Manhattan was one of my least favorite boroughs in New York City. When I was younger, the only reason I went to the city was to visit the dentist, which if you ask me, is a bad enough association as it is. The first time I ever went on the subway, I walked in and smelt the worst possible scent to ever caress my nostrils. It was the smell of human feces. Yup, right in front of the ticket booth was a pile of poop accumulating a cult of flies. My parents joked saying welcome to New York but all I could think about was how I never wanted to take the subway again. Unfortunately, that was not the last time I took the subway. Every 6 months I would see something new like people fighting, homeless people begging, and “crazy” people speaking gibberish to me. My discontentment seeped from the subway and into the city itself. Out of the horrible-smelling subway, there were millions of people rushing in various directions, thinking where they are headed is more important than me. Not to mention the smell of cigarettes and urine. I just hated it all. By the time I would get back home, I felt as if I missed the whole day.
A few years later, I was around 13 years old, going into high school and I start using public transportation more often. In the first few weeks of my freshmen year, I would wait in front of Burger King in Jamaica Estates to take the Q2 back home on Fridays to do work but one day my friends decided we should go to the city. I opened my mouth to decline and say my parents can’t drive me but then one girl said, “taking the subway will be so fun with you guys.” The subway. Fun? The filthy, urine-smelling rat-filled subway bursting with crazy people. I couldn’t imagine how this would be fun but the idea of not hanging with my friends after school seemed worse than enduring the tortures of the subway. We get on the subway, and I am back to being 7 years old in the nasty subway just waiting for this to be over. But this time it was different. As a kid, I would just get up when my mom told me, but my friends and I had to navigate the train together. We were lost and confused, and we almost got on the wrong train, but it was fun. Looking at the subway lines on a map and trying to use google maps. I was no help, but the journey made me forget my hatred for the subway. Traveling to the city became less and less demanding. That tangled yarn of red, yellow, and blue became a puzzle my friends and I learned to solve easily. Even the crazy strangers I used to fear became less scary. My friends and I would listen to live singers on the subway, watch daring performers doing flips on handlebars, and hear some very unique and creative thoughts, to say the least. Being followed or yelled at on the train is not ideal but it always left us with a funny story to laugh about later. And I was able to handle the heckling better in a group of 5 girls than by myself. All of my negative associations with the subway turned positive as I learned to navigate the city with my friends and eventually by myself.
Now, I am a freshman in college. Ithaca is a lot less eventful, to say the least. I miss the amalgamation of urine and cigarettes. I miss acting like the loud, rambunctious group of kids adults rolled their eyes at on the subway with my friends from the city. I miss making mistakes and getting on the wrong train but figuring it out as we went along. I miss experiencing different cultures like the karaoke and food we had in Koreatown or the Cuban food we ate when we were shopping all day and starving or even the food trucks where we got pretzels and water on summer days. I miss trying new things in Washington Square Park and later regretting those new experiences. Even the bad days were something to look forward to because I was braving the city. And I never thought I would say this, but I miss “the crackheads” and crazy people of the city. You won’t find someone squatting down to handle business in the middle of the Commons as you would on the subways of New York City. Being in the middle of nowhere has made me appreciate all that I had before, and I can’t wait to go. I love you Ithaca but you have nothing on Manhattan.
