New York City is a big place. Even individual boroughs are often larger than other whole cities. For example, the Bronx alone is huge.
You may remember our story on the guy who rode the subway for fourteen hours straight. Now, here's a photo series that looks like it probably took fourteen hours to compile.
New York photographer and location scout Nick Carr rode the A line from start to finish, "more than 31 miles from Inwood to Far Rockaway, passing through three boroughs and 36 regular stops (65 at night)."
To illustrate the visual differences between the multitude of neighborhoods the A line runs through, Carr shot a photo outside of each station, and they're pretty cool-- to say the very least.
We pulled four images that seem to demonstrate the huge difference between A line neighborhoods.
If you're even remotely familiar with the A, you'll recognize a bunch of stops in the series. If you're not, check it out...
1. 125th Street
via Scouting NY
Harlem's famed 125th Street is home to much of NYC's historic African-American culture. As far as Manhattan goes, it doesn't look too different from many other parts of the island; it's more of the vibe that stands out.
Of course there are landmarks like the Apollo Theater, featuring a mini-NYC walk of fame with celebrities like James Brown, but 125th Street's ambiance is way more than just the Apollo.
This is an area where djembe drum circles are commonplace and not a bunch of dreadlocked white hippies trying to syncopate Phish rhythms. These sidewalk djembe sessions include beat keepers that are far too legit to attempt to describe here. It's best to just go, and listen, and dance.
Pick up some of that perfume/cologne everyone's selling on the street too, that stuff is potent! But please, don't buy a sidewalk dashiki unless you can really pull off a dashiki...
2. 42nd Street - Port Authority
via Scouting NY
42nd Street is widely considered a terrible place by many New Yorkers. The whole area from Columbus Circle to Times Square just reeks of tourists, tourist traps, overpriced everything, and the stereotypical "... yeah my family's in town from Iowa, I've got to show them around" groans.
But the 83 blocks (mainly Central Park West territory) between 125th Street and 42nd Street makes for a huge difference. Plenty of tourists visit Harlem but it doesn't have the tailor-made for out-of-towners feel that 42nd Street has. Not in the slightest.
3. Jay Street - Metro Tech
via Scouting NY
Jay Street looks like a bunch of nothing above ground, compared to 42nd Street.
Before they were replaced with armored trucks, "money trains" used to make deposits at the Jay St. station until 2006, when they were"done in by the arrival of the MetroCard and machines that allowed people to buy them by credit card."
Many of us mainly know this stop as a transfer hub for the A/C/F/N/R.
Considering the last spot to transfer between the A and F lines is at West 4th Street -- Washington Square in lower Manhattan, Jay Street is the main place to switch between the two on the Brooklyn side.
4. Beach 67th Street
via Scouting NY
Beach 67th Street is all the way out past Canarsie in Averne, Queens-- not too far from John F. Kennedy Airport. Getting to Kennedy from the Beach 67th Street stop isn't a straight shot or anything; they're just near each other.
There are only five more stops on the A line, ultimately landing at Far Rockaway -- Mott Ave. As the name suggests, there isn't much out that way besides homes that look like the one Peter Parker (ahem, Spiderman) grew up in, and Rockaway Park.
It looks chill out that way, definitely a far cry from the hand drum parties of Harlem or the tourist trap madness of 42nd Street.
Nick Carr was definitely on to something with his A line photo series. Even though we boiled down over 30 miles of subway photos into just four images, you can see how drastically one side of our metropolis is from the other.
So Did You Hear About the Guy Who Rode the NYC Subway for 14 Hours Straight?