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Amid a pandemic and a series of high-profile violent attacks, many on Asian Americans, New Yorkers have yet to fully embrace returning to the subway. Yet for many, the subway is a place of community, bringing together people from various walks of life. You can find a slice of the city in any of its 472 subway stations.
We spoke to Qian Julie Wang, who wrote a guest essay this week on the powerful and fraught relationship New Yorkers have with the subway. The coronavirus caused a crisis for public transit around the world, so we wanted to give readers a chance to hear more from Wang on the topic. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: A lot of people feel uneasy about returning to public transportation right now. You talk about the subway as a hub for community, a place where people of different incomes and backgrounds can coexist. Have you been able to find the same sense of community among strangers anywhere else?
The closest thing I can think of is the public library. When I was growing up in New York, the library — and particularly the Chatham Square branch in Chinatown — was another place that gave me an early sense of community. And it felt like home in a very similar way: Many people, despite vast differences, coming together to embrace books in hopes of pursuing a brighter, more meaningful life.
Q: In your essay, you write about how, as an undocumented immigrant growing up in New York City in the ’90s, you “always felt a little safer in a subway car” — but that’s changed recently after several high-profile assaults. What do you think it would take, on an individual and political level, for people to regain trust in the subway as a safe space?
I suspect people feel safest when they feel connected to the people and environment around them. On the individual level, it means seeing enough fellow passengers in the same cars and on the same platforms carrying a sense of respect for one another and for the subway and city.
On the political level, it means building policies that foster connection and humanity rather than criminalization and dehumanization — offering shelter and mental health support to those who would otherwise be lost. It means funding grass-roots initiatives that center community, whether by providing chaperones/buddy systems, restoring foot traffic and boosting morale or incentivizing more musicians and artists to bring their art back to the subway, which was once a showcase for the diversity of the creative energy that fuels New York.
Q: You write that just as traumatic experiences from childhood can persist into adulthood, “the emotional ramifications of the pandemic promise to linger long after physical threats fade.” What is your biggest fear for what could happen to the subway, and to the city by extension?
When I refrained from entering stations in 2020, I found that the longer I went without the subway, the more it carried associations of fear for me. It was so easy for recent negativity to overshadow all the older, fond memories I had accrued underground. When I finally pushed myself to go back, I was shocked at how quickly those positive associations came rushing back.
I worry that not enough people will give the subway that second chance. I worry that passengers with higher incomes, especially, will continue avoiding the subway. And I worry that low ridership will perpetuate itself because some New Yorkers associate empty platforms or cars with more vulnerability and danger.
Q: You did a callout on Twitter asking about people’s favorite subway memories. Were there any that stood out that you couldn’t include in your essay?
My favorite tweet came from N. Jamiyla Chisholm, who shared a video of a dance party in the Times Square station. With the hashtag #undergroundjoy, she wrote that just two days after the recent shooting in Sunset Park, an amateur group started playing Journey’s hopeful song “Don’t Stop Believing,” and that turned the station into a jubilant mini concert hall. The video embodies the quintessential New York spirit — through the hardest of times, this city refuses to be cowed.
Q: You’ve shared other peoples’ favorite subway memories. What’s yours?
The first few times I took the subway, I was astonished by how many kinds of people existed. I had spent the first seven years of my life in a very homogeneous part of northern China and had no idea so many skin tones, eye colors and hair types were possible. I remember being particularly scared of blue and green eyes because they looked like the glass eyes in my dolls.
As is often the case with children, being around so much that was unfamiliar made me anxious around strangers. During one of my first subway rides, my mom and I boarded a very crowded rush hour car. As the train pulled out of the station, I grabbed what I thought was my mom’s hand to steady myself. When the hand squeezed back gently, I looked down and saw that it had a completely different skin tone than mine — I wasn’t holding my mom’s hand at all!
I dropped the stranger’s hand in fear, but when I looked up, my face hot with embarrassment, the woman gave me the kindest, warmest smile. I stopped being as afraid of my fellow passengers after that.
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