Between the lines, p.11
Between the Lines, page 11
Thank you for sharing that. We have to look the truth in the eye.
Funny story, I was just fired from my job last week. I worked for property developers and I had weird feelings about it, knowing that the company I work for is actively removing elderly people in the Bronx so they can build a new high-rise and raise rent. I was in conflict with that, so I brought it up in a board meeting. After that, my boss saw me in the news at a protest talking about gentrification and he fired me. I guess I wasn’t a good representative for them anymore [laughs], but talking about the oppressive systems in America is something that I love to do and need to do! My generation should be the last generation to struggle with horrible schools, horrible police, horrible sanitation systems, and food deserts.
42nd Street–Bryant Park station
Manhattan, 2020
Ora Kemp
Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan Jerkins
My job is to look at food as part of public health. I’ve always seen the Bronx through the lens of food access. Food quality and food distribution are serious issues here. In areas with a lot of social power, like the Upper West Side, you might have access to a farmers’ market every day of the week. Here, we have one grocery store for every twenty-seven bodegas.
Our city is full of invisible lines that change our quality of life from one block to the next.
On my way to the subway, I saw a massive tree that fell over a metal fence into the middle of a basketball court. That means nobody can use it and it’s been a week since that storm passed through. I was talking to someone deep in Brooklyn earlier today and they still don’t have power. But do you want to hear something really crazy?
I always want to hear something really crazy.
Hunts Point in the Bronx is the largest food distribution center in the world. Not on the East Coast, not in the United States, in the world. They fly food across the country, but they won’t make sure that people in the Bronx, who take on the burden of all the trucks pummeling their streets, have the food they need. I would love to see a smaller-scale, localized, sustainable system, where we can establish partnerships between local vendors and small businesses so we can have a food stamp–accessible market here in the South Bronx. I believe in my heart that food is a human right.
Does Wandering in Strange Lands encourage you in your fight for food access?
Oh, absolutely. Reading Morgan Jerkins reminded me that the system in place has perpetually told us that we don’t matter. Of all the work that we, people of color, have to do, the most important thing is to make sure that we know our own history. People say, “You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you come from.” We think we’re starting with a blank slate and we’re not. We have to command the space we occupy with confidence. I find it beautiful to think that we could have that opportunity. Blacks and Natives fought together for freedom. Blacks and Mexicans fought together for freedom. We are meant to be a collective mosaic of people and establish our entire country and constitution on the power of the king. Well, we are kings, too.
3rd Avenue/138th Street station
Bronx, 2020
Djeison Canuto
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Ready Player One takes place in 2045, when all our resources are depleted. The story follows a kid named Wade and his pursuit of a golden ticket to a new reality called OASIS. He lives in the real world, but like most people, he spends all of his time in a virtual utopia. There are three keys that the players have to find, and the winner gets access to a new virtual world and the inheritance of the billionaire who built OASIS. The whole world searches for these keys, and people are willing to kill to win. The billionaire was born in the ’80s, and the virtual world is full of pop culture references, which is a lot of fun. We have some of this virtual reality stuff already, but in the book they’re able to create whole new galaxies, there’s no poverty, and anyone can go to school.
Would you want to live in a virtual world if you could?
No. At the end of the day, you still have to take your gear off and come back home.
14th Street/8th Avenue station
Manhattan, 2015
Liana Rodriguez
The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera
I didn’t start traveling into Manhattan until a few years ago. I was born and raised in the Bronx, went to school in the Bronx, and worked in the Bronx. I started going to Manhattan when I got a job as a personal care assistant for a family who lived in Midtown. Before that, the farthest I went was probably 42nd Street. This book mostly takes place in the South Bronx, and it’s great to see places I know intimately in literature.
That is very cool, tell me everything about Margot Sanchez!
Margot Sanchez is on lockdown because she was caught stealing. Her punishment is to work at her father’s supermarket for the summer, which she’s livid about. She’s fifteen, so all she wants to do is impress the popular girls. [Laughs.] She’s one of the only people of color in her private school, and is dealing with that while trying to fit in. Lilliam Rivera is a Puerto Rican Bronx native. She does an amazing job bringing the themes we actually deal with to life.
You said you worked as a personal caregiver, what was that like?
I assisted a woman with cerebral palsy. She worked and had a full schedule. I would travel around Manhattan to help her physically, with tasks like typing and writing. Emailing took her a really long time but she was fully capable of speaking and had a motorized wheelchair. She made me see the city with completely new eyes. Sidewalks are horrible in New York, but they are exponentially worse for someone like her. A walking person can make sharp turns or hop into the street to get around a big pile of garbage. I also got to see how society views people who have a disability. If we had to go to the DMV to fill out a form, instead of directing questions to her and looking at her, they would look at me and ignore her, as if she couldn’t answer them herself.
Did you ever take the subway with her?
Yes, and it was a wild experience. If a station even had an elevator, it was constantly out of service, which would completely derail us. To go anywhere, we’d have to have at least three different routes in place just in case one of them fell through and we’d have to leave four hours earlier than the appointment required. I could not believe what she had to put up with.
Allerton Avenue station
Bronx, 2020
Edgardo Marmol
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan
I’m in this wheelchair because I have a cognitive disorder and a neurological disease that attacks my nervous system. I started to experience symptoms when I was sixteen. Before that, I had a normal life and mostly ignored what the future might hold for me. Now my brain doesn’t send proper messages to my body anymore and my muscles don’t respond like they used to. At first, I felt ashamed and I became very shy, but as time went by, I got used to it and now I feel very proud of myself. My disability really made me want to see the world. I’m from Ecuador and have been in New York for three years. Before that I was in Los Angeles.
Is there a parallel between your disorder and this book you’re reading?
I think so. I’m finishing my master’s degree and my thesis is a documentary about a dysfunctional family. I want to make movies and teach people how to communicate in a proper way. This book is about media and how we can use it to influence people. I guess in a way my wheelchair is my message. I want to show people that what happened to me does not stop me and that no pain lasts forever.
Bleecker Street station
Manhattan, 2017
Arabelle Sicardi
The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
My dad was the menswear buyer for a place called Canal Jeans, which was the place where all the cool kids, like Chloë Sevigny, used to shop. This was decades ago. I didn’t even know about it until I started working in fashion. In retrospect, it explains why my parents had so many cool clothes they never wore and why they never chastised me for wearing something weird to high school. [Laughs.] They’d be like, “You can wear these two different tights at once, but we ask that you change your belt because it does not work.”
I’m dying over here! Are your parents no longer in fashion?
No, they retired from fashion before I was born. I was lucky to have pretty much stay-at-home parents, because my dad has a disability. But they were in fashion for years, and they had strong feelings about me not going into it—claiming it was a horrible industry that would chew me up and spit me out. They wanted me to be an engineer or have some sort of job to brag about. [Laughs.] The great irony is that all of my cousins are also in creative fields. Our entire family is completely screwed. Just kidding, we’re okay.
You write about beauty and technology. How do those two connect?
Beauty is a technology to me. Sometimes I write about actual tech, like QR code–embedded nail art, but right now I’m obsessed with Marie Curie. She died from all of the radioactivity in her research, which she didn’t know would happen. When she discovered radioactive materials, it was trendy to use them in literally everything. There were radioactive beauty powders, radioactive matches, radioactive brushes, and even a Broadway play based on radioactivity.
I had no idea radioactivity was a trend! What is The Poetics of Space bringing to light for you?
Ocean Vuong recommended The Poetics of Space to me when he was visiting New York. I was working on a book and was very frustrated about its structure. Reading this book opened up a new hallway in my brain. It interrogates every aspect of what a home can be. What can a cellar be? A closet? What does a home look like in Paris versus a home in New York? There’s a line that says, “You are your home and your home is in you.” I really love this book because it helps me to understand that every single thing around me has a memory attached to it and that my relationship to it changes all the time.
Myrtle–Willoughby Avenues station
Brooklyn, 2020
Jerome Bwire
The Martian by Andy Weir
I’m about forty pages in and I’ve been captivated since page one. The Martian is about an underdog who finds himself in a number of shitty scenarios. For one, he’s stranded on Mars. [Laughs.] He has nothing to eat and very few tools for survival. His team presumes him dead and leaves him behind. I’m a sci-fi nerd and I guess I’m drawn to bleak situations in space.
If you could, would you travel to Mars?
I think I would go to Mars, but not on the same type of mission. I’d like to pop by for a visit.
14th Street–Union Square station
Manhattan, 2015
Moiya McTier
Finding Faeries by Alexandra Rowland
This is my favorite subway station. Look at the beautiful tile mural with all the stars and planets, and right around the corner is the sun. Can you believe that there are hundreds of billions of other solar systems in our Milky Way galaxy? And that our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies? One of the most comforting things about being an astrophysicist is that I regularly deal with numbers that are bigger than the numbers in Jeff Bezos’s bank account, and I don’t think a lot of people can say that. [Laughs.] The universe has more stuff than Jeff Bezos.
Jeff is shaking right now. Space can be very overwhelming.
I’m still overwhelmed by space sometimes! Space is old! Fourteen billion years is an amount we have trouble wrapping our minds around. As a kid, I had zero interest in space. My mom would try to get me to go stargazing with her, but I wasn’t into it. Flash-forward to Harvard University, where I came across a number called the Hubble constant. It describes the expansion of the universe. We used to think the universe would slow down, just stop, or stay at the same speed, but it’s not. The expansion of the universe is getting faster and the space between galaxies is stretching. I love the fact that space is so big and that I’m tiny by comparison. In the grand scheme of the universe, my existence and my actions mean nothing, but what I do here on earth still means a lot.
I love that, and that you’re reading about faeries.
Both science and space look at fictional world building. Folklore is connected to mythology and I think it pairs beautifully with astrophysics because astronomy was the first science. Finding Faeries is about different types of mythological creatures and how they would adapt and react to human activity, like climate change. It feels like a continuation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I wholeheartedly want faeries to exist, and maybe this will make people take me less seriously as a scientist, but I confess that when I’m in nature I leave out bowls of milk and bread for faeries. I like the idea that there are parts of this world that we don’t understand, and I think one of the most powerful things folklore gives us, is to strive for observation.
I have to ask you, is Carl Sagan right and we’re all made from stardust?
Yes, because a star is born from a cloud of gas. All planets are made of star materials, and all humans are composed of all the materials that ever existed on our planet. Think about our life and death cycle. That’s why we say, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Humans are born, we eat plants or animals, then we die and decay, and our bodies feed back into the Earth. Everything that’s part of space is recycled.
Wait, so every person has been and will be recycled a million times.
Isn’t that so cool? You might have an atom from your favorite dead author inside of you. Or maybe there’s an atom in your body that used to live in ancient China. I think remembering that we’re all recycled backpacks is actually a nice way of remembering how connected we are. It comforts me. Not the fact that I am a backpack [laughs], but the fact that everyone always has been and always will be a backpack. We’re all space. We’re all stardust.
81st Street–Museum of Natural History station
Manhattan, 2020
Meg Morton
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
I found this book at a stoop sale and I’ve been enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I knew the story had to do with the guy who crossed the Twin Towers on a tightrope. The opening scene describes him stepping onto the rope and people’s immediate reaction to it. They step out of their world and share the experience of watching him. Usually, in cities especially, people are in their own bubbles, but then there are these moments, like someone walking a tightrope or the pope visiting, and suddenly everyone is aware of each other again, and kinder. Sharing space and experiences really brings out the best in people.
Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets station
Brooklyn, 2015
Aparna Nancherla
Intimations by Zadie Smith
Once I had the honorable opportunity to open a comedy show for Tig Notaro at Carnegie Hall, which was never even in my imagination a place where I would be onstage. As a performer, anytime you’re in a new space, you have to learn it. I was a little worried about Carnegie Hall because I didn’t know how to play it best, but it just gave me a warm feeling. Some theaters have acoustics where waves of laughter wash over you. Getting to be a part of that show was surreal from top to bottom. It feels like a lifetime ago, but thankfully stand-up comedy is like the cockroach medium of performing arts. It will always find a way to exist and continue.
As a comedian, are you ever intimating? Are you a person who intimates?
I looked up “intimation” and it means “a hint” or “a way of expressing something without directly expressing it.” I think I’m an intimater and that’s why this book resonates so much with me. I found it really helpful that Zadie Smith embraces that she’s not the type of person who’s going to organize the march to get people out into the streets. She’s always been a writer, contextualizing things and trying to provide a narrative. You could argue that writers protest in a different way, but she strips you of that romanticism. It’s weirdly comforting to know that other people aren’t sure how to be helpful. I’m someone who’s always trying to people-please. I’m constantly testing the water to see if it’s okay for me to express an opinion or to take up space. I don’t think that’s a great quality, but I think I’m most comfortable waiting for the other person to make the first move.
Where do you think not wanting to make the first move comes from?
I think it comes from—wait, do we want to get into my family history? You’re nodding, okay. My sister was the more rebellious one, so I had to use a different strategy. Rebellion seemed like it caused more tension and involved more conflict and confrontation. I thought there had to be a more under-the-radar approach to getting your way. The strategy I came up with is not as exciting. It’s a lot of hemming and hawing and hedging. It’s a lot of staying on the sidelines and seeing how things go, and, you know, dipping a toe in the water and then getting back out, and waiting some more and then eventually getting in the pool. I’ve been trying to force myself to be more of a shower and doer, but I think it’s also important to acknowledge doubts and to make room for evolution in people.
