The New York Subway! Over a century old and working as hard as ever to keep New York safe and clean - a city where where cars are unnecessary and pedestrians help define the "New York" experience. The New York subway system is the third busiest in the world, and is the only transit system in the top ten to provide service around the clock, every single day of the year.
Although the current system recently celebrated its centennial, the first prototype of a subway in New York was built by Alfred Ely Beach in the mid-Nineteenth century. The "line" was only a block long and primarily served to demonstrate to curious New Yorkers the subway concept. Beach was never quite able to simultaneously align public, political and financial support, and the subway was shuttered in a few short years later in '73.
The first functional line opened just after the turn of the century, as a joint private-public project between the City and the IRT corporation; a competing private-public enterprise with what became the BMT opened a few years later. New York City bought out all private interests and unified all of the disparate subway systems under municipal control in '40, a state that continues today.
Today, a two dollar MetroCard can take anyone almost anywhere in the five boroughs... Bronxians might ride to the Woodlawn station for a nice lazy picnic, while a Brooklynite commutes to work at rush hour from the busy Norwood Avenue stop. Students (with their discounted passes) ride to Bedford Park Boulevard-Lehman College, while the weary Queens resident exits the lonely Jamaica-Van Wyck station at the end of a very long day.
Hop off at 215th Street and explore Inwood Hill Park (you will NOT believe you are in Manhattan), or if you want to visit Staten Island head for the South Ferry station and transfer to boat for free (make sure you are on the first five cars!).
Go to Astoria Boulevard at midnight to see the Hell Gate Bridge - or take an afternoon train to Willets Point-Shea Stadium and see angels in the outfield. When you tire of revitalized Harlem-148th Street, you can easily head to peaceful suburban Baychester Avenue.
After some heavy weekend shopping ride home from Fifth Avenue/53rd Street with a comfortable corner seat - then Monday trudge back to work, squished shoulder to shoulder at rush hour from the Chauncey Street station. Take a really late night or a weekend train to 8th Street-NYU in the Village for one kind of cultural experience, or enjoy an early matinee at 66th Street-Lincoln Center for an entirely different one. There's something for all eight million of us, and for anyone else who cares to visit.
Check out a subway map. Pick a spot you haven't been to before. Get yourself a MetroCard. Become one of the 2 *billion* riders the system will carry this year. Then come back and do it again!
A few announcements before I let you go. Posted coordinates don't take you to the cache - that's just where I catch the subway to work. If you see a suspicious package, or activity, on the platform or train, do not keep it to yourself. Tell a police officer, or an MTA employee. Feel free to use Geochecker. Thank you for riding with MTA New York City Transit. Cache is a fake rock hidden at the base of the sixth post from the corner (inclusive of the corner post), northwest side of the path. MetroCards await the lucky early finders - $48, $24 and $12. Good luck!
Stand clear of the closing doors, please.