God Bless You New York

I live in New Jersey, which is a crushing defeat for a life long New Yorker.  To get to my job in Manhattan, I take NJ Transit to the Port Authority. I almost always walk from the port authority to my job on park avenue, unless the weather is really bad.  The other day it was raining so bad that I decided to take the shuttle rather than drown.  

The Shuttle platform was packed.  But when the train pulled in and the doors opened, every commuter on the platform moved out of the way to let the passengers out.  

Only in New York.  

I have used the TransMilenio in Bogotá, and it is chaos when their bus pulls into the station.  None of the waiting passengers get out of the way.   It is a perfect example of Hobbes’s War of Each Against All.   They don’t even know they’re doing it wrong.  They all have this dumb giggly look on their faces as the push and squeeze past each other.

I thought back to Bogotá, on that packed sweltering platform that day, as I watched my fellow commuters part like the read sea,.  And I thought, “God bless you, New York, at least you got one thing right.”