Vintage photos of the NYC subway in the 80s

[conuly]

There are three main lines of comments I take issue with:

1. OMG, those people are so TERRIBLE, even ANIMALS do not live like THAT, drawing all over EVERYTHING!!!

To this I say no, that's because animals don't have opposable thumbs. Instead, they just pee places and hope that works.

Graffiti, by contrast, seems to be the default state of a huge portion of humanity. We've found it in the ruins of Pompeii, Independence Rock (as I learned from playing Oregon Trail) is covered with the stuff, some of the earliest cave paintings are just handprints all over the wall. There is at least one language we only know of because of graffiti.

Seems to me that one of the first things people did when they learned about symbolic thought was give up on that pissing everywhere thing and start scribbling everywhere instead.

2. OMG, if THIS is what NYC is like, I will NEVER go there!!!!

Thanks, we don't want you. Also, read on....

3. OMG, this is the REAL NYC, I hate the way it is now!!!

I don't particularly want you either. I've never quite understood people who are nostalgic for New York in the 70s and 80s. It's like wanting to live back in the Depression or something. The murder rate alone makes me happy to be now instead of then. And wanting seedy Times Square back? Dude, that just means you had to go out in public to get your porn! Wouldn't you rather download it like a civilized individual?

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

One of the comments says "Ah! New York subway the way I remember it! I can smell the reek of old urine now". Sounds like they used both the scribble and the "piss on it" methods of marking territory?

[conuly]

Well, this sort of thing happens when there are no bathrooms.

The point being, it IS being human.

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

I look. I stare. Alive. Thats what these pics say to me. I, this thinking, breathing thing, was here, and said what I needed to say... in a lot less than 140 characters.

But then again I would think that. Mural on my side wall, incomprehensible tag in a stylized form o tolkien's dwarven runic, unfortunately built over, but still I know its there.

Graff is living, breathing art, transient in nature, ephemeral, It doesn't need to be on a wall in a gallery, it just needs to BE.

Thanks for sharing.

Now dumb question about times square, If I may, cause my curiosity needs satisfaction.

Did the Japanese buy out the porn shops, turn them at the cost of many monies into boutique stores, then go bust and sell em all to conventional retailers? Cause thats what happened to "little lon" here. You can tell the cheap backpackers with 20 year old tourist guides staggering round the block looking for the mythical red light district a mile off.

[conuly]

I don't think that's quite what happened. I'm not sure how it happened, though - I wasn't paying attention at that point, being a little kid.

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

Ah well. Curiosity will have to go un saited for the moment. Thanks tho.