How I came to love the subway

There are a lot of train and transit buffs out there. They usually create detailed models of populated towns and mountainous countrysides, and run a set of toy trains around and around while wearing a pinstriped conductor's cap on their heads and a red handkerchief around their necks. They holler "all aboard!" to no one in particular and think about freight trains all day. I was never like this. I never really cared about trains in general, as a kid or as an adult. But somehow, I came to love the New York City subway. Like all great loves, it took me by surprise, subtly immersing me until I realized one day how smitten I was.
My first memories of the subway are not pleasant ones. My family lived on the last stop of the number 7 IRT line, and my parents took me into Manhattan via that line several times. In the 1980's, the subway was in terrible disrepair: train cars and stations covered with graffiti; lights blinking out for minutes at a time; doors popping open unexpectedly while the train was in motion. Announcements were completely inaudible and all maps and signs were totally obscured by spraypaint and marker. You couldn't even see out of the windows because of the whole-car pieces that wrapped the outside of the train. I was scared to death that we would miss our stop or that I would somehow be separated from my parents and lost to the interminable subway forever. I was worried over nothing, because the 7 train runs on its own tracks, and if you somehow get off at the wrong stop, there's nothing to do but stand at the platform or cross to the other side and wait for another train to come and take you to the right place. But I had no idea.
When I was about ten, I had a friend named Brian who loved trains. Actually, he liked anything that ran on rails. He would design his own roller coasters and talk to me about great cross-country train routes. We would hang out by the tracks for the Long Island Rail Road commuter rail near my house and throw rocks at the trains as they passed by. Brian was really into the trains, I enjoyed throwing rocks much more. We would sometimes take the LIRR into Penn Station and play video games, and one time he convinced me to take the Q44 bus to the Bronx Zoo. I guess that was all preparation for his next suggestion: to take the subway into Manhattan and go to the Museum of Natural History. All by ourselves.
He had the whole thing mapped out. We would take the rickety number 7 into Times Square and switch to the uptown K train (it's now replaced by the C). I put my complete trust in him and threw caution to the wind. We were lost almost instantly in the circuitous Times Square transfer station. I remember seeing all of these signs about IRT and IND trains, and I had no idea what was going on. Eventually, we made it to the K train and got on. I recall that it was the kind from the 1950's with the porthole style windows in the doors.
We made it to the Museum of Natural History, paid something like a nickel apiece to get in, and looked at the dinosaur skeletons. Then we went across the street to Central Park and skipped rocks on the lake. It's kind of strange to think about it, here we are, two dumb kids from Queens basically lost in Manhattan when it was supposedly crime-ridden and dilapidated. I have a very fond memory of that day, though, and Brian and I went back to Manhattan several times, either to the Museum of Natural History or--incredibly--we would get out at Times Square to try and see some nudity on peep show posters and maybe get throwing stars and butterfly knives (we never did, though). I enjoyed these trips very much, but I still wasn't really in love with the subway yet. It was just a conveyance to the fun.
In high school, I took the subway downtown (usually the 7 to Roosevelt Ave. - 74th Street, change to the F) to see bands I liked and to hang around. Until they were recently retired, the 7 train used to run these old-style cars called Redbirds that allowed you to cross in between cars. I would hang out in between cars the whole time, smoking pot and just living dangerously. Around this time, my heart was starting to pitter-patter for the subway. Just the 7 train at first, but slowly I started to like other train lines as well. For some reason, I began to hate the F train, and I would take the 7 to Queensborough Plaza and switch to the N train to get downtown. I didn't like taking the 6 train that I could catch at Grand Central Station, even though it also used Redbird cars. I really don't know what criteria I was using for these various subway lines, but it still sticks with me somewhat to this day.
Around the time I was twenty, my mom gave me a book called The Epic of New York City by Edward Robb Ellis, and I got really interested in New York City history. I quickly realized that the story of twentieth century New York City was completely embedded in the construction and growth of the subway. So I got some books about it. I visited the New York City Transit Museum in Brooklyn. I rode the 6 train (ugh) to the last stop, then stayed on the train while it turned around the loop underneath City Hall Park so I could peek at the long-closed flagship station of the subway when it opened in 1904, the City Hall IRT station. I noticed that my mood was different when I took the subway to work in the morning: instead of feeling irritated, my mind would drift back to the things I learned and stories I read and heard about the subway in days gone by. I didn't find myself bothered by train delays; instead, I'd think about the kinds of mechanical problems that can happen to train cars and tracks, and would realize that you can't force a train to move. You just have to wait.
Of course, by this time the subway had undergone a multi-billion dollar overhaul, and differed greatly from the stark memories I had as a child. Still, I had fallen in love with the system, the trains, the mechanics, the fact that New York City as we know it could not exist without the subway--and not the other way around. Even my frightened memories from childhood became tinted with a nostalgic justice. I am not really a subway buff. There are people out there that can rattle off the names of specific cars and the trucks that they ride on, and they can break down the various changes and improvements that were made to the system by year. I can't do any of that. All I can do is love the subway, even though it is incapable of loving me back.