Some people hate the subways. During rush hours at least, bodies are crushed unwilling and unwelcome into an unwanted intimacy, violating a million years of biological and emotional evolution. People utilize the subways, even appreciate the subways as the fastest way to get around. During non-rush hours, they're even attractive in their utilitarian way, and yes, there are subway fans and enthusiasts - the biggest concentration, perhaps, on the staff of the New York City Transit Authority itself. But to the riding public at rush hour, they're the monument to alienation, to being alone in a crowd, to urban isolation. They're the archetype of doublethink - you imagine you're a free spirit, even in this claustrophobic crush. If existentialists are not born, surely here they are made.
