Toddlers And Titans Of Industry: Views From The 4 Train

The Subway Surf Report is a monthly column that investigates New York’s most underground scene. Each installment captures subterranean snapshots of humanity at its realest and most randomized.

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Someone has just put out a cigarette in the train car when I board the Utica-bound 4 train in the Bronx’s Woodlawn station. The trains always linger a little longer at the end of the line, and I’ve arrived in the precise liminal period not between arrival and departure, but between extinguishing nicotine and igniting cannabis. A man in a silky du rag funnels Doritos crumbs into his mouth then lights a joint with one hand, (the other busy buzzing a pink and purple Barbie walkie-talkie) his lighter shaped like a tiny gun.

A mom brown-bags a Corona Light and bounces her toddler on one knee as we start our scenic slither through these smoggy streets. A couple in his-and-hers masks (hers, a rainbow rasta Bob Marley-inspired look—his, a perfect replica of the tan RAW rolling papers logo) hold hands as we zip past baseball diamonds and tennis courts, collegiate running tracks and vacant skateparks. Families gather on sprawling grass: aunties and uncles at cookouts, baby birthday parties, pastel quinceaneras replete with balloon arches. Across from the Woodlawn Cemetery rests a graveyard of old subway trains and a field set up for graduation, empty chairs littering the open field like tombstones.

The Bronx lives in primary colors: Yankees blue, auto-repair-shop red, McDonald’s yellow. (The Golden Arches graze the horizon of the Mt. Eden station platform.) Blue-paint-spattered workwear, yellow parachute pants, red lips and matching box braids. Then, of course, there’s the holy trinity: a redheaded girl wearing blue overalls over a yellow t-shirt, living out her Minion truth.