeed, this subway car was going to Manhattan.
I wonder now, at what point during her trip she actually arrived in Manhattan, and how long she had been riding subway cars ‘that um, sure, were going to Manhattan’ – feeling understood as people politely helped her avoid Queens and Brooklyn express trains.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Stamford Talk // Mar 13, 2008 at 7:07 am
Geez- what do you even do with that…
Did she take a look at the subway map to look for a familiar name?
2 Chris (Admin) // Mar 13, 2008 at 9:55 am
Nope, not at all – oh, and she was dragging her ipod headphones on the ground cause they were hanging out of her purse.
I saw her walk all the way to GCT after she got off the shuttle. They probably put her on a metro-north train to 125th st.
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