New York Hack

I was bereft when Randy Kennedy’s Tunnel Vision concluded its three-year run in the Times’s Metro section in 2003. I had found his column devoted to the New York subway endlessly fascinating in a how-things-work, behavioral-science, human-interest kind of way. And, in the wake of September 11, I had also found Kennedy’s take on the subway’s “usual mix of the mundane and subtly marvelous” immensely comforting. The column ran on Tuesdays. I loved Tuesdays.

Happily, Kennedy published a collection of his articles in Subwayland, a book I treasure. My favorite piece—though it’s foolish to try to choose—is “Three-Note Mystery Haunts Riders on No. 2 Line,” about the suspiciously tuneful brake release noises that the trains on the 2 Line make when they depart the station. (See Gothamist for more.)

So, I was thrilled yesterday to learn of New York Hack, a photo blog recently launched by a yellow cab driver. I scrolled through the behind-the-wheel diary remembering the voyeuristic delight I got from Kennedy’s descent into the caverns of the abandoned Second Avenue Line and his other forays into the bowels of the MTA.

New York Hack does have a different spirit from Tunnel Vision. It’s about having a job. Sometimes it’s about the downtime—backgammon and Ms. Pac Man—but often it’s about aggravation. It’s about drunken car service drivers, about the black Jaguar with Pennsylvania plates running an all-way stop sign at W. 13th and Washington. And the author definitely has a far more charged tone than a Times beat reporter. You would too if someone threw a twenty at you for a one-hour fare that metered at $18.70.