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Level -> Going underground (5/9/2008 4:11:04 PM)
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quote:
The trackworkers who toil in the city’s subway tunnels call their workplace “the hole.” It’s a dank and dark and unsettling place. Bloated rats float in puddles of muck. The stench of garbage and urine and exhaust permeates the air. It’s either eerily silent or filled with the brain-rattling noise of trains blasting their horns as they barrel by. There’s so much steel dust swirling around that when you blow your nose your snot is black. On summer days, the temperature regularly exceeds 100 degrees; in the winter, it’s below freezing. Lost pets and homeless drug addicts occasionally stagger by, and every so often the cops chase a perp onto the tracks. Other than that, the only inhabitants are the workers and the rats and the ghosts of all the people who have died down here.
Last year, 58 people lost their lives on the city’s subway tracks—an average of more than one a week. Most were “jumpers,” people who decided to commit suicide-by-train. Other typical scenarios include intoxicated passengers who topple onto the rails, homeless people living underground, riders who slip while urinating between cars, teenagers who try to “surf” on top of the train, and commuters who accidentally fall (or, very rarely, are pushed) off the platform just as the subway pulls in. Nine more people perished in the first three months of this year, and then, in early April, two men died within two days of each other: The E train ran over a 21-year-old who’d stumbled onto the tracks, and a C train hit a 67-year-old after he wandered into a tunnel.
http://nymag.com/news/features/46643/
Very interesting read, thought I'd share, being the kind soul that I am.
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