Monday, February 13, 2012

Front of the Car Triptych

It is a dizzyingly odd, strangely disquieting and disorienting perspective to sit in the fourth row of the first Arrow car on the 8:48, with the sights and the landmarks rushing by the front window and each side, a crazy quilt panoramic triptych. A different perspective even then the single view of the driver, and so very different from driving a car. The rising mid-February sun climbs in the right side of the train, pouring in from the south.

"Can you let me out?," the well-spoken Asian student to my left asks before Newark Broad Street. Nary a please, an excuse me or pardon me. So goes courtesy, so goes civil discourse.

Looking out at the deteriorated, 110-year-old walls of the Newark/Roseville cut, and later, Harrison, you wonder how will we ever get anything built again?

More simply, why the Morris & Essex? Why not Morris & Hudson? Or Morris, Union and Essex? All the affluent white people. Where do they all come from?

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