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[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/newmap_3973.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[-If you can understand this map, you're a New Yorker-].]]
->''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDgCnQQSGIo "Stand clear of the closing doors, please. *BING-BONG*"]]''
Twenty-three lines, 468 stations, 5 million daily riders, 1.5 billion yearly riders (at $2.75 a pop) ...and it's in the red. Probably the most famous subway system in the world. Not the first, certainly not the best, but the one everybody seems to know. Administered by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA. According to ThatOtherWiki, the subway trails only the metro systems of Tokyo, Moscow and Seoul in annual ridership and carries more passengers than all other rail mass transit systems in the United States combined.
The trope here is that the subways of UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity are [[SubwaysSuck hot, grimy, filthy, encrusted with graffiti, and magnets for street crime]]. While this was once basically true, subway cars haven't fit this bill since 1990. Some common representations, however, ''are'' true:
* The subways do not run on anything that resembles a schedule. Residents don't expect it to, out-of-towners get frustrated, and the MTA still tries to claim that [[http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/schemain.htm their official schedules have worth]].
* During rush hour, passengers are crammed together like sardines in a trash compactor. Many of the major routes in Manhattan, such as the 4 and 5, or the 2 and 3, usually double-up to prevent overcrowding.
* [[SexyCoatFlashing Flashers in overcoats]]. With the advent of camera phones, this has become a [[DoNotPassGo Go Directly to Jail]] card.
* Track deaths are rare, but they do happen. A sizable portion of these are suicides, followed by clueless passengers hopping over the platform to retrieve something they dropped. It's possible to dodge an oncoming train by simply [[ByWallThatIsHoley rolling under the gap beneath the platform]], but nobody ever thinks to do this (at least not on purpose). Most threats are mundane: Stations outside of Manhattan are poorly maintained and a continual fount of personal injury suits. The majority of these are old ladies tripping on cracked/uneven platforms or stairs.
* Although comparatively rare, trains have a tendency to break down at inconvenient times. Actually, worse than breakdowns are scheduled service interruptions for maintenance, which can make traveling on the weekends difficult. At least the MTA is smart enough to not mess with rush hours.
* The cars are full of panhandlers, hucksters and napping vagrants. Panhandling is illegal in the subways, and patrons have mastered the art of ignoring it, but it's still common for someone to enter a subway car and tell a sob story, ending with "if you can help me out at all..."
* The PA systems are either too quiet, garbled, or both, making it difficult to hear the announcements. Newer cars have electronic maps showing where the train is and what the next stop is, along with a loud and clear automated PA system announcing the stops. (Unless the computer is broken, or there's a service rerouting for whatever reason, in which case the route map is off and you have to wait for the conductor to make the announcement. Or just sit/stand where you can see the stop names on the walls.)
Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[SinisterSubway miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[BeneathTheEarth waiting to be inhabited]] by [[{{Morlocks}} something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the [[DevelopmentHell infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line]], which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (Seriously. The impending construction of the Second Avenue Line was [[HistoricalInJoke cited as a good reason for Peggy to buy a particular apartment]] in ''Series/MadMen'' Season 6. That's set in ''1968''. It was actually first proposed [[OlderThanTheyThink in 1929]]. They're claiming a 2016 completion date now. Bets they'll do it this time?)
Although much of the subway operates underground (roughly 60% of its stations), the system does include large sections of elevated track, particularly in the outer boroughs.
In the old days, the "lines" were built and run by different rail companies, with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) running north-south between Manhattan and the Bronx, and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp. (BMT) connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens; these were joined by the city-operated Independent subway system (IND) in the early 30s, and the whole system was unified under city administration in 1940. The stations have remained basically the same, as have the tunnels and tracks used...unfortunately, the rival companies gave each other a wide berth, leading to a needlessly-convoluted route between Brooklyn and Queens under the 'unified' system. Also, IRT tunnels are too narrow to accommodate IND/BMT cars, so there are few convenient east-west "crosstown" lines in Manhattan, and direct rail travel between Brooklyn and Queens is restricted to the rarely-seen "G" train (colloquially, the "Ghost Train"). The way to tell the lines apart is that IRT lines have number designations (except for the 42nd Street Shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central), while the IND and BMT lines use letter designations.
This has led to the former IRT lines still being colloquially known as "the IRT", while the IND and BMT designations are little-used outside the {{fandom}}. Whatever you do, [[BerserkButton do not]] refer to lines by color. The most famous cars that shout "New York Subway", the "Redbirds", once the canvas for graffiti artists, have all been decommissioned and used to build an artificial reef in the Atlantic. Modern cars are slightly more generic looking.
Unlike many similar subway systems that use a zone system or calculate fares based on the entry and exit stations, the New York subways are flat-rate: pay once when you enter, and you can go anywhere the cars will take you, be it one stop away or to the opposite end of the city. Originally costing a nickel, it's now $2.25 for entrance[[note]]Er, sort of -- a single-ride ticket is $2.50, but a swipe deducts $2.25 from a reusable farecard, and adding $10 or more to a farecard gives you a discount that brings the effective cost down to about $2.09. Also, you get one free transfer within 2 hours, but only bus-to-bus, subway-to-bus, and bus-to-subway. And also subway-to-subway, but only at certain "out of subway transfer" stations. Also, this only applies to metrocards and not single rides. Got all that?[[/note]], with the option to purchase unlimited cards that last a set time period--7 or 30 days--instead.
Additionally, the MTA runs a complicated system of buses, Staten Island (the RedHeadedStepchild of New York City) has its own above-ground train line across the island, and there are several separate local rail systems primarily for commuters:
* The UsefulNotes/LongIslandRailroad (LIRR), [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin serving Long Island]]. This railroad is the bane of law students across America, as it got into quite a few notable lawsuits in the early 20th century--most notably ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palsgraf_v_Long_Island_Railroad_Co Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.]]'', which ''every'' American law student reads and learns to hate and love for the complex beauty and beautiful complexity of Chief Judge Cardozo's opinion.
* Metro-North, serving [[strike:upstate New York]] [[InsistentTerminology southern]] UsefulNotes/NewYorkState suburbs like Westchester County, as well as the Connecticut suburbs.
* UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit, with commuter rail service to North and Central Jersey.
** NJ Transit's Secaucus Junction--where all NJ Transit heavy rail lines save the Atlantic City Line[[note]]Which doesn't meet ''any'' NJ Transit Rail lines; the only trains it meets are the PATCO subway into Philadelphia and the SEPTA and Amtrak lines out of Philadelphia 30th St. Station[[/note]] and Princeton Branch[[note]]Which is a short shuttle off the Northeast Corridor Line from Princeton Junction to [[IvyLeague Princeton University]][[/note]][[labelnote:Also...]]The Raritan Valley Line also didn't stop at Secaucus until 2014, as being diesel-powered, it couldn't cross the North River tunnels to NY Penn, but only go as far as Newark Penn. With the acquisition of dual-mode electric/diesel locomotives, direct service to NY Penn has started.[[/labelnote]] meet--is touted as a potential terminus for the new extension of the 7 train of the NYC Subway proper. If this happens, it would be the first NYC Subway station outside the city itself.
* The UsefulNotes/PortAuthorityTransHudson (PATH), connecting the [[SixthRanger "sixth borough"]] of Jersey City and Hoboken to lower Manhattan.
The NYC Subway is one of only four mass-transit systems in the United States that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.[[note]]The only others are the UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} [[UsefulNotes/ChicagoL "L"]] (and only on its Red and Blue Lines), PATH, and the PATCO Speedline (which connects UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} to its South Jersey suburbs). In all cases, schedules run far more frequently during the day (3-5 minute intervals on the NYC Subway) than late at night (20 minutes on the NYC Subway).[[/note]] The city that never sleeps, indeed.
Inevitably, any TV show or movie [[BigApplesauce set in New York City]] has at least one subway scene. Listing all of them would just be silly. Usually, though, they are in trains found in systems outside of NY, with the stations also being fictitious (but named after actual stations). If the filming is done strictly in NYC, then you are usually treated to multiple different trains inside and outside, almost never just one.
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Comics]]
* The "miles of abandoned tunnels" trope appears in Creator/GrantMorrison's ''SevenSoldiers: The Manhattan Guardian'', where they're the domain of ''{{pirates}}''. [[SpacePirates Subway pirates]]. With names like "Captain Nobeard".
* ''Minimum Wage'' (later repackaged as ''Beg the Question'') provides an excellent and mostly accurate depiction of what it's like riding the New York City subways. Though it was made in TheNineties, it still holds up - take it from this native New Yorker.
* Website/ThomasFaySyndicate developed the comic strip ''A Train's World'' in 2007, set in New York a few years into the future. The trains talk and have a mind of their own, and is summed up by the creator as "an urban ThomasAndFriends". [[http://trainsworld.deviantart.com/ Highlights of the collection]] are up on Website/DeviantArt.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Film]]
* ''[[Film/TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3]]'' is a hostage-taking heist film set on a NYC subway car.
* ''Film/{{Turk 182}}'', with a [[TheLastDJ pissed-off First Responder]] turned graffiti artist as the hero, the graffiti-proofing of the subway system is a plot point. He hijacks the mayor's train and sandblasts it with "Turk 182".
* ''Film/TheIncident'': In the main sequence, a pair of punks terrorize the passengers of a subway car.
* ''Film/TheWarriors'' features a New York gang trying to get back to Coney Island, often by subway.
* ''Film/MoneyTrain'', about two fired transit cops planning a robbery of a federal reserve shipment being transported via subway car in order to pay off gangsters and get back at their asshole boss. Inspired a brief spate of terrorist attacks against window cashiers in RealLife.
* ''TheCowboyWay'' went from a subway scene to a "chasing the train" scene straight out of a cowboy movie. Yes, really. Horses and everything!
* The famous finale to ''CrocodileDundee'' involves a jam-packed subway TrainStationGoodbye reunion scene. Dundee has to walk over other passengers' heads to get there.
%%* ''Film/JustAnotherGirlOnTheIRT''
%%* ''Film/TheBoneCollector''
%%* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}''... sort of
* ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance'' has a subway system bombing as a major plot point.
* ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'' has several shots of the subway. And for all it takes place in New York, they walk past the Subway and/or take cabs and horse drawn carriages instead. (The one time the subway is actually used, it's implied that it's confusing enough that Giselle has to change trains at least once before she manages to leave the system.)
* The first American ''Film/{{Godzilla 1998}}'' featured the titular reptile nesting in the subway.
* ''Film/TheFrenchConnection'' features a car/train chase under the BMT West End El (then the B line, now the D line) in Brooklyn. A less famous scene takes place on the Times Square - Grand Central Shuttle.
* The river of slime in ''Film/GhostbustersII'' actually located in on the abandoned pnuematic transit system tubes. Later on, Egon, Ray, and Winston explore real abandoned subway line and run into a ghost train.
* The Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles in the live-action movieverse move into an ornate, abandoned subway station after the location of their original lair is compromised.
** In the [[Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1990 first movie]] the Foot attack April in a subway too, and she gets saved by Raphael.
* ''Film/MenInBlackII''. Apparently the subway has a slight giant worm problem.
* ''Film/TheVisitor'' has a pivotal scene, and its final scene, there.
* ''Film/{{Mimic}}'' centers around a breed of bugs that evolve in abandoned subway tunnels and eventually adapt the ability to blend into populated subway terminals. The main characters also discover a massive abandoned subway station.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Madagascar}}'' has the zoo animals taking the subway, terrifying the human riders. The crappy PA system is mocked when Alex asks, "Did he say 'Grand Central Station' or 'my aunt's constipation'?"
* ''Film/KingKong''
** The original ''Film/KingKong1933'' has the title ape tearing up a section of the Sixth Avenue Elevated line in Manhattan (which has long since been demolished).
** The [[Film/KingKong1976 1976 remake]] also has a scene when the titular ape destroys part of the BMT Astoria El in Queens.
* ''Film/{{Hellboy}}'' is merely typical in its depiction of {{Hell Hound}}s choosing to flee into the subway and lay their eggs there (prompting an emergency [[CuteKitten kitten rescue]] scene on the turnstiles), but in ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'' the New York Subway is actually the secret home of [[TheFairFolk faerie prince]] Nuada of Bethmoora. (The High Elf King holds Autumn Court in an abandoned factory.)
* In ''Film/SpiderMan2'' film, Spidey battles Doc Ock on/in a subway car.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' has at least one episode about the MolePeople who used to live under Grand Central Station.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}.'' The extended version of the pilot has a scene of Phoebe playing her guitar there. She later stalked her twin sister's stalker there.
* Series/{{Monk}} once get lost on the subway on a trip to New York.
* Twice in ''Series/CSINewYork''.
* A couple of ''NewsRadio'' episodes have a subway scene. One early episode has them trying to cover a subway accident, but all we see is Matthew standing in a pitch-dark tunnel waist deep in water.
* The opening intro montage of ''Series/TheEqualizer'' featured the subway, likely due to its publically-perceived link to vigilantism (with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz 'Subway Vigilante' case]].
* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' has an entire episode set in a subway car.
** ''Seinfeld'' also has a subplot involving Kramer getting bored waiting for the subway and deciding to run down the tunnel (wearing pants he intended to return at the store). Everyone expects him to have to dodge a train coming down the tunnel, but the actual story is that he slipped in mud and ruined the pants.
** As does AllInTheFamily.
** And ''Theatre/TheOddCouple'' (with guest star [[{{Seinfeld}} Barney Martin]]).
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' referenced the 'street crime' cliche in a flashback, showing how Spike killed a previous Slayer in a subway car.
* The ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episodes "Lo-Fi" and "Mayhem" take place in New York City, and deal with urban terrorism. In "Mayhem", Morgan pursues one of the [=UnSubs=] down into a subway station and onto a deserted section of track. It appears as if the suspect is going to commit suicide by train, however [[spoiler: he grabs onto the electrified section of track instead, electrocuting himself]].
* ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'': Liz Lemon's loser boyfriend Dennis Duffy gets a guest spot on ''TGS'' when he saves a woman from being run over by a train, [[RippedFromTheHeadlines based on an actual incident.]]
** Jack gets a case of bedbugs, and is denied the use of a company car and refused by taxi drivers. He becomes lost on the subway and the passengers refuse to even talk to him.
* On one episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Barney tries to prove that you can run a marathon without training first, and ends up paralyzed on a subway car. "I've been to where the trains turn around. Ted, you don't ''ever'' want to see where the trains turn around!"
** In another episode, Lily claims that she can beat the others to a location by using the subway, but she is stymied by the inconsistent scheduling and garbled PA announcements (which she claims to be able to understand).
-->'''Lily''': It's OK, I speak Conductor.
* The titular girls of ''Series/{{Girls}}'' use it to get from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the first-season finale, Hannah falls asleep on the train home from a party and ends up where the trains turn around in Queens.
* ''SaturdayNightLive'' performed a sketch about Bernie Goetz waiting in a studio green room and inadvertently intimidating the other guests.
** They did another sketch where they revealed that the garbled sound of the announcement speakers was the announcers' actual voices.
* As mentioned above, ''Series/MadMen'' invokes a bit of historical humor with Peggy's prospective apartment and the Second Avenue Line. In earlier seasons, when she lived in Brooklyn, she took an IND train at least to get as far as Manhattan (we see her getting out of the station one episode); she complains to her mother that commuting from Brooklyn is a huge pain, which is why she wants to move to Manhattan. She's one of the few central characters who gets around on the Subway; most are rich enough to own cars and take cabs.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'':
** The first scene of the show set in the present is a down-and-out Reese being attacked on the subway by a bunch of punks. Reese is a former CIA assassin, so he gets the better of them, which brings him to the interest of the NYPD and Finch, kicking off the show's plot.
** In the fourth season, the Machine leads Finch to an abandoned station which serves as the group's base after the library got discovered and trashed.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Literature]]
* A book, ''Subway lives: 24 hours in the life of the New York City subway'', by Jim Dwyer, is, as it says, a look at one day in the life of the system. Shows some of the incidents happening: a station agent stealing tokens; a bum selling discount access to the system through a broken gate; how David Gunn (the General Manager before he went on to run the Washington, DC system) negotiating with the unions to see to it that they don't strike; how maintenance has to be performed; how passengers put trains out of service through stupid stunts; and many more.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Music]]
* The {{Jazz}}-Standard "Take the "A" Train" is about the line that runs express up to Harlem.
* Jay-Z takes his name in part from the J/M/Z lines that serves his old neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
* Similarly, Jennifer Lopez named her first album "On the 6" because she used to ride the 6 train from the Bronx into Manhattan while still trying to get her big break.
* The Bernhard Goetz incident is referenced by the song "Executioner (Bernie Goetz a Gun)" by British neo-prog band Pallas.
** Goetz is also name dropped in the BillyJoel song "We Didn't Start the Fire".
* "[[TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway And out of the subway...]]"
* PetulaClark's 1965 hit, "Don't Sleep in the Subway"
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Sports]]
* The term "Subway Series" is applied to any series between New York baseball teams, now down to just the Bronx-based Yankees and the Queens-based Mets. In 2000, they met for the World Series and they [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2145674416/ played it up in advertising for all it was worth.]] Indeed, it is rare but not unheard of for them to have a "double-header" with one game at each stadium in the same day. Theoretically, "Subway Series" applies to any North American sports championship between two teams from the same city/metropolitan area, but a pairing of anyone other than the Yankees and Mets is relatively unlikely, for several reasons.
** First, both hockey and basketball have purely geographic structures, so it is literally impossible for two teams from the same city to face each other; even in the unlikely event the Knicks and the Nets were the best teams in the NBA, they would not face each other in the Finals (it would at best be the Eastern Conference Finals).
** The other sport in which two teams from the same area could face each other is football. However, the SuperBowl is a single game played in a pre-determined neutral location; no subway applies.[[note]]Theoretically, one supposes, a "Subway Super Bowl" could be where the teams can both get to the stadium by subway for the single game. This is unlikely as only one city in the country--New York--has two teams assigned to it, and ''both'' of them actually play in New Jersey--at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetLife_Stadium the same stadium]], in fact. Which stadium is hosting the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XLVIII Super Bowl in 2014]], but even if the Giants and Jets made the Super Bowl that year you couldn't call it a "Subway Bowl" because you can't get there by subway--even the PATH; you need to take one of UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit's commuter lines and transfer to the Meadowlands Rail Line to get to the stadium by train.[[/note]]
** Within baseball, only three metropolitan areas other than New York have two teams: Chicago (NL Cubs/AL White Sox), UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay (NL SF Giants/AL Oakland Athletics), and Greater UsefulNotes/LosAngeles (NL Dodgers/AL Angels). However, of these, Chicago and LA are right out--Chicago because the Cubs [[IronWoobie have been consistently bad for the better part of a century]],[[note]]"The Cubs win the World Series" has long been a baseball equivalent of "CueTheFlyingPigs"[[/note]] and LA because the Angels and Dodgers have never been good at the same time. As for the Bay Area, the Giants and Athletics have in fact faced each other in the World Series since moving to the area,[[note]]In 1989; they also played against each other three times when the Giants were still in New York and the A's were in Philadelphia[[/note]] and a series between them remains a strong possibility (both have made the postseason regularly of late), but the press prefers to call it a "Bay Bridge Series" (the subway connecting the two, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit BART]], is too goofily-named and too obscure to outsiders to qualify, anyway).
*** Additionally, even if the World Series came down to Cubs-White Sox or Angels-Dodgers, public image of such a series would unlikely give it a Subway brand. Chicago's public transit system is mostly above-ground, and its most prominent portions around The Loop are actually elevated above street level (hence why it is called the 'L') (even though the Red Line that serves both Wrigley Field and US Cellular Field, where the teams play their home games respectively, actually goes underground when it reaches downtown). Los Angeles, on the other hand, is in the public mind the epitome of urban sprawl with a large, expansive freeway network to connect everything - there is a public transit system in LA, but it is barely utilized. Further, there would likely be a concious effort by local promoters and sports fans to ''not'' use the term "Subway Series", as by now the terms are pretty much inexorably linked with New York. End result: an Angels-Dodgers series might be termed the "I-5 Series" or "Freeway Series", while Cubs-White Sox might be the "Red Line Series" or "L Series".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Theatre]]
* In ''OnTheTown'' ("The people ride in a hole in the groun' / New York, New York, it's a helluva town"), Gabey first sees his dream girl Ivy on a poster in a subway car presenting her as Miss Turnstiles of June. (The contest rules: "She's got to be beautiful, she's got to be just an average girl, and most of all, she's got to ride the subway.")
** There was an [[RealLife actual]] "Miss Subways" from 1941 to 1976 with substantially the same rules.
* ''Dutchman'' by Amiri Baraka.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Video Games]]
* ''SinAndPunishment'' has a dream sequence of the future that takes place on a runaway subway car in Long Island, complete with monster infestation. It's literally the only scene in the game that isn't set in Japan.
* The Liberty City version of the subway appears several times in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV''. In one mission as Niko, you must follow the train in a car, in an Homage to ''TheFrenchConnection''. It gets really crazy in ''The Ballad of Gay Tony'', when you have to destroy a train car and then ''steal another one.''
** The Liberty City version of the subway also appears in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII''.
* ''VideoGame/TheDarkness'', where it serves as the HubLevel.
* NoMoreHeroes features a level that takes place in a subway station, and later on an actual train used to get to a distant fight. Both were obviously inspired by New York subways.
* Appears in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' 3rd Strike as America.
* ''[[VideoGame/DefJamSeries Def Jam]]: Fight For New York'' has a level set in a subway station.
* ''NeedForSpeed The Run'' has you DRIVING THROUGH the tunnels in its final level...and the trains are still running.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has a small section of the game take place inside a subway tunnel in New York City, complete with a boss fight. One of the tracks has a huge gaping hole at one end, which Aya notes that it would cause one hell of a train wreck.
* Though not the subway proper, ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'''s final mission has Solomon's terror plot focused on a hijacked train in the underground section of the Long Island Railroad, [[ArtisticLicenseGeography on its way to Times Square]], where he plans to detonate a stolen Russian suitcase nuke.
* ''[[VideoGame/SanFranciscoRush Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA]]'' has the two New York courses, both of which have shortcuts that take you through the subway. Unfortunately, the trains ''are'' running, which can spell death if you don't move out of the way when oncoming trains show up. In addition, there are mice in the subway than can be run over, or turned into killer mice that destroy your car through a cheat code.
* The Unova region in the [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite fifth]] [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 generation]] ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games is a FantasyCounterpartCulture of New York City. The subway system exists in lieu of the Battle Tower present in previous games. From a [[IncrediblyLamePun grand, central station]] in Castelia City, the player can take one of a multitude of lines and engage in a battle-til-you-lose tournament. Each line has a different format such as single, double, triple, and rotation battles.
* ''Crysis 2'' has the protagonist move through a near-future, near-destroyed New York City, including several subway stations and tunnels. This includes the long abandoned City Hall station.
* A significant portion of ''Videogame/MaxPayne'' takes place in the fictional Roscoe Street Station.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Western Animation]]
* The third movie in the ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'' series features an abandoned subway station with small caverns beneath it housing Native American mice who fled when the Europeans came. The Beach Pneumatic Railway system actually did exist at the time the movies took place, and it was abandoned, so the writers at least did some research.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The family is in town in "City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" and so naturally they take it. Bart tries the sob story panhandling routine, complete with licking a subway pole to show how he was "born without taste buds." After tasting it, he quickly decides that he's in over his head and quits.
* ''{{Futurama}}'': When Fry, Leela, and Bender explore the abandoned "Old New York City" in "The Luck of the Fryrish" they get around by Bender running on an old subway line by using his feet for wheels while Fry and Leela ride on his back. Oddly enough, the line is still electrified despite being over a thousand years old and in a state of decay. Bender makes a fake subway announcement informing his "passengers" that they're on the "B train" traveling nonstop to "wherever the hell [he] feels like" ending it with an imitation of the iconic "Stand clear of the closing doors... Bing-Bong!"
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www.nycsubway.org/ The best NYC Subway website ever.]]
* A New York Post photographer was heavily criticized in 2012 after he took a picture of a man who was thrown onto the subway tracks seconds before the man was killed by an oncoming train. Then the Post itself ran that picture on the front page with the headline "DOOMED."
[[/folder]]
----
[[caption-width-right:350:[-If you can understand this map, you're a New Yorker-].]]
->''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDgCnQQSGIo "Stand clear of the closing doors, please. *BING-BONG*"]]''
Twenty-three lines, 468 stations, 5 million daily riders, 1.5 billion yearly riders (at $2.75 a pop) ...and it's in the red. Probably the most famous subway system in the world. Not the first, certainly not the best, but the one everybody seems to know. Administered by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA. According to ThatOtherWiki, the subway trails only the metro systems of Tokyo, Moscow and Seoul in annual ridership and carries more passengers than all other rail mass transit systems in the United States combined.
The trope here is that the subways of UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity are [[SubwaysSuck hot, grimy, filthy, encrusted with graffiti, and magnets for street crime]]. While this was once basically true, subway cars haven't fit this bill since 1990. Some common representations, however, ''are'' true:
* The subways do not run on anything that resembles a schedule. Residents don't expect it to, out-of-towners get frustrated, and the MTA still tries to claim that [[http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/schemain.htm their official schedules have worth]].
* During rush hour, passengers are crammed together like sardines in a trash compactor. Many of the major routes in Manhattan, such as the 4 and 5, or the 2 and 3, usually double-up to prevent overcrowding.
* [[SexyCoatFlashing Flashers in overcoats]]. With the advent of camera phones, this has become a [[DoNotPassGo Go Directly to Jail]] card.
* Track deaths are rare, but they do happen. A sizable portion of these are suicides, followed by clueless passengers hopping over the platform to retrieve something they dropped. It's possible to dodge an oncoming train by simply [[ByWallThatIsHoley rolling under the gap beneath the platform]], but nobody ever thinks to do this (at least not on purpose). Most threats are mundane: Stations outside of Manhattan are poorly maintained and a continual fount of personal injury suits. The majority of these are old ladies tripping on cracked/uneven platforms or stairs.
* Although comparatively rare, trains have a tendency to break down at inconvenient times. Actually, worse than breakdowns are scheduled service interruptions for maintenance, which can make traveling on the weekends difficult. At least the MTA is smart enough to not mess with rush hours.
* The cars are full of panhandlers, hucksters and napping vagrants. Panhandling is illegal in the subways, and patrons have mastered the art of ignoring it, but it's still common for someone to enter a subway car and tell a sob story, ending with "if you can help me out at all..."
* The PA systems are either too quiet, garbled, or both, making it difficult to hear the announcements. Newer cars have electronic maps showing where the train is and what the next stop is, along with a loud and clear automated PA system announcing the stops. (Unless the computer is broken, or there's a service rerouting for whatever reason, in which case the route map is off and you have to wait for the conductor to make the announcement. Or just sit/stand where you can see the stop names on the walls.)
Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[SinisterSubway miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[BeneathTheEarth waiting to be inhabited]] by [[{{Morlocks}} something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the [[DevelopmentHell infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line]], which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (Seriously. The impending construction of the Second Avenue Line was [[HistoricalInJoke cited as a good reason for Peggy to buy a particular apartment]] in ''Series/MadMen'' Season 6. That's set in ''1968''. It was actually first proposed [[OlderThanTheyThink in 1929]]. They're claiming a 2016 completion date now. Bets they'll do it this time?)
Although much of the subway operates underground (roughly 60% of its stations), the system does include large sections of elevated track, particularly in the outer boroughs.
In the old days, the "lines" were built and run by different rail companies, with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) running north-south between Manhattan and the Bronx, and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp. (BMT) connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens; these were joined by the city-operated Independent subway system (IND) in the early 30s, and the whole system was unified under city administration in 1940. The stations have remained basically the same, as have the tunnels and tracks used...unfortunately, the rival companies gave each other a wide berth, leading to a needlessly-convoluted route between Brooklyn and Queens under the 'unified' system. Also, IRT tunnels are too narrow to accommodate IND/BMT cars, so there are few convenient east-west "crosstown" lines in Manhattan, and direct rail travel between Brooklyn and Queens is restricted to the rarely-seen "G" train (colloquially, the "Ghost Train"). The way to tell the lines apart is that IRT lines have number designations (except for the 42nd Street Shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central), while the IND and BMT lines use letter designations.
This has led to the former IRT lines still being colloquially known as "the IRT", while the IND and BMT designations are little-used outside the {{fandom}}. Whatever you do, [[BerserkButton do not]] refer to lines by color. The most famous cars that shout "New York Subway", the "Redbirds", once the canvas for graffiti artists, have all been decommissioned and used to build an artificial reef in the Atlantic. Modern cars are slightly more generic looking.
Unlike many similar subway systems that use a zone system or calculate fares based on the entry and exit stations, the New York subways are flat-rate: pay once when you enter, and you can go anywhere the cars will take you, be it one stop away or to the opposite end of the city. Originally costing a nickel, it's now $2.25 for entrance[[note]]Er, sort of -- a single-ride ticket is $2.50, but a swipe deducts $2.25 from a reusable farecard, and adding $10 or more to a farecard gives you a discount that brings the effective cost down to about $2.09. Also, you get one free transfer within 2 hours, but only bus-to-bus, subway-to-bus, and bus-to-subway. And also subway-to-subway, but only at certain "out of subway transfer" stations. Also, this only applies to metrocards and not single rides. Got all that?[[/note]], with the option to purchase unlimited cards that last a set time period--7 or 30 days--instead.
Additionally, the MTA runs a complicated system of buses, Staten Island (the RedHeadedStepchild of New York City) has its own above-ground train line across the island, and there are several separate local rail systems primarily for commuters:
* The UsefulNotes/LongIslandRailroad (LIRR), [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin serving Long Island]]. This railroad is the bane of law students across America, as it got into quite a few notable lawsuits in the early 20th century--most notably ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palsgraf_v_Long_Island_Railroad_Co Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.]]'', which ''every'' American law student reads and learns to hate and love for the complex beauty and beautiful complexity of Chief Judge Cardozo's opinion.
* Metro-North, serving [[strike:upstate New York]] [[InsistentTerminology southern]] UsefulNotes/NewYorkState suburbs like Westchester County, as well as the Connecticut suburbs.
* UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit, with commuter rail service to North and Central Jersey.
** NJ Transit's Secaucus Junction--where all NJ Transit heavy rail lines save the Atlantic City Line[[note]]Which doesn't meet ''any'' NJ Transit Rail lines; the only trains it meets are the PATCO subway into Philadelphia and the SEPTA and Amtrak lines out of Philadelphia 30th St. Station[[/note]] and Princeton Branch[[note]]Which is a short shuttle off the Northeast Corridor Line from Princeton Junction to [[IvyLeague Princeton University]][[/note]][[labelnote:Also...]]The Raritan Valley Line also didn't stop at Secaucus until 2014, as being diesel-powered, it couldn't cross the North River tunnels to NY Penn, but only go as far as Newark Penn. With the acquisition of dual-mode electric/diesel locomotives, direct service to NY Penn has started.[[/labelnote]] meet--is touted as a potential terminus for the new extension of the 7 train of the NYC Subway proper. If this happens, it would be the first NYC Subway station outside the city itself.
* The UsefulNotes/PortAuthorityTransHudson (PATH), connecting the [[SixthRanger "sixth borough"]] of Jersey City and Hoboken to lower Manhattan.
The NYC Subway is one of only four mass-transit systems in the United States that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.[[note]]The only others are the UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} [[UsefulNotes/ChicagoL "L"]] (and only on its Red and Blue Lines), PATH, and the PATCO Speedline (which connects UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} to its South Jersey suburbs). In all cases, schedules run far more frequently during the day (3-5 minute intervals on the NYC Subway) than late at night (20 minutes on the NYC Subway).[[/note]] The city that never sleeps, indeed.
Inevitably, any TV show or movie [[BigApplesauce set in New York City]] has at least one subway scene. Listing all of them would just be silly. Usually, though, they are in trains found in systems outside of NY, with the stations also being fictitious (but named after actual stations). If the filming is done strictly in NYC, then you are usually treated to multiple different trains inside and outside, almost never just one.
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Comics]]
* The "miles of abandoned tunnels" trope appears in Creator/GrantMorrison's ''SevenSoldiers: The Manhattan Guardian'', where they're the domain of ''{{pirates}}''. [[SpacePirates Subway pirates]]. With names like "Captain Nobeard".
* ''Minimum Wage'' (later repackaged as ''Beg the Question'') provides an excellent and mostly accurate depiction of what it's like riding the New York City subways. Though it was made in TheNineties, it still holds up - take it from this native New Yorker.
* Website/ThomasFaySyndicate developed the comic strip ''A Train's World'' in 2007, set in New York a few years into the future. The trains talk and have a mind of their own, and is summed up by the creator as "an urban ThomasAndFriends". [[http://trainsworld.deviantart.com/ Highlights of the collection]] are up on Website/DeviantArt.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Film]]
* ''[[Film/TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3]]'' is a hostage-taking heist film set on a NYC subway car.
* ''Film/{{Turk 182}}'', with a [[TheLastDJ pissed-off First Responder]] turned graffiti artist as the hero, the graffiti-proofing of the subway system is a plot point. He hijacks the mayor's train and sandblasts it with "Turk 182".
* ''Film/TheIncident'': In the main sequence, a pair of punks terrorize the passengers of a subway car.
* ''Film/TheWarriors'' features a New York gang trying to get back to Coney Island, often by subway.
* ''Film/MoneyTrain'', about two fired transit cops planning a robbery of a federal reserve shipment being transported via subway car in order to pay off gangsters and get back at their asshole boss. Inspired a brief spate of terrorist attacks against window cashiers in RealLife.
* ''TheCowboyWay'' went from a subway scene to a "chasing the train" scene straight out of a cowboy movie. Yes, really. Horses and everything!
* The famous finale to ''CrocodileDundee'' involves a jam-packed subway TrainStationGoodbye reunion scene. Dundee has to walk over other passengers' heads to get there.
%%* ''Film/JustAnotherGirlOnTheIRT''
%%* ''Film/TheBoneCollector''
%%* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}''... sort of
* ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance'' has a subway system bombing as a major plot point.
* ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'' has several shots of the subway. And for all it takes place in New York, they walk past the Subway and/or take cabs and horse drawn carriages instead. (The one time the subway is actually used, it's implied that it's confusing enough that Giselle has to change trains at least once before she manages to leave the system.)
* The first American ''Film/{{Godzilla 1998}}'' featured the titular reptile nesting in the subway.
* ''Film/TheFrenchConnection'' features a car/train chase under the BMT West End El (then the B line, now the D line) in Brooklyn. A less famous scene takes place on the Times Square - Grand Central Shuttle.
* The river of slime in ''Film/GhostbustersII'' actually located in on the abandoned pnuematic transit system tubes. Later on, Egon, Ray, and Winston explore real abandoned subway line and run into a ghost train.
* The Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles in the live-action movieverse move into an ornate, abandoned subway station after the location of their original lair is compromised.
** In the [[Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1990 first movie]] the Foot attack April in a subway too, and she gets saved by Raphael.
* ''Film/MenInBlackII''. Apparently the subway has a slight giant worm problem.
* ''Film/TheVisitor'' has a pivotal scene, and its final scene, there.
* ''Film/{{Mimic}}'' centers around a breed of bugs that evolve in abandoned subway tunnels and eventually adapt the ability to blend into populated subway terminals. The main characters also discover a massive abandoned subway station.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Madagascar}}'' has the zoo animals taking the subway, terrifying the human riders. The crappy PA system is mocked when Alex asks, "Did he say 'Grand Central Station' or 'my aunt's constipation'?"
* ''Film/KingKong''
** The original ''Film/KingKong1933'' has the title ape tearing up a section of the Sixth Avenue Elevated line in Manhattan (which has long since been demolished).
** The [[Film/KingKong1976 1976 remake]] also has a scene when the titular ape destroys part of the BMT Astoria El in Queens.
* ''Film/{{Hellboy}}'' is merely typical in its depiction of {{Hell Hound}}s choosing to flee into the subway and lay their eggs there (prompting an emergency [[CuteKitten kitten rescue]] scene on the turnstiles), but in ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'' the New York Subway is actually the secret home of [[TheFairFolk faerie prince]] Nuada of Bethmoora. (The High Elf King holds Autumn Court in an abandoned factory.)
* In ''Film/SpiderMan2'' film, Spidey battles Doc Ock on/in a subway car.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' has at least one episode about the MolePeople who used to live under Grand Central Station.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}.'' The extended version of the pilot has a scene of Phoebe playing her guitar there. She later stalked her twin sister's stalker there.
* Series/{{Monk}} once get lost on the subway on a trip to New York.
* Twice in ''Series/CSINewYork''.
* A couple of ''NewsRadio'' episodes have a subway scene. One early episode has them trying to cover a subway accident, but all we see is Matthew standing in a pitch-dark tunnel waist deep in water.
* The opening intro montage of ''Series/TheEqualizer'' featured the subway, likely due to its publically-perceived link to vigilantism (with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz 'Subway Vigilante' case]].
* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' has an entire episode set in a subway car.
** ''Seinfeld'' also has a subplot involving Kramer getting bored waiting for the subway and deciding to run down the tunnel (wearing pants he intended to return at the store). Everyone expects him to have to dodge a train coming down the tunnel, but the actual story is that he slipped in mud and ruined the pants.
** As does AllInTheFamily.
** And ''Theatre/TheOddCouple'' (with guest star [[{{Seinfeld}} Barney Martin]]).
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' referenced the 'street crime' cliche in a flashback, showing how Spike killed a previous Slayer in a subway car.
* The ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episodes "Lo-Fi" and "Mayhem" take place in New York City, and deal with urban terrorism. In "Mayhem", Morgan pursues one of the [=UnSubs=] down into a subway station and onto a deserted section of track. It appears as if the suspect is going to commit suicide by train, however [[spoiler: he grabs onto the electrified section of track instead, electrocuting himself]].
* ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'': Liz Lemon's loser boyfriend Dennis Duffy gets a guest spot on ''TGS'' when he saves a woman from being run over by a train, [[RippedFromTheHeadlines based on an actual incident.]]
** Jack gets a case of bedbugs, and is denied the use of a company car and refused by taxi drivers. He becomes lost on the subway and the passengers refuse to even talk to him.
* On one episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Barney tries to prove that you can run a marathon without training first, and ends up paralyzed on a subway car. "I've been to where the trains turn around. Ted, you don't ''ever'' want to see where the trains turn around!"
** In another episode, Lily claims that she can beat the others to a location by using the subway, but she is stymied by the inconsistent scheduling and garbled PA announcements (which she claims to be able to understand).
-->'''Lily''': It's OK, I speak Conductor.
* The titular girls of ''Series/{{Girls}}'' use it to get from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the first-season finale, Hannah falls asleep on the train home from a party and ends up where the trains turn around in Queens.
* ''SaturdayNightLive'' performed a sketch about Bernie Goetz waiting in a studio green room and inadvertently intimidating the other guests.
** They did another sketch where they revealed that the garbled sound of the announcement speakers was the announcers' actual voices.
* As mentioned above, ''Series/MadMen'' invokes a bit of historical humor with Peggy's prospective apartment and the Second Avenue Line. In earlier seasons, when she lived in Brooklyn, she took an IND train at least to get as far as Manhattan (we see her getting out of the station one episode); she complains to her mother that commuting from Brooklyn is a huge pain, which is why she wants to move to Manhattan. She's one of the few central characters who gets around on the Subway; most are rich enough to own cars and take cabs.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'':
** The first scene of the show set in the present is a down-and-out Reese being attacked on the subway by a bunch of punks. Reese is a former CIA assassin, so he gets the better of them, which brings him to the interest of the NYPD and Finch, kicking off the show's plot.
** In the fourth season, the Machine leads Finch to an abandoned station which serves as the group's base after the library got discovered and trashed.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Literature]]
* A book, ''Subway lives: 24 hours in the life of the New York City subway'', by Jim Dwyer, is, as it says, a look at one day in the life of the system. Shows some of the incidents happening: a station agent stealing tokens; a bum selling discount access to the system through a broken gate; how David Gunn (the General Manager before he went on to run the Washington, DC system) negotiating with the unions to see to it that they don't strike; how maintenance has to be performed; how passengers put trains out of service through stupid stunts; and many more.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Music]]
* The {{Jazz}}-Standard "Take the "A" Train" is about the line that runs express up to Harlem.
* Jay-Z takes his name in part from the J/M/Z lines that serves his old neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
* Similarly, Jennifer Lopez named her first album "On the 6" because she used to ride the 6 train from the Bronx into Manhattan while still trying to get her big break.
* The Bernhard Goetz incident is referenced by the song "Executioner (Bernie Goetz a Gun)" by British neo-prog band Pallas.
** Goetz is also name dropped in the BillyJoel song "We Didn't Start the Fire".
* "[[TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway And out of the subway...]]"
* PetulaClark's 1965 hit, "Don't Sleep in the Subway"
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Sports]]
* The term "Subway Series" is applied to any series between New York baseball teams, now down to just the Bronx-based Yankees and the Queens-based Mets. In 2000, they met for the World Series and they [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2145674416/ played it up in advertising for all it was worth.]] Indeed, it is rare but not unheard of for them to have a "double-header" with one game at each stadium in the same day. Theoretically, "Subway Series" applies to any North American sports championship between two teams from the same city/metropolitan area, but a pairing of anyone other than the Yankees and Mets is relatively unlikely, for several reasons.
** First, both hockey and basketball have purely geographic structures, so it is literally impossible for two teams from the same city to face each other; even in the unlikely event the Knicks and the Nets were the best teams in the NBA, they would not face each other in the Finals (it would at best be the Eastern Conference Finals).
** The other sport in which two teams from the same area could face each other is football. However, the SuperBowl is a single game played in a pre-determined neutral location; no subway applies.[[note]]Theoretically, one supposes, a "Subway Super Bowl" could be where the teams can both get to the stadium by subway for the single game. This is unlikely as only one city in the country--New York--has two teams assigned to it, and ''both'' of them actually play in New Jersey--at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetLife_Stadium the same stadium]], in fact. Which stadium is hosting the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XLVIII Super Bowl in 2014]], but even if the Giants and Jets made the Super Bowl that year you couldn't call it a "Subway Bowl" because you can't get there by subway--even the PATH; you need to take one of UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit's commuter lines and transfer to the Meadowlands Rail Line to get to the stadium by train.[[/note]]
** Within baseball, only three metropolitan areas other than New York have two teams: Chicago (NL Cubs/AL White Sox), UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay (NL SF Giants/AL Oakland Athletics), and Greater UsefulNotes/LosAngeles (NL Dodgers/AL Angels). However, of these, Chicago and LA are right out--Chicago because the Cubs [[IronWoobie have been consistently bad for the better part of a century]],[[note]]"The Cubs win the World Series" has long been a baseball equivalent of "CueTheFlyingPigs"[[/note]] and LA because the Angels and Dodgers have never been good at the same time. As for the Bay Area, the Giants and Athletics have in fact faced each other in the World Series since moving to the area,[[note]]In 1989; they also played against each other three times when the Giants were still in New York and the A's were in Philadelphia[[/note]] and a series between them remains a strong possibility (both have made the postseason regularly of late), but the press prefers to call it a "Bay Bridge Series" (the subway connecting the two, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit BART]], is too goofily-named and too obscure to outsiders to qualify, anyway).
*** Additionally, even if the World Series came down to Cubs-White Sox or Angels-Dodgers, public image of such a series would unlikely give it a Subway brand. Chicago's public transit system is mostly above-ground, and its most prominent portions around The Loop are actually elevated above street level (hence why it is called the 'L') (even though the Red Line that serves both Wrigley Field and US Cellular Field, where the teams play their home games respectively, actually goes underground when it reaches downtown). Los Angeles, on the other hand, is in the public mind the epitome of urban sprawl with a large, expansive freeway network to connect everything - there is a public transit system in LA, but it is barely utilized. Further, there would likely be a concious effort by local promoters and sports fans to ''not'' use the term "Subway Series", as by now the terms are pretty much inexorably linked with New York. End result: an Angels-Dodgers series might be termed the "I-5 Series" or "Freeway Series", while Cubs-White Sox might be the "Red Line Series" or "L Series".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Theatre]]
* In ''OnTheTown'' ("The people ride in a hole in the groun' / New York, New York, it's a helluva town"), Gabey first sees his dream girl Ivy on a poster in a subway car presenting her as Miss Turnstiles of June. (The contest rules: "She's got to be beautiful, she's got to be just an average girl, and most of all, she's got to ride the subway.")
** There was an [[RealLife actual]] "Miss Subways" from 1941 to 1976 with substantially the same rules.
* ''Dutchman'' by Amiri Baraka.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Video Games]]
* ''SinAndPunishment'' has a dream sequence of the future that takes place on a runaway subway car in Long Island, complete with monster infestation. It's literally the only scene in the game that isn't set in Japan.
* The Liberty City version of the subway appears several times in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV''. In one mission as Niko, you must follow the train in a car, in an Homage to ''TheFrenchConnection''. It gets really crazy in ''The Ballad of Gay Tony'', when you have to destroy a train car and then ''steal another one.''
** The Liberty City version of the subway also appears in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII''.
* ''VideoGame/TheDarkness'', where it serves as the HubLevel.
* NoMoreHeroes features a level that takes place in a subway station, and later on an actual train used to get to a distant fight. Both were obviously inspired by New York subways.
* Appears in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' 3rd Strike as America.
* ''[[VideoGame/DefJamSeries Def Jam]]: Fight For New York'' has a level set in a subway station.
* ''NeedForSpeed The Run'' has you DRIVING THROUGH the tunnels in its final level...and the trains are still running.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has a small section of the game take place inside a subway tunnel in New York City, complete with a boss fight. One of the tracks has a huge gaping hole at one end, which Aya notes that it would cause one hell of a train wreck.
* Though not the subway proper, ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'''s final mission has Solomon's terror plot focused on a hijacked train in the underground section of the Long Island Railroad, [[ArtisticLicenseGeography on its way to Times Square]], where he plans to detonate a stolen Russian suitcase nuke.
* ''[[VideoGame/SanFranciscoRush Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA]]'' has the two New York courses, both of which have shortcuts that take you through the subway. Unfortunately, the trains ''are'' running, which can spell death if you don't move out of the way when oncoming trains show up. In addition, there are mice in the subway than can be run over, or turned into killer mice that destroy your car through a cheat code.
* The Unova region in the [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite fifth]] [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 generation]] ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games is a FantasyCounterpartCulture of New York City. The subway system exists in lieu of the Battle Tower present in previous games. From a [[IncrediblyLamePun grand, central station]] in Castelia City, the player can take one of a multitude of lines and engage in a battle-til-you-lose tournament. Each line has a different format such as single, double, triple, and rotation battles.
* ''Crysis 2'' has the protagonist move through a near-future, near-destroyed New York City, including several subway stations and tunnels. This includes the long abandoned City Hall station.
* A significant portion of ''Videogame/MaxPayne'' takes place in the fictional Roscoe Street Station.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Western Animation]]
* The third movie in the ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'' series features an abandoned subway station with small caverns beneath it housing Native American mice who fled when the Europeans came. The Beach Pneumatic Railway system actually did exist at the time the movies took place, and it was abandoned, so the writers at least did some research.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The family is in town in "City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" and so naturally they take it. Bart tries the sob story panhandling routine, complete with licking a subway pole to show how he was "born without taste buds." After tasting it, he quickly decides that he's in over his head and quits.
* ''{{Futurama}}'': When Fry, Leela, and Bender explore the abandoned "Old New York City" in "The Luck of the Fryrish" they get around by Bender running on an old subway line by using his feet for wheels while Fry and Leela ride on his back. Oddly enough, the line is still electrified despite being over a thousand years old and in a state of decay. Bender makes a fake subway announcement informing his "passengers" that they're on the "B train" traveling nonstop to "wherever the hell [he] feels like" ending it with an imitation of the iconic "Stand clear of the closing doors... Bing-Bong!"
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www.nycsubway.org/ The best NYC Subway website ever.]]
* A New York Post photographer was heavily criticized in 2012 after he took a picture of a man who was thrown onto the subway tracks seconds before the man was killed by an oncoming train. Then the Post itself ran that picture on the front page with the headline "DOOMED."
[[/folder]]
----
to:
[[caption-width-right:350:[-If you can understand this map, you're a New Yorker-].]]
->''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDgCnQQSGIo "Stand clear of the closing doors, please. *BING-BONG*"]]''
Twenty-three lines, 468 stations, 5 million daily riders, 1.5 billion yearly riders (at $2.75 a pop) ...and it's in the red. Probably the most famous subway system in the world. Not the first, certainly not the best, but the one everybody seems to know. Administered by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA. According to ThatOtherWiki, the subway trails only the metro systems of Tokyo, Moscow and Seoul in annual ridership and carries more passengers than all other rail mass transit systems in the United States combined.
The trope here is that the subways of UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity are [[SubwaysSuck hot, grimy, filthy, encrusted with graffiti, and magnets for street crime]]. While this was once basically true, subway cars haven't fit this bill since 1990. Some common representations, however, ''are'' true:
* The subways do not run on anything that resembles a schedule. Residents don't expect it to, out-of-towners get frustrated, and the MTA still tries to claim that [[http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/schemain.htm their official schedules have worth]].
* During rush hour, passengers are crammed together like sardines in a trash compactor. Many of the major routes in Manhattan, such as the 4 and 5, or the 2 and 3, usually double-up to prevent overcrowding.
* [[SexyCoatFlashing Flashers in overcoats]]. With the advent of camera phones, this has become a [[DoNotPassGo Go Directly to Jail]] card.
* Track deaths are rare, but they do happen. A sizable portion of these are suicides, followed by clueless passengers hopping over the platform to retrieve something they dropped. It's possible to dodge an oncoming train by simply [[ByWallThatIsHoley rolling under the gap beneath the platform]], but nobody ever thinks to do this (at least not on purpose). Most threats are mundane: Stations outside of Manhattan are poorly maintained and a continual fount of personal injury suits. The majority of these are old ladies tripping on cracked/uneven platforms or stairs.
* Although comparatively rare, trains have a tendency to break down at inconvenient times. Actually, worse than breakdowns are scheduled service interruptions for maintenance, which can make traveling on the weekends difficult. At least the MTA is smart enough to not mess with rush hours.
* The cars are full of panhandlers, hucksters and napping vagrants. Panhandling is illegal in the subways, and patrons have mastered the art of ignoring it, but it's still common for someone to enter a subway car and tell a sob story, ending with "if you can help me out at all..."
* The PA systems are either too quiet, garbled, or both, making it difficult to hear the announcements. Newer cars have electronic maps showing where the train is and what the next stop is, along with a loud and clear automated PA system announcing the stops. (Unless the computer is broken, or there's a service rerouting for whatever reason, in which case the route map is off and you have to wait for the conductor to make the announcement. Or just sit/stand where you can see the stop names on the walls.)
Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[SinisterSubway miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[BeneathTheEarth waiting to be inhabited]] by [[{{Morlocks}} something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the [[DevelopmentHell infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line]], which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (Seriously. The impending construction of the Second Avenue Line was [[HistoricalInJoke cited as a good reason for Peggy to buy a particular apartment]] in ''Series/MadMen'' Season 6. That's set in ''1968''. It was actually first proposed [[OlderThanTheyThink in 1929]]. They're claiming a 2016 completion date now. Bets they'll do it this time?)
Although much of the subway operates underground (roughly 60% of its stations), the system does include large sections of elevated track, particularly in the outer boroughs.
In the old days, the "lines" were built and run by different rail companies, with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) running north-south between Manhattan and the Bronx, and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp. (BMT) connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens; these were joined by the city-operated Independent subway system (IND) in the early 30s, and the whole system was unified under city administration in 1940. The stations have remained basically the same, as have the tunnels and tracks used...unfortunately, the rival companies gave each other a wide berth, leading to a needlessly-convoluted route between Brooklyn and Queens under the 'unified' system. Also, IRT tunnels are too narrow to accommodate IND/BMT cars, so there are few convenient east-west "crosstown" lines in Manhattan, and direct rail travel between Brooklyn and Queens is restricted to the rarely-seen "G" train (colloquially, the "Ghost Train"). The way to tell the lines apart is that IRT lines have number designations (except for the 42nd Street Shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central), while the IND and BMT lines use letter designations.
This has led to the former IRT lines still being colloquially known as "the IRT", while the IND and BMT designations are little-used outside the {{fandom}}. Whatever you do, [[BerserkButton do not]] refer to lines by color. The most famous cars that shout "New York Subway", the "Redbirds", once the canvas for graffiti artists, have all been decommissioned and used to build an artificial reef in the Atlantic. Modern cars are slightly more generic looking.
Unlike many similar subway systems that use a zone system or calculate fares based on the entry and exit stations, the New York subways are flat-rate: pay once when you enter, and you can go anywhere the cars will take you, be it one stop away or to the opposite end of the city. Originally costing a nickel, it's now $2.25 for entrance[[note]]Er, sort of -- a single-ride ticket is $2.50, but a swipe deducts $2.25 from a reusable farecard, and adding $10 or more to a farecard gives you a discount that brings the effective cost down to about $2.09. Also, you get one free transfer within 2 hours, but only bus-to-bus, subway-to-bus, and bus-to-subway. And also subway-to-subway, but only at certain "out of subway transfer" stations. Also, this only applies to metrocards and not single rides. Got all that?[[/note]], with the option to purchase unlimited cards that last a set time period--7 or 30 days--instead.
Additionally, the MTA runs a complicated system of buses, Staten Island (the RedHeadedStepchild of New York City) has its own above-ground train line across the island, and there are several separate local rail systems primarily for commuters:
* The UsefulNotes/LongIslandRailroad (LIRR), [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin serving Long Island]]. This railroad is the bane of law students across America, as it got into quite a few notable lawsuits in the early 20th century--most notably ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palsgraf_v_Long_Island_Railroad_Co Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.]]'', which ''every'' American law student reads and learns to hate and love for the complex beauty and beautiful complexity of Chief Judge Cardozo's opinion.
* Metro-North, serving [[strike:upstate New York]] [[InsistentTerminology southern]] UsefulNotes/NewYorkState suburbs like Westchester County, as well as the Connecticut suburbs.
* UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit, with commuter rail service to North and Central Jersey.
** NJ Transit's Secaucus Junction--where all NJ Transit heavy rail lines save the Atlantic City Line[[note]]Which doesn't meet ''any'' NJ Transit Rail lines; the only trains it meets are the PATCO subway into Philadelphia and the SEPTA and Amtrak lines out of Philadelphia 30th St. Station[[/note]] and Princeton Branch[[note]]Which is a short shuttle off the Northeast Corridor Line from Princeton Junction to [[IvyLeague Princeton University]][[/note]][[labelnote:Also...]]The Raritan Valley Line also didn't stop at Secaucus until 2014, as being diesel-powered, it couldn't cross the North River tunnels to NY Penn, but only go as far as Newark Penn. With the acquisition of dual-mode electric/diesel locomotives, direct service to NY Penn has started.[[/labelnote]] meet--is touted as a potential terminus for the new extension of the 7 train of the NYC Subway proper. If this happens, it would be the first NYC Subway station outside the city itself.
* The UsefulNotes/PortAuthorityTransHudson (PATH), connecting the [[SixthRanger "sixth borough"]] of Jersey City and Hoboken to lower Manhattan.
The NYC Subway is one of only four mass-transit systems in the United States that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.[[note]]The only others are the UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} [[UsefulNotes/ChicagoL "L"]] (and only on its Red and Blue Lines), PATH, and the PATCO Speedline (which connects UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} to its South Jersey suburbs). In all cases, schedules run far more frequently during the day (3-5 minute intervals on the NYC Subway) than late at night (20 minutes on the NYC Subway).[[/note]] The city that never sleeps, indeed.
Inevitably, any TV show or movie [[BigApplesauce set in New York City]] has at least one subway scene. Listing all of them would just be silly. Usually, though, they are in trains found in systems outside of NY, with the stations also being fictitious (but named after actual stations). If the filming is done strictly in NYC, then you are usually treated to multiple different trains inside and outside, almost never just one.
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Comics]]
* The "miles of abandoned tunnels" trope appears in Creator/GrantMorrison's ''SevenSoldiers: The Manhattan Guardian'', where they're the domain of ''{{pirates}}''. [[SpacePirates Subway pirates]]. With names like "Captain Nobeard".
* ''Minimum Wage'' (later repackaged as ''Beg the Question'') provides an excellent and mostly accurate depiction of what it's like riding the New York City subways. Though it was made in TheNineties, it still holds up - take it from this native New Yorker.
* Website/ThomasFaySyndicate developed the comic strip ''A Train's World'' in 2007, set in New York a few years into the future. The trains talk and have a mind of their own, and is summed up by the creator as "an urban ThomasAndFriends". [[http://trainsworld.deviantart.com/ Highlights of the collection]] are up on Website/DeviantArt.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Film]]
* ''[[Film/TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3]]'' is a hostage-taking heist film set on a NYC subway car.
* ''Film/{{Turk 182}}'', with a [[TheLastDJ pissed-off First Responder]] turned graffiti artist as the hero, the graffiti-proofing of the subway system is a plot point. He hijacks the mayor's train and sandblasts it with "Turk 182".
* ''Film/TheIncident'': In the main sequence, a pair of punks terrorize the passengers of a subway car.
* ''Film/TheWarriors'' features a New York gang trying to get back to Coney Island, often by subway.
* ''Film/MoneyTrain'', about two fired transit cops planning a robbery of a federal reserve shipment being transported via subway car in order to pay off gangsters and get back at their asshole boss. Inspired a brief spate of terrorist attacks against window cashiers in RealLife.
* ''TheCowboyWay'' went from a subway scene to a "chasing the train" scene straight out of a cowboy movie. Yes, really. Horses and everything!
* The famous finale to ''CrocodileDundee'' involves a jam-packed subway TrainStationGoodbye reunion scene. Dundee has to walk over other passengers' heads to get there.
%%* ''Film/JustAnotherGirlOnTheIRT''
%%* ''Film/TheBoneCollector''
%%* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}''... sort of
* ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance'' has a subway system bombing as a major plot point.
* ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'' has several shots of the subway. And for all it takes place in New York, they walk past the Subway and/or take cabs and horse drawn carriages instead. (The one time the subway is actually used, it's implied that it's confusing enough that Giselle has to change trains at least once before she manages to leave the system.)
* The first American ''Film/{{Godzilla 1998}}'' featured the titular reptile nesting in the subway.
* ''Film/TheFrenchConnection'' features a car/train chase under the BMT West End El (then the B line, now the D line) in Brooklyn. A less famous scene takes place on the Times Square - Grand Central Shuttle.
* The river of slime in ''Film/GhostbustersII'' actually located in on the abandoned pnuematic transit system tubes. Later on, Egon, Ray, and Winston explore real abandoned subway line and run into a ghost train.
* The Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles in the live-action movieverse move into an ornate, abandoned subway station after the location of their original lair is compromised.
** In the [[Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1990 first movie]] the Foot attack April in a subway too, and she gets saved by Raphael.
* ''Film/MenInBlackII''. Apparently the subway has a slight giant worm problem.
* ''Film/TheVisitor'' has a pivotal scene, and its final scene, there.
* ''Film/{{Mimic}}'' centers around a breed of bugs that evolve in abandoned subway tunnels and eventually adapt the ability to blend into populated subway terminals. The main characters also discover a massive abandoned subway station.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Madagascar}}'' has the zoo animals taking the subway, terrifying the human riders. The crappy PA system is mocked when Alex asks, "Did he say 'Grand Central Station' or 'my aunt's constipation'?"
* ''Film/KingKong''
** The original ''Film/KingKong1933'' has the title ape tearing up a section of the Sixth Avenue Elevated line in Manhattan (which has long since been demolished).
** The [[Film/KingKong1976 1976 remake]] also has a scene when the titular ape destroys part of the BMT Astoria El in Queens.
* ''Film/{{Hellboy}}'' is merely typical in its depiction of {{Hell Hound}}s choosing to flee into the subway and lay their eggs there (prompting an emergency [[CuteKitten kitten rescue]] scene on the turnstiles), but in ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'' the New York Subway is actually the secret home of [[TheFairFolk faerie prince]] Nuada of Bethmoora. (The High Elf King holds Autumn Court in an abandoned factory.)
* In ''Film/SpiderMan2'' film, Spidey battles Doc Ock on/in a subway car.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' has at least one episode about the MolePeople who used to live under Grand Central Station.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}.'' The extended version of the pilot has a scene of Phoebe playing her guitar there. She later stalked her twin sister's stalker there.
* Series/{{Monk}} once get lost on the subway on a trip to New York.
* Twice in ''Series/CSINewYork''.
* A couple of ''NewsRadio'' episodes have a subway scene. One early episode has them trying to cover a subway accident, but all we see is Matthew standing in a pitch-dark tunnel waist deep in water.
* The opening intro montage of ''Series/TheEqualizer'' featured the subway, likely due to its publically-perceived link to vigilantism (with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz 'Subway Vigilante' case]].
* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' has an entire episode set in a subway car.
** ''Seinfeld'' also has a subplot involving Kramer getting bored waiting for the subway and deciding to run down the tunnel (wearing pants he intended to return at the store). Everyone expects him to have to dodge a train coming down the tunnel, but the actual story is that he slipped in mud and ruined the pants.
** As does AllInTheFamily.
** And ''Theatre/TheOddCouple'' (with guest star [[{{Seinfeld}} Barney Martin]]).
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' referenced the 'street crime' cliche in a flashback, showing how Spike killed a previous Slayer in a subway car.
* The ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episodes "Lo-Fi" and "Mayhem" take place in New York City, and deal with urban terrorism. In "Mayhem", Morgan pursues one of the [=UnSubs=] down into a subway station and onto a deserted section of track. It appears as if the suspect is going to commit suicide by train, however [[spoiler: he grabs onto the electrified section of track instead, electrocuting himself]].
* ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'': Liz Lemon's loser boyfriend Dennis Duffy gets a guest spot on ''TGS'' when he saves a woman from being run over by a train, [[RippedFromTheHeadlines based on an actual incident.]]
** Jack gets a case of bedbugs, and is denied the use of a company car and refused by taxi drivers. He becomes lost on the subway and the passengers refuse to even talk to him.
* On one episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Barney tries to prove that you can run a marathon without training first, and ends up paralyzed on a subway car. "I've been to where the trains turn around. Ted, you don't ''ever'' want to see where the trains turn around!"
** In another episode, Lily claims that she can beat the others to a location by using the subway, but she is stymied by the inconsistent scheduling and garbled PA announcements (which she claims to be able to understand).
-->'''Lily''': It's OK, I speak Conductor.
* The titular girls of ''Series/{{Girls}}'' use it to get from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the first-season finale, Hannah falls asleep on the train home from a party and ends up where the trains turn around in Queens.
* ''SaturdayNightLive'' performed a sketch about Bernie Goetz waiting in a studio green room and inadvertently intimidating the other guests.
** They did another sketch where they revealed that the garbled sound of the announcement speakers was the announcers' actual voices.
* As mentioned above, ''Series/MadMen'' invokes a bit of historical humor with Peggy's prospective apartment and the Second Avenue Line. In earlier seasons, when she lived in Brooklyn, she took an IND train at least to get as far as Manhattan (we see her getting out of the station one episode); she complains to her mother that commuting from Brooklyn is a huge pain, which is why she wants to move to Manhattan. She's one of the few central characters who gets around on the Subway; most are rich enough to own cars and take cabs.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'':
** The first scene of the show set in the present is a down-and-out Reese being attacked on the subway by a bunch of punks. Reese is a former CIA assassin, so he gets the better of them, which brings him to the interest of the NYPD and Finch, kicking off the show's plot.
** In the fourth season, the Machine leads Finch to an abandoned station which serves as the group's base after the library got discovered and trashed.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Literature]]
* A book, ''Subway lives: 24 hours in the life of the New York City subway'', by Jim Dwyer, is, as it says, a look at one day in the life of the system. Shows some of the incidents happening: a station agent stealing tokens; a bum selling discount access to the system through a broken gate; how David Gunn (the General Manager before he went on to run the Washington, DC system) negotiating with the unions to see to it that they don't strike; how maintenance has to be performed; how passengers put trains out of service through stupid stunts; and many more.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Music]]
* The {{Jazz}}-Standard "Take the "A" Train" is about the line that runs express up to Harlem.
* Jay-Z takes his name in part from the J/M/Z lines that serves his old neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
* Similarly, Jennifer Lopez named her first album "On the 6" because she used to ride the 6 train from the Bronx into Manhattan while still trying to get her big break.
* The Bernhard Goetz incident is referenced by the song "Executioner (Bernie Goetz a Gun)" by British neo-prog band Pallas.
** Goetz is also name dropped in the BillyJoel song "We Didn't Start the Fire".
* "[[TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway And out of the subway...]]"
* PetulaClark's 1965 hit, "Don't Sleep in the Subway"
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Sports]]
* The term "Subway Series" is applied to any series between New York baseball teams, now down to just the Bronx-based Yankees and the Queens-based Mets. In 2000, they met for the World Series and they [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2145674416/ played it up in advertising for all it was worth.]] Indeed, it is rare but not unheard of for them to have a "double-header" with one game at each stadium in the same day. Theoretically, "Subway Series" applies to any North American sports championship between two teams from the same city/metropolitan area, but a pairing of anyone other than the Yankees and Mets is relatively unlikely, for several reasons.
** First, both hockey and basketball have purely geographic structures, so it is literally impossible for two teams from the same city to face each other; even in the unlikely event the Knicks and the Nets were the best teams in the NBA, they would not face each other in the Finals (it would at best be the Eastern Conference Finals).
** The other sport in which two teams from the same area could face each other is football. However, the SuperBowl is a single game played in a pre-determined neutral location; no subway applies.[[note]]Theoretically, one supposes, a "Subway Super Bowl" could be where the teams can both get to the stadium by subway for the single game. This is unlikely as only one city in the country--New York--has two teams assigned to it, and ''both'' of them actually play in New Jersey--at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetLife_Stadium the same stadium]], in fact. Which stadium is hosting the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XLVIII Super Bowl in 2014]], but even if the Giants and Jets made the Super Bowl that year you couldn't call it a "Subway Bowl" because you can't get there by subway--even the PATH; you need to take one of UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit's commuter lines and transfer to the Meadowlands Rail Line to get to the stadium by train.[[/note]]
** Within baseball, only three metropolitan areas other than New York have two teams: Chicago (NL Cubs/AL White Sox), UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay (NL SF Giants/AL Oakland Athletics), and Greater UsefulNotes/LosAngeles (NL Dodgers/AL Angels). However, of these, Chicago and LA are right out--Chicago because the Cubs [[IronWoobie have been consistently bad for the better part of a century]],[[note]]"The Cubs win the World Series" has long been a baseball equivalent of "CueTheFlyingPigs"[[/note]] and LA because the Angels and Dodgers have never been good at the same time. As for the Bay Area, the Giants and Athletics have in fact faced each other in the World Series since moving to the area,[[note]]In 1989; they also played against each other three times when the Giants were still in New York and the A's were in Philadelphia[[/note]] and a series between them remains a strong possibility (both have made the postseason regularly of late), but the press prefers to call it a "Bay Bridge Series" (the subway connecting the two, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit BART]], is too goofily-named and too obscure to outsiders to qualify, anyway).
*** Additionally, even if the World Series came down to Cubs-White Sox or Angels-Dodgers, public image of such a series would unlikely give it a Subway brand. Chicago's public transit system is mostly above-ground, and its most prominent portions around The Loop are actually elevated above street level (hence why it is called the 'L') (even though the Red Line that serves both Wrigley Field and US Cellular Field, where the teams play their home games respectively, actually goes underground when it reaches downtown). Los Angeles, on the other hand, is in the public mind the epitome of urban sprawl with a large, expansive freeway network to connect everything - there is a public transit system in LA, but it is barely utilized. Further, there would likely be a concious effort by local promoters and sports fans to ''not'' use the term "Subway Series", as by now the terms are pretty much inexorably linked with New York. End result: an Angels-Dodgers series might be termed the "I-5 Series" or "Freeway Series", while Cubs-White Sox might be the "Red Line Series" or "L Series".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Theatre]]
* In ''OnTheTown'' ("The people ride in a hole in the groun' / New York, New York, it's a helluva town"), Gabey first sees his dream girl Ivy on a poster in a subway car presenting her as Miss Turnstiles of June. (The contest rules: "She's got to be beautiful, she's got to be just an average girl, and most of all, she's got to ride the subway.")
** There was an [[RealLife actual]] "Miss Subways" from 1941 to 1976 with substantially the same rules.
* ''Dutchman'' by Amiri Baraka.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Video Games]]
* ''SinAndPunishment'' has a dream sequence of the future that takes place on a runaway subway car in Long Island, complete with monster infestation. It's literally the only scene in the game that isn't set in Japan.
* The Liberty City version of the subway appears several times in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV''. In one mission as Niko, you must follow the train in a car, in an Homage to ''TheFrenchConnection''. It gets really crazy in ''The Ballad of Gay Tony'', when you have to destroy a train car and then ''steal another one.''
** The Liberty City version of the subway also appears in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII''.
* ''VideoGame/TheDarkness'', where it serves as the HubLevel.
* NoMoreHeroes features a level that takes place in a subway station, and later on an actual train used to get to a distant fight. Both were obviously inspired by New York subways.
* Appears in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' 3rd Strike as America.
* ''[[VideoGame/DefJamSeries Def Jam]]: Fight For New York'' has a level set in a subway station.
* ''NeedForSpeed The Run'' has you DRIVING THROUGH the tunnels in its final level...and the trains are still running.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has a small section of the game take place inside a subway tunnel in New York City, complete with a boss fight. One of the tracks has a huge gaping hole at one end, which Aya notes that it would cause one hell of a train wreck.
* Though not the subway proper, ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'''s final mission has Solomon's terror plot focused on a hijacked train in the underground section of the Long Island Railroad, [[ArtisticLicenseGeography on its way to Times Square]], where he plans to detonate a stolen Russian suitcase nuke.
* ''[[VideoGame/SanFranciscoRush Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA]]'' has the two New York courses, both of which have shortcuts that take you through the subway. Unfortunately, the trains ''are'' running, which can spell death if you don't move out of the way when oncoming trains show up. In addition, there are mice in the subway than can be run over, or turned into killer mice that destroy your car through a cheat code.
* The Unova region in the [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite fifth]] [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 generation]] ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games is a FantasyCounterpartCulture of New York City. The subway system exists in lieu of the Battle Tower present in previous games. From a [[IncrediblyLamePun grand, central station]] in Castelia City, the player can take one of a multitude of lines and engage in a battle-til-you-lose tournament. Each line has a different format such as single, double, triple, and rotation battles.
* ''Crysis 2'' has the protagonist move through a near-future, near-destroyed New York City, including several subway stations and tunnels. This includes the long abandoned City Hall station.
* A significant portion of ''Videogame/MaxPayne'' takes place in the fictional Roscoe Street Station.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Western Animation]]
* The third movie in the ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'' series features an abandoned subway station with small caverns beneath it housing Native American mice who fled when the Europeans came. The Beach Pneumatic Railway system actually did exist at the time the movies took place, and it was abandoned, so the writers at least did some research.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The family is in town in "City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" and so naturally they take it. Bart tries the sob story panhandling routine, complete with licking a subway pole to show how he was "born without taste buds." After tasting it, he quickly decides that he's in over his head and quits.
* ''{{Futurama}}'': When Fry, Leela, and Bender explore the abandoned "Old New York City" in "The Luck of the Fryrish" they get around by Bender running on an old subway line by using his feet for wheels while Fry and Leela ride on his back. Oddly enough, the line is still electrified despite being over a thousand years old and in a state of decay. Bender makes a fake subway announcement informing his "passengers" that they're on the "B train" traveling nonstop to "wherever the hell [he] feels like" ending it with an imitation of the iconic "Stand clear of the closing doors... Bing-Bong!"
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* [[http://www.nycsubway.org/ The best NYC Subway website ever.]]
* A New York Post photographer was heavily criticized in 2012 after he took a picture of a man who was thrown onto the subway tracks seconds before the man was killed by an oncoming train. Then the Post itself ran that picture on the front page with the headline "DOOMED."
[[/folder]]
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* Metro-North, serving [[strike:upstate New York]] southern New York State suburbs like Westchester County, as well as the Connecticut suburbs.
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* Metro-North, serving [[strike:upstate New York]] southern New York State [[InsistentTerminology southern]] UsefulNotes/NewYorkState suburbs like Westchester County, as well as the Connecticut suburbs.
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* The "miles of abandoned tunnels" trope appears in GrantMorrison's ''SevenSoldiers: The Manhattan Guardian'', where they're the domain of ''{{pirates}}''. [[SpacePirates Subway pirates]]. With names like "Captain Nobeard".
to:
* The "miles of abandoned tunnels" trope appears in GrantMorrison's Creator/GrantMorrison's ''SevenSoldiers: The Manhattan Guardian'', where they're the domain of ''{{pirates}}''. [[SpacePirates Subway pirates]]. With names like "Captain Nobeard".
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* ''{{Futurama}}'': When Fry, Leela, and Bender explore the abandoned "Old New York City" in "The Luck of the Fryrish" they get around by Bender running on an old subway line by using his feet for wheels while Fry and Leela ride on his back. Oddly enough, the line is still electrified despite being over a thousand years old and in a state of decay. Bender makes a fake subway announcement informing his "passengers" that they're on the "B train" traveling nonstop to "wherever the hell [he] feels like" ending it with an imitation of the iconic "Stand clear of the closing doors... Bing-Bong!"
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* A significant portion of ''Videogame/MaxPayne'' takes place in the New York Subway.
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* A significant portion of ''Videogame/MaxPayne'' takes place in the New York Subway.fictional Roscoe Street Station.
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* ''Crysis 2'' has the protagonist move through a near-future, near-destroyed New York City, including several subway stations and tunnels. This includes the long abandoned City Hall station.
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* ''Crysis 2'' has the protagonist move through a near-future, near-destroyed New York City, including several subway stations and tunnels. This includes the long abandoned City Hall station.station.
* A significant portion of ''Videogame/MaxPayne'' takes place in the New York Subway.
* A significant portion of ''Videogame/MaxPayne'' takes place in the New York Subway.
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* ''[[TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3]]'' is a hostage-taking heist film set on a NYC subway car.
* ''{{Turk 182}}'', with a [[TheLastDJ pissed-off First Responder]] turned graffiti artist as the hero, the graffiti-proofing of the subway system is a plot point. He hijacks the mayor's train and sandblasts it with "Turk 182".
* ''{{Turk 182}}'', with a [[TheLastDJ pissed-off First Responder]] turned graffiti artist as the hero, the graffiti-proofing of the subway system is a plot point. He hijacks the mayor's train and sandblasts it with "Turk 182".
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* ''[[TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree ''[[Film/TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3]]'' is a hostage-taking heist film set on a NYC subway car.
*''{{Turk ''Film/{{Turk 182}}'', with a [[TheLastDJ pissed-off First Responder]] turned graffiti artist as the hero, the graffiti-proofing of the subway system is a plot point. He hijacks the mayor's train and sandblasts it with "Turk 182".
*
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%%* ''JustAnotherGirlOnTheIRT''
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%%* ''JustAnotherGirlOnTheIRT''''Film/JustAnotherGirlOnTheIRT''
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* The Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles in the movieverse move into an ornate, abandoned subway station after the location of their original lair is compromised.
** In the first movie the Foot attack April in a subway too, and she gets saved by Raphael.
** In the first movie the Foot attack April in a subway too, and she gets saved by Raphael.
to:
* The Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles in the live-action movieverse move into an ornate, abandoned subway station after the location of their original lair is compromised.
** In the [[Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1990 firstmovie movie]] the Foot attack April in a subway too, and she gets saved by Raphael.
** In the [[Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1990 first
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* The original 1933 version of ''Film/KingKong'' has the title ape tearing up a section of the Sixth Avenue Elevated line in Manhattan (which has long since been demolished).
** The 1976 remake of King Kong also has a scene when the titular ape destroys part of the BMT Astoria El in Queens.
* ''Film/{{Hellboy}} I'' is merely typical in its depiction of {{Hell Hound}}s choosing to flee into the subway and lay their eggs there (prompting an emergency [[CuteKitten kitten rescue]] scene on the turnstiles), but in ''Film/{{Hellboy}} II'' the New York Subway is actually the secret home of [[TheFairFolk faerie prince]] Nuada of Bethmoora. (The High Elf King holds Autumn Court in an abandoned factory.)
** The 1976 remake of King Kong also has a scene when the titular ape destroys part of the BMT Astoria El in Queens.
* ''Film/{{Hellboy}} I'' is merely typical in its depiction of {{Hell Hound}}s choosing to flee into the subway and lay their eggs there (prompting an emergency [[CuteKitten kitten rescue]] scene on the turnstiles), but in ''Film/{{Hellboy}} II'' the New York Subway is actually the secret home of [[TheFairFolk faerie prince]] Nuada of Bethmoora. (The High Elf King holds Autumn Court in an abandoned factory.)
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* ''Film/KingKong''
** The original1933 version of ''Film/KingKong'' ''Film/KingKong1933'' has the title ape tearing up a section of the Sixth Avenue Elevated line in Manhattan (which has long since been demolished).
** The [[Film/KingKong1976 1976remake of King Kong remake]] also has a scene when the titular ape destroys part of the BMT Astoria El in Queens.
*''Film/{{Hellboy}} I'' ''Film/{{Hellboy}}'' is merely typical in its depiction of {{Hell Hound}}s choosing to flee into the subway and lay their eggs there (prompting an emergency [[CuteKitten kitten rescue]] scene on the turnstiles), but in ''Film/{{Hellboy}} II'' ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'' the New York Subway is actually the secret home of [[TheFairFolk faerie prince]] Nuada of Bethmoora. (The High Elf King holds Autumn Court in an abandoned factory.)
** The original
** The [[Film/KingKong1976 1976
*
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* ''MenInBlackII''. Apparently the subway has a slight giant worm problem.
* ''TheVisitor'' has a pivotal scene, and its final scene, there.
* ''TheVisitor'' has a pivotal scene, and its final scene, there.
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* ''MenInBlackII''.''Film/MenInBlackII''. Apparently the subway has a slight giant worm problem.
*''TheVisitor'' ''Film/TheVisitor'' has a pivotal scene, and its final scene, there.
*
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* During rush hour, passengers are crammed together like sardines in a trash compactor. The major routes in Manhattan, such as the 4 and 5, usually run in twos to prevent overcrowding.
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* During rush hour, passengers are crammed together like sardines in a trash compactor. The Many of the major routes in Manhattan, such as the 4 and 5, or the 2 and 3, usually run in twos double-up to prevent overcrowding.
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* Although comparatively rare, trains have a tendency to break down at inconvenient times. Actually, worse than breakdowns are scheduled service interruptions for maintenance, which can make traveling on the weekends difficult. At least the MTA is smart enough to not mess with commuter hours.
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* Although comparatively rare, trains have a tendency to break down at inconvenient times. Actually, worse than breakdowns are scheduled service interruptions for maintenance, which can make traveling on the weekends difficult. At least the MTA is smart enough to not mess with commuter rush hours.
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* The PA systems are either too quiet, garbled, or both, making it difficult to hear the announcements. Newer cars have electronic maps showing where the train is and what the next stop is, along with a loud and clear automated PA system announcing the stops. (Unless the computer is broken, in which case the route map is off and you have to wait for the conductor to make the announcement. Or just sit/stand where you can see the stop names on the walls.)
Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[SinisterSubway miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[BeneathTheEarth waiting to be inhabited]] by [[{{Morlocks}} something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the [[DevelopmentHell infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line]], which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (Seriously. The impending construction of the Second Avenue Line was [[HistoricalInJoke cited as a good reason for Peggy to buy a particular apartment]] in ''Series/MadMen'' Season 6. That's set in ''1968''. It was actually first proposed [[OlderThanTheyThink in 1929]]. They're claiming a 2016 completion date now. Bets?)
Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[SinisterSubway miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[BeneathTheEarth waiting to be inhabited]] by [[{{Morlocks}} something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the [[DevelopmentHell infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line]], which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (Seriously. The impending construction of the Second Avenue Line was [[HistoricalInJoke cited as a good reason for Peggy to buy a particular apartment]] in ''Series/MadMen'' Season 6. That's set in ''1968''. It was actually first proposed [[OlderThanTheyThink in 1929]]. They're claiming a 2016 completion date now. Bets?)
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* The PA systems are either too quiet, garbled, or both, making it difficult to hear the announcements. Newer cars have electronic maps showing where the train is and what the next stop is, along with a loud and clear automated PA system announcing the stops. (Unless the computer is broken, or there's a service rerouting for whatever reason, in which case the route map is off and you have to wait for the conductor to make the announcement. Or just sit/stand where you can see the stop names on the walls.)
Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[SinisterSubway miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[BeneathTheEarth waiting to be inhabited]] by [[{{Morlocks}} something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the [[DevelopmentHell infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line]], which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (Seriously. The impending construction of the Second Avenue Line was [[HistoricalInJoke cited as a good reason for Peggy to buy a particular apartment]] in ''Series/MadMen'' Season 6. That's set in ''1968''. It was actually first proposed [[OlderThanTheyThink in 1929]]. They're claiming a 2016 completion date now.Bets?)
Bets they'll do it this time?)
Another reality-impaired subway trope is that there are [[SinisterSubway miles upon miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city,]] just [[BeneathTheEarth waiting to be inhabited]] by [[{{Morlocks}} something evil]]. Not so much. Though, there ''are'' several abandoned stations, as well as the [[DevelopmentHell infamously half-complete Second Avenue Line]], which has been on the city's to-do list for decades. (Seriously. The impending construction of the Second Avenue Line was [[HistoricalInJoke cited as a good reason for Peggy to buy a particular apartment]] in ''Series/MadMen'' Season 6. That's set in ''1968''. It was actually first proposed [[OlderThanTheyThink in 1929]]. They're claiming a 2016 completion date now.
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In the old days, the "lines" were built and run by different rail companies, with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) running north-south between Manhattan and the Bronx, and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp. (BMT) connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens; these were joined by the city-operated Independent subway system (IND) in the early 30s, and the whole system was unified under city administration in 1940. The stations have remained basically the same, as have the tunnels and tracks used...unfortunately, the rival companies gave each other a wide berth, leading to a needlessly-convoluted route between Brooklyn and Queens under the 'unified' system. Also, IRT tunnels are too narrow to accommodate IND/BMT cars, so there are few convenient east-west "crosstown" lines in Manhattan, and direct rail travel between Brooklyn and Queens is restricted to the rarely-seen "G" train (colloquially, the "Ghost Train"). The former IRT lines are designated with numbers (except for the shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central), while the IND and BMT lines use letter designations.
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In the old days, the "lines" were built and run by different rail companies, with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) running north-south between Manhattan and the Bronx, and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp. (BMT) connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens; these were joined by the city-operated Independent subway system (IND) in the early 30s, and the whole system was unified under city administration in 1940. The stations have remained basically the same, as have the tunnels and tracks used...unfortunately, the rival companies gave each other a wide berth, leading to a needlessly-convoluted route between Brooklyn and Queens under the 'unified' system. Also, IRT tunnels are too narrow to accommodate IND/BMT cars, so there are few convenient east-west "crosstown" lines in Manhattan, and direct rail travel between Brooklyn and Queens is restricted to the rarely-seen "G" train (colloquially, the "Ghost Train"). The former way to tell the lines apart is that IRT lines are designated with numbers have number designations (except for the shuttle 42nd Street Shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central), while the IND and BMT lines use letter designations.
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* Website/ThomasFaySyndicate developed the comic strip ''A Train's World'' in 2007, set in New York a few years into the future. The trains talk and have a mind of their own, and is summed up by the creator as "an urban ThomasAndFriends". [[http://trainsworld.deviantart.com/ Highlights of the collection]] are up on DeviantArt.
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* Website/ThomasFaySyndicate developed the comic strip ''A Train's World'' in 2007, set in New York a few years into the future. The trains talk and have a mind of their own, and is summed up by the creator as "an urban ThomasAndFriends". [[http://trainsworld.deviantart.com/ Highlights of the collection]] are up on DeviantArt.Website/DeviantArt.
