Ken vs. the City

New Yorker contributor George Packer was so moved by the experience of writing an article about Iraqi interpreters that he decided to turn it into a play.

How many copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were muggles reading on New York subway trains this evening? Well, there are four being read in this subway car. Let’s calculate…

According to the MTA’s website, there are about 6,200 subway cars in service. Assuming an average of four per car were read on the train this evening, 4 times 6,200 is 24,800.

So there were about 24,800 copies of Harry Potter riding the subway system when this photo was taken…Please note that this is not a scientific estimate in any way.

So, what’s the maximum number of Harry Potter readers you’ve seen on the train at once?

All kinds of software gimmicks for computers, PDAs, and iPhones. Plus standard stuff like fake fingers and smoke in a can.

Brendan Lowe of Time.com feels the same way I do about New York’s aging infrastructure: material decay and a political system more concerned with popular political issues than with the nitty gritty of running an urban community is a disaster waiting to happen. It’s not just a New York issue.

Our American culture is one of immediate gratification. If we can’t see the personal benefits right away, then what good is it? It’s a question that permeates every form of our media and advertising. Act NOW. Call TODAY. Don’t MISS OUT on this exciting offer. Operators are STANDING BY. It’s a message that appeals to most people in our culture and so has been absorbed by the political system. The days of politicians like Benjamin Franklin, who included “Imitate Jesus and Socrates” into his thirteen virtues, are long gone. Anything essential that remains unnoticed by the masses also goes unnoticed by the institution that controls funding for maintenance and upgrades.

Lowe is right when he says that disasters like yesterday’s steam explosion can happen in any city. It’s because we all suffer from the same cultural affliction.

This afternoon an underground steam pipe burst and tore through the street near Grand Central Station. I was only a few blocks north on 53rd St. when I heard the terrible thundering noise. A pillar of hot and muddy steam jetted into the air, nearly as high as the Chrysler Building, according to a wire report from the AP. I saw a large number of emergency vehicles and their flashing lights around early evening. No reports of deaths, but several unidentified people were rushed to the hospital. The New York Times reports one dead and 20 injured, 2 critically.

Subway service on the 4, 5, and 6 lines from the Bronx to Brooklyn was immediately suspended. The garbled subway voice attributed the loss in service to a “building collapse,” but later news reports mention only the burst steam pipe at street level.

Below the streets of New York lies an unfathomable network of utility pipes, tunnels, wires, and other artifacts. A benefit, I suppose, of the city’s granite foundation. It looks something like this illustration from National Geographic. There are cast iron steam pipes below ground that are still in use after nearly 100 years. I don’t know what kind of regular maintenance Consolidated Edison performs on these old pipes, but I get the feeling sometimes that even one of the largest energy companies in the US is barely able to handle New York’s aging underground energy system.

In May 2007, ConEd had to hire livery cab drivers to guard manhole covers and sewer grates because stray underground voltage electrified these metal surfaces turning them into electrocution hazards. You can read more about it in this old article from the Daily News. In January 2004, an electrified metal utility box actually killed grad student Jodie Lane as she was walking her dogs in the East Village. Here’s a listing of New York Times articles referencing the Jodie Lane incident.

And the hazards aren’t limited to steam and electricity. Last year, a friend of mine showed me a grate in the street where he saw a gigantic jet of fire shoot up into the sky. According to him, there is a lot of ancient electrical equipment underground with exposed contacts. There are also exposed rivers of heating oil and other flammable liquids. And occasionally electricity will arc between the contacts and ignite any flammable stuff nearby, sending a fireball up to the surface through the nearest available ventilation shaft and toasting anything or anyone who happens to be standing nearby.

I’ve never heard of a city as explosive as New York. We’re living on top of the 19th century, and today’s explosion illustrates the point in a very terrible way.

Seen for sale on E22nd St. $5,000

I like cars with character. This one may overheat on the way to the grocery store, but it sure does look purty.

Here’s the free edition, the one with the advertisement on the front page, next to the regular edition.I see no problem with offering different versions of a publication in different markets, but I found three different editions of the Daily News being distributed at the same time in the morning within a one block radius of Grand Central Station.

The free one is $0.00
The regular edition is $0.50
The Grand Central edition is $0.25

Talk about confusing. I had to talk to one of the newsies to find out that these three versions were exactly the same inside. I don’t think I will ever understand print newspaper publishing.

Both sites were recently redesigned. Both are decent and get the job done. But I agree that CNN's is a lot more efficient.

Two audio interviews recorded in 1987 with the master of science fiction himself, Isaac Asimov. Or as I like to call him, Mr. Lamb Chops.