{"id":4466,"date":"2015-10-02T12:57:49","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T16:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=4466"},"modified":"2015-10-02T12:57:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T16:57:49","slug":"riding-the-freebies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2015\/10\/02\/riding-the-freebies.html","title":{"rendered":"Riding the Freebies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tBetween\u00a0a\u00a0found Metrocard and free museum memberships courtesy of idNYC<\/a><\/strong> I tooled around town yesterday, taking buses and subways with impunity.\u00a0The day before I registered for a free 1-year membership at\u00a0MoMI<\/a><\/strong> (Museum of the Moving Image), where the main exhibit was a depressingly stupid collection of Internet cat videos.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I got to the Museum of Natural History. I must have not been in the spirit of things, because I could not imagine why that place\u00a0is considered\u00a0such a must-see destination. A completely vacant passageway\u00a0featuring a bunch of snails is what\u00a0got me thinking that tourists and locals alike\u00a0praise the place just because they have to, in respect to unspoken cultural edicts.<\/p>\n

The African Mammals room was cool but\u00a0also comical. I wouldn’t advocate taxidermy of actual specimens taken from Africa (nor would the museum, I’m sure) but if that could somehow be done ethically and naturally it would make the creatures considerably more impressive. Taxidermy has become a\u00a0fashion of late<\/a><\/strong>, but the likelihood of that once taboo practice\u00a0reaching into the museum world seems remote.<\/p>\n

As long as I was there I figured I should look for\u00a0the payphone, which I knew existed from seeing\u00a0passing mention of a “phone booth” in some blog somewhere. The floor plan\u00a0of the museum actually had a\u00a0phone icon, promising a TDD\/TTY enabled payphone in the Grand Gallery.<\/p>\n

Aha, a phone is there but it’s a sad looking\u00a0thing, not a “booth” at all, just a phone stuffed into a corner,\u00a0abandoned by Verizon\u00a0and left to molder there for years. The Floor Plan’s unfulfilled promise of a\u00a0TDD\/TTY device looks like an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen. Will post more pictures later over at The Payphone Project<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Abandoned<\/a>

Abandoned Payphone, Museum of Natural History<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

A\u00a0ride on the C train from 81st Street to Port Authority was a story in and of itself. A knee-weakeningly\u00a0beautiful woman with slightly graying hair and a conspicuous air of privilege sat across from me, tepidly making eye contact as her eyes darted between a printed subway map and my general direction. Immaculately dressed my first\u00a0thought was that she was among that class\u00a0wealthy Upper West Side fl\u00e2neurs who spend their days moving from place to place, going nowhere in particular. A few seconds more\u00a0silent interaction made it clear she was a tourist, a 50-something woman traveling alone in New\u00a0York.<\/p>\n

A piss-stenched man boarded the train, mumbling and clucking indistinguishable words, smiling all the while. With plenty of other seats available he sat right next to this woman, whose countenance melted from its serenity of engagement in the act of traveling to discomfort and even revulsion at this man,\u00a0whom\u00a0she seemed to perceive as a threat.<\/p>\n

I can’t say I blamed her but\u00a0he actually seemed harmless to me. I\u00a0had the gallant\u00a0idea\u00a0that if I appeared as if nothing unusual was happening then maybe it could help relieve her anxieties. Who knows if it did… No words were spoken. The stinky dude and I exited the train at Port Authority, leaving the beautiful tourist to continue her trip in peace, and not piss.<\/p>\n

I picked up sounds a damn good band\u00a0through a Port Authority subway payphone. I didn’t think this was going to work but it did:<\/p>\n