Word: subway
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Built in 1897, the T was the first subway in North America. Then, it was a sign of Boston's increasing industrialization and was praised for its efficiency. No longer is it the most efficient subway, though--Washington and New York have bested it. But, by contrast to its younger siblings, the T has, and builds, character. Today the T stands as a quasi-romantic critique of the soulless efficiency of its contemporaries...
...other subway boasts such a pleasing cacophony of dissonant sights, sounds and people. Each line, for instance, is unique and uniquely suited to the neighborhoods it connects. The relative cleanliness of the Red Line is well-suited for the ever-vigilant vanity of Harvard and MIT, as the grimy intimacy of Green Line cars fits the downtown neighborhoods they visit...
...virtues are best seen in relief to its vicious peers. New York's subway, at least, is similarly musical. The musicians inside the subway itself are rare--and rarely any good--but more important is the potential for a New York subway ride to become a veritable sing-along. There, one can actually "Take the A Train," and it's great fun to sing the "Welcome Back Kotter" theme song while entering Brooklyn. The trouble, of course, is the bevy of thugs (meaner than Vinny Barbarino) and wayward youth who scare timid passengers, especially tourists, into silent submission. Nevertheless...
...counsel them, monitor their progress or help them find work. That has led to much private suffering but also to some public tragedy, as in the case of Andrew Goldstein, a New York City man suffering from schizophrenia who pushed a woman to her death off a subway platform. Goldstein's murder trial ended in a hung jury this month, but the public mental-health system's neglect of him as a ward has spurred calls for reform. Last week New York Governor George Pataki, whose administration has repeatedly squeezed mental-health budgets, proposed spending an additional $125 million...
...says he tries to keep clean in the shelter and takes a half-hour subway trip each way to do laundry...