There’s Only 1 Train: All Aboard the Cosmopolitan Canopy from 242nd St. to South Ferry

Deirdre Heavey

Abstract

To determine whether New York City practices the progressive ideologies it preaches, I conducted an ethnography of New York City’s 1 Train. The 1 Train subway riders form an imagined community because they communicate verbally and non-verbally on a daily basis without knowing one another beyond their shared subway space (Anderson, 2006, p. 49). Through critical moments of communication, gestural and verbal speech acts coordinate and create meaning in this social world. (Pearce, 2007, p. 105). Through ethnographic research, I concluded that 1 Train subway riders coordinated their actions through critical moments of communication with respect, revealing the presence of a cosmopolitan canopy (Anderson, 2011, p. 4). Diverse members of this imagined community create the cosmopolitan canopy through their demonstrated comfortability on the 1 Train and both everyday and COVID-19 safety-related episodes. The 1 Train’s cosmopolitan canopy represents the transcendence of New York City’s progressive ideology into practice.

Introduction

The melting pot, the capital of the world, the center of the universe, the greatest city in the world–regardless of the cliché–New York City is internationally renowned as a diverse city of opportunities. The liberal ideology that dominates the City in 2020 yields representation for the most marginalized members of society, including women, people of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and refugees. Within the liberal bubble of the concrete jungle, student activists walk out of their classrooms in protest for climate justice. Women put on their pink hats every January for the annual Women’s March. People of color and their white allies risk exposure to COVID-19 to march in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. New York City is undoubtedly a city of activism that has the potential to spark political and social change.

Under the umbrella of these big ideas about representation and activism, New Yorkers walk by the same homeless man on the street every day. White college students order a sandwich from the same Middle Eastern bodega worker for four years. The taxi driver who can’t speak English struggles to find a job elsewhere. Gentrification pushes native New Yorkers onto the streets when they can longer afford rent. On the cusp of the decade, it’s worth considering whether or not New York City is the diverse, progressive city it’s considered to be.

Underneath the skyscrapers, taxicabs and 99 cent pizzerias, the subway transports the city’s eight million people through its five boroughs every day. Beginning at South Ferry on the southernmost tip of Manhattan and traveling uptown to the northernmost tip of the Bronx at 242nd Street, the 1 Train transports individuals from every background, race, class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. When New Yorkers enter the subway, they leave behind the invisible classism that separates them into different boroughs or ethnic enclaves. Within the imagined community of New York City’s 1 Train, how do critical moments of communication between subway riders create or negate a cosmopolitan canopy?

Literature Review

Since the first New York City subway line opened in 1904, the subway has become integral to New York City culture (Cudahy, 1995). The contemporary 1 Train, which extended to 242nd St. and Broadway on Aug. 1, 1908, continues to transit the city’s eight million people every day in 2020 (Cuhady, 1995). From South Ferry, Uptown & The Bronx to Van Cortlandt Park, the local 1 Train makes 38 stops in approximately 59 minutes. For better or for worse, the 1 Train brings individuals together across class, race, gender, sexuality and ethnic lines.

Over a century since the subway’s debut, it stands the cultural test of time. While the subway, specifically the 1 Train, has faced ridicule for its outdated system and extensive delays, New Yorkers have remained united in their plight against its inconsistencies. According to Brian J. Cuhady, during the subway’s opening weekend in 1904, “there were frequent complaints about crowding in the trains and stations, a problem the New York subways have yet to solve” (1995, p. 7). “Anything is better than the 1 train,” wrote A$AP Rocky, Harlem native and American rapper, in his song “1Train” on his debut studio album in 2013.

Mirroring these sentiments, local news journalists have articulated these unified plights extensively. An article published by The New York Times on June 28, 2017, showcases the subway’s issue of overcrowding and delays which “reached a tipping point with the system no longer easily able to absorb the extra riders” in 2013 (Fitzsimmons et al., 2017, p. 5). John Hague, a commuter in Lower Manhattan, said, “the platform is completely awash with people, and there is nothing to be done. I walk down and walk straight back up and pray that the train isn’t so bad” (Fitzsimmons et al., 2017, p. 7). The extensive delays described by Hague are a result of the increase in ridership that has led to overcrowding in the subways (Fitzsimmons et al., 2017). As a result of delays and overcrowding, riders have grown accustomed to frustrating occurrences during their commutes. When a subway car was too full for KC Brown to get on, the doors closed on her face; the passengers on board made eye contact with her and reacted with a sad face. (Fitzsimmons et al., 2017, p. 7). Brown described the interaction as “a nice human moment” (Fitzsimmons et al., 2017, p. 8). Despite the subway’s outdated system and inability to accommodate for growing ridership, the subway has created an imagined community among New Yorkers.

The 1 Train travels in a loop from the northernmost point of the Bronx to the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Along the way, individuals enter the shared space from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. Most of these subway riders will never know one another beyond the walls of the subway, yet they have developed an imagined community. The term “imagined communities” was first presented by Benedict Anderson as a framework for understanding nationalism. Anderson describes a nation as imagined because “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (2006, p. 49). Subway riders on the 1 train form an imagined community because they will never know one another, yet they abide by a subconscious ordinance in the form of social cues and norms. Despite a subway rider’s inability to know how his fellow passengers’ actions at all times, he has complete confidence in their steady, anonymous, simultaneous activity” (2006, p. 26). Through an imagined community, subway riders are able to develop a set of coordinated actions.

Since 1904, subway riders have been following unwritten social laws. After “F.B. Shipley became the first man to offer his seat to a woman on the New York subway” (Cudahy, 1995), his chivalry has been replicated over the past century. Once F.B. Shipley offered his seat to a woman on the subway, this critical moment established a social law within the imagined community of the New York subway. Today, it is customary for younger subway riders to offer their seats to elderly riders and pregnant women. Under the umbrella of an imagined community, subway riders contribute and react to critical moments that shape the subway culture.

These moments are what W. Barnett Pearce would refer to as critical moments under the Coordinated Management of Meaning, CMM. CMM is “the dynamic dance between coordinating actions and making/managing meanings as the site where we might find answers to those questions” (Pearce, 2007, p. 105). Pearce describes these critical moments as instances “in which what we do changes the social worlds in which we live” (Pearce, 2007, p. 2). To coordinate and create meaning in a social world is not a passive experience, but one in which every member actively contributes. According to Pearce, “our actions in any given moment can be seen through the lens of coordinating with our families, professions, religions, sports club, friendship, etc” (2007, p. 82). An individual enters any moment of communication with a unique experience of socialization, inevitably shaping how he or she perceives and responds to the interaction. CMM makes meaning of our social world by examining the “complexity of meanings in specific situations, using tools and models that help identify untold stories, the unknown connections among things, and the multiple levels of meaning embedded” (Pearce, 2007, p. 96) in even the most mundane of interactions. By identifying critical moments in communication, CMM creates a lens to make sense of how individuals interact within imagined communities.

In a public space, such as the imagined community of the 1 Train, meaning is coordinated through communicative “speech acts” (Pearce, 2007, p. 105). Speech acts occur when “the two faces of communication come together in what we say and do when we take a turn in unfinished, ongoing patterns of communication” (Pearce, 2007, p. 105). Speech acts, both gestural and verbal, impact those in a public space. As imagined communities develop their own social order, speech acts play a large role in the creation of these coordinated actions. According to Pearce, “each speech act performed by others elicits a response from us” (2007, p. 120). The cycle of speech act performance and reaction creates clusters of communication, known as “episodes.” These episodes are what establish the environment of a public space.

Other such episodes include the coordination of space, relating primarily to gestural speech acts. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall refers to these unspoken modes of communicating in his book The Silent Language. Just as verbal speech acts can serve as critical moments of communication, “the flow and shift of distance between people as they interact with each other is part and parcel of the communication process” (Hall, 1959, p. 204). While social distancing has become a public health requirement to stop the spread of COVID-19, distancing has long been ingrained into our social order. For instance, “the normal conversational distance between strangers illustrates how important are the dynamics of space interaction. If a person gets too close, the reaction is instantaneous and automatic–the other person backs up.” (Hall, 1959, p. 204). Within the ethnographic context of COVID-19, the silent language communicated through gestural speech acts yields significant commentary on the social order of a given space.

Public spaces in which individuals of different races, classes, socio-economic backgrounds, genders and religions engage in cross-cultural interactions with civility are known as cosmopolitan canopies (Anderson, 2011, p. 4). Through interactions in public spaces, such as on buses, in restaurants and on the street, Anderson describes how pedestrians typically “‘look past’ or ‘look through’ the next person, distancing themselves from strangers and effectively consigning their counterparts to a form of social oblivion” (Anderson, 2011, p. 15). Rather than embrace the community of people walking, eating and commuting in a shared space, Anderson describes how people enter these spaces guarded and uncomfortable (Anderson, 2011, p. 15). Under the cosmopolitan canopy, these tensions are eliminated and “a diversity of people can feel comfortable enough to relax their guard and go about their business more casually” (Anderson, 2011, p. 15). Only through the careful navigation of speech acts can strangers enter public space with civility. For an imagined community to elicit a cosmopolitan canopy, its participants must carefully coordinate their words and actions to create a positive cycle of meaning.

The definition of a cosmopolitan canopy lays the foundation for making sense of the Coordinated Management of Meaning theory. By observing critical moments on the 1 Train through the cosmopolitan canopy lens, I will be able to find the answer to my research question. Each critical moment of communication that I observe will determine whether the imagined community on the 1 Train operates under the acceptance of diversity across background, race, class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.

Method

Ethnography will be the guiding method for my research. Ethnography is a useful method to draw conclusions about how people think, behave and interact based on factors such as ideology, rituals and attitudes. According to Brennan, “ethnography focuses on understanding what people believe and think, and how they live their daily lives. It is used to answer questions about people’s beliefs, rituals, attitudes, actions, stories and behaviors, emphasizing what people actually do rather than what they say they do” (2017, p. 166). Ethnography helps people understand how their actions may affect environments differently than they perceive.

While ethnography has evolved from its original definition, Brennan’s methodological process and emphasis on observation will guide my research. Brennan describes the process of ethnography as “the qualitative method of observing, talking to and interacting with people in their natural environments” (2017, p. 167). Natural environments can include where people work, eat or play on a regular basis. The method of ethnography is to observe, interview and engage with the people who regularly contribute to the atmosphere of an environment in order to draw conclusions about the people and the place.

I will also base my ethnography on Elijah Anderson’s participant observation in The Cosmopolitan Canopy. Anderson constructed his research throughout Philadelphia, establishing relationships with the characters described in his book, conducting interviews and recording observations between people of different social groups. Anderson also established the definition of a cosmopolitan canopy by describing specific critical moments of interaction. Specifically, Anderson describes how white and Black people shopping, eating and interacting in public places such as at 30th Street Station, Reading Terminal Market and Rittenhouse Square break down racial tensions in diverse cities. I will be mirroring Anderson’s work in Philadelphia in my ethnographic fieldwork of the New York City 1 Train.

The field of my ethnography is subway riders on New York City’s 1 Train. Heading downtown, I will enter the 1 Train at the last stop on the line at Van Cortlandt Park on Broadway and 242nd St. in the Bronx and ride all 38 stops to South Ferry station, then back uptown. My research will be conducted in fall 2020, during September and October. The ethnography will be conducted every weekday, Monday through Friday, to observe commuters for two weeks, amounting to 20 hours of total ethnographic research. In order to observe the maximum number of everyday commuters, I will conduct my ethnography during rush hour from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.–boarding the 1 train at 242nd St. at 8 am, riding 38 stops downtown then 38 stops uptown, returning to 242nd St. at 10 a.m. This field is appropriate to my ethnography because it embodies a large community of everyday subway riders who create and participate in the culture of the imagined community on an everyday basis. Essential to the consistency of my ethnography, I plan to board the second car from the back on the 1 Train each day. Not only will this assist in my establishment of and participation in an imagined community, but this car tends to arrive closest to the platforms’ entrances which I hope will yield a high number of riders. Riding the second car from the back each day will allow me to identify a community of daily commuters–as many people ride the same car every day–and present the largest number of riders to which I can observe. It is vital to my ethnography to observe the individuals whose speech acts dictate the CMM, which is why the morning commute hours are most appropriate to my research.

The units of analysis for my ethnography are the gestures, facial expressions, actions and words, or speech acts, shared between subway riders. For this ethnography, I am especially interested in how subway riders interact with one another through verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. To draw conclusions about these interactions, I will need to be aware of subtle gestures or actions and language used. Some non-verbal gestures communication gestures I aim to observe include: avoidance of eye contact, staring, moving subway cars, pushing to enter or exit the subway, offering up one’s seat to another passenger, moving out of an individual’s way, allowing riders to exit the train before entering, how one sits or stands, maintaining a social distance from fellow passengers, wearing a mask, moving seats and cell-phone usage. Critical moments, such as pushing, staring and avoiding eye contact, would negate the cosmopolitan canopy and reflect a lack of comfortability or acceptance. Critical moments, such as giving up one’s seat or allowing someone to get off the subway, would contribute to the cosmopolitan canopy. In terms of verbal communication, I will be listening for words such as “sorry” or “excuse me.” The critical moment will be established by reactions to these episodes or critical moments of communication through verbal and gestural signals. While an individual may not consider how their subtle actions create subway culture, I am interested in identifying critical moments that contribute to or deter from the cosmopolitan canopy, through either explicit or tacit episodes.

The more I ride the subway, the more I will be able to identify the episodes of speech acts that take place between subway riders. I will refer to these moments of communication as critical moments, or instances “in which what we do changes the social worlds in which we live” (Pearce, 2007, p. 2). While Elijah Anderson’s ethnographic research lays the groundwork for the significance of these gestures, the 1 Train operates under its own unique imagined community. Much of my research will be focused on observing that imagined community and creating a code of critical moments to qualify it. Elijah Anderson defines a cosmopolitan canopy as a public space in which individuals of different races, classes, socio-economic backgrounds, genders and religions engage in cross-cultural interactions with civility (Anderson, 2011, p. 4). This unit of analysis will determine whether the imagined community of the 1 Train operates under a cosmopolitan canopy.

The goal of my ethnography is to determine whether the imagined community of the 1 Train operates under a cosmopolitan canopy as determined by critical moments in communication. My research will consist of ethnographic work on the 1 Train fueled by participant-observations. As I begin my research, I have confirmed the 1 Train as an imagined community through New York subway riders’ collective disapproval of constant delays and overcrowding. Through my ethnography, I am interested in how the diversity of race, class, religion, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation operate on the 1 Train to elicit a cosmopolitan canopy.

The Cosmopolitan Canopy

Results

While the 4.3 million people who ride the subway every day might appear to be strangers to the unfamiliar eye, for the daily commuters who establish the ethos of the subway “in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson, 2006, p. 49). Through the imagined community, subway riders have developed a level of comfortability mimicking that of which exists in their own living rooms. From scrolling aimlessly on their phones to eating breakfast, tapping their feet to their neighbor’s music, typing out last-minute business proposals and even dozing off, I found New York City’s 1 Train to serve as far more than a transportation service for many of its daily commuters.

By my tenth-morning subway ride, I had recognized the faces of subway riders who frequented the second car from the back of the 1 Train. Some notable characters included: the woman who boarded in black-framed glasses, only to switch to red-framed glasses after a few stops to read her religious print-outs, and the Hispanic man who typically boarded or exited the car around Dyckman St. with his utility cart, who once stumbled upon an old friend and caught up in Spanish the duration of their ride. Arriving at the end of the line at South Ferry, I was greeted each morning by a middle-aged Hispanic woman who disinfected the second car of the 1 Train. On a few mornings, she reminded me, “Last stop,” as if questioning why I hadn’t exited the subway. By the last ride, she had stopped asking–understanding my desire to stay on the subway without ever telling her. These interactions reinforce the premise of the imagined community, revealing the 1 Train’s ability to unite strangers and old friends alike and eliciting a level of comfortability that invites its riders to settle into their seats as they transport across the City.

Given New York City’s reputation for diversity, I was curious to discover whether that sentiment fabricated itself onto the 1 Train. Meeting the first criteria of a cosmopolitan canopy, my ethnographic research revealed the diversity of the imagined community. I quickly observed that ethnic enclaves scattered throughout the Bronx and Manhattan yielded a specific demographic entering the subway in particular neighborhoods. Yet, the differences that pushed populations of people to pockets of the City diminished within the security of the imagined community of the 1 Train. As Elijah Anderson described this phenomenon, “here, ethnic and racial borders are deemphasized, and opportunities for diverse strangers to encounter one another in a relaxed context are created. The cosmopolitan canopy and its lessons contribute to the civility of the increasingly diverse city” (2011, p. 1). Middle-aged white men commuting to Wall Street, homeless people using the subway as a warm place to sleep, young women returning from workout classes, a Hispanic mother and her son boarding the subway in the Bronx, a stylish Black couple boarding at Dyckman St. to exit at 14th St. and parents taking their children to school are just some of the individuals who make up the diverse community of the 1 Train during the morning rush hour.

For diverse individuals to belong to an imagined community is one thing, but for those individuals to act with civility toward one another creates the cosmopolitan canopy. As I headed back uptown on Tuesday, Oct. 6, I witnessed a white man greet a Hispanic man with a huge grin around 215th St. Upon their coincidental encounter, the two engaged in a conversation about dating and a mutual friend as they sat across from one another in the southernmost corner of the subway car. On Friday, Oct. 30, a woman of color in a hijab dropped a few coins into the cup of a white panhandler man, saying, “Have a great day!” on her way off the subway car. On Monday, Oct. 26, a Deaf man conducted a conversation with a stranger across from him on the subway, using sign language and lip-reading. These are just a few of the everyday interactions I witnessed during my ethnographic research that create a cosmopolitan canopy in the imagined community of New York City’s 1 Train.

The COVID-19 Canopy

As my research was initially proposed in fall 2019, I could not foresee the spark social and cultural shift that would occur as I conducted my research in fall 2020. While I initially viewed the COVID-19 pandemic as a limitation to my research, my research soon revealed that the virus had created new critical moments of communication between 1 Train commuters within the post-pandemic climate. For instance, speech acts that demonstrate respect and civility in a post-pandemic climate include wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing. As I prepared to ride the subway for two hours a day in a time when the virus continues to pose a real threat, I was aware of the safe COVID-19 practices that I expected to observe on the subway. The context of COVID-19 allowed me to narrow the scope of my project to determine the presence of a cosmopolitan canopy through the lens of communication on the 1 Train during COVID-19. While certain critical moments transcended the limitations of the virus, most of my observations during my two weeks of research related to COVID-19 in one way or another.

In terms of actualized limitations as a result of COVID-19, there has been a dramatic decrease in subway ridership from the shift to remote learning and working. As reported in “Train wreck; NYC's MTA” by The Economist, “on August 31st, 1.4 million people rode the subway, but that was still 75% below a typical day in 2019. The pandemic has taken even a greater toll than the Great Depression; passenger numbers declined by only 12% in 1929-33” (2020). While I recall overcrowded subways resulting in my need to stand against a sea of strangers on my daily commute from 242nd Street to 23rd Street via the 1 Train in summer 2019, it was rare if there were no empty seats on the 1 Train in fall 2020. Due to the low number of commuters in New York City at the time of my research, the imagined community of the 1 Train shifted to adapt to the culture of COVID-19. These cultural adaptations have manifested themselves into new critical moments of communication, establishing new social laws and norms to which riders abide by.

New Subway Laws

Upon my first ethnographic subway ride, boarding the 1 Train at 8:06 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2020, I found myself wondering, “Can critical moments of communication really be understood in 2020 without a COVID-19 context?” Utilizing this sub-question as a grounding point for my ethnographic research, my first few days of research were dedicated to identifying the social laws created both by policy and by subway riders themselves in a post-pandemic social environment. As policy would have it, MTA established written laws pertaining to COVID-19 safety. Rather than the typical advertisements riddled between MTA maps on the walls of the subway, subway cars were covered with COVID-19 safety signage. “Mask Up New York” campaigns featured a cartoon character wearing a face mask accompanied by the adage, “Stop the spread. Wear a mask,” signaling the necessity to wear a mask on the subway. Other signs depicted two cartoon characters in a three-part series. In the first, the word “Bad” is positioned above an illustration of two people conversing without masks. The second image depicted two individuals speaking to one another with their masks on, accompanied by the word “Better.” The final image showed two subway riders looking down and keeping to themselves with the word, “Best.” The explicit signage establishes mask-wearing and social distancing as a sign of respect and indicated this behavior, or lack thereof, as critical moments within the context of COVID-19.

Within the 20 hours of research I conducted on the 1 Train, I encountered only one instance when someone did not wear a face mask. The man sat across from two young women in the northernmost corner of the subway car. Staring at the women across from him, he asked, “does it make you uncomfortable that I’m not wearing a mask?” The women whispered among themselves before inevitably exiting the subway soon after. Not only has mask-wearing been encouraged and written into policy by New York City and the MTA, but the practice has been adopted by the vast majority of daily subway riders as an act of civility. For someone to enter the subway not wearing a mask, and then to attempt to get a reaction out of responsible riders is a critical moment of communication that lacks civility and invites an undesirable episode. Under the cosmopolitan canopy, “tensions may arise over turf and territory, particularly when a member of one group considers a member of another to be out of place or even threatening. In these circumstances, the ‘gloss’ that people put on to smooth their interactions can wear thin” (Anderson, 2011, p. 154). When an individual is deemed threatening, whether due to an implicit bias or an actual perceived fear such as this, the canopy’s civility and comfortability are weakened. Considering this was an isolated scenario encountered in my research, the episode does not largely affect the stability of the canopy. However, if this had been a reoccurring situation, it would have a catastrophic impact on the cosmopolitan canopy–threatening the civility that maintains peace and comfortability on the 1 Train. Members of the imagined community demonstrated respect toward their fellow subway riders by wearing their masks every day, creating a cosmopolitan canopy.

While maintaining 6 feet of social distance has become the standard of respect on the subway, Hall once referred to this length of distance as a “public distance” in our coordination of space (1959, p. 209). Given the overcrowded nature of the subway before the pandemic, riders were accustomed to sharing a “very close” space with strangers, pushing up against one another to fit into the subway cars (Hall, 1959, p. 208). According to Hall, this “very close” space is the closest range of distance in a public space–occupying a range of three to six inches (1959, p. 208). The now “public distance,” ranging from five and a half to eight feet and enforced by MTA has extended the distance between subway riders by six ranges (Hall, 1959, p. 209). The shift from “very close” to “public distance” in the public space of the subway is significant because it is difficult for riders to engage in intimate moments of gestural or verbal communication in the same way they had pre-pandemic.

In addition to MTA’s written laws of communication, there were a number of unwritten social norms pertaining to COVID-19 safety that I observed during my 1 Train rides. The most apparent social distancing attempt I noticed were riders leaving empty seats between passengers aboard the 1 Train. Most commonly in my observations, riders respected and maintained social distancing when they could by leaving seats open and standing six feet from the nearest rider. These unwritten social laws were established within the community of 1 Train riders, independent from the explicit MTA laws. While the coordination of space between seats is an entirely new phenomenon as a byproduct of COVID-19, human beings have been socialized to coordinate our actions in public space. According to Hall, “our concept of space makes use of the edges of things. If there aren't any edges, we make them by creating artificial lines (five miles west and two miles north). Space is treated in terms of a co-ordinate system” (Hall, 1959, p. 203). In this scenario, 1 Train riders have coordinated their actions to construct artificial lines between seats as a sign of respect to social distancing, for the health and well-being of subway riders. Within the space of the 1 Train during COVID-19, the creation of these imaginary lines to promote social distancing is a critical moment of communication; an episode in which 1 Train riders have coordinated their actions in a way that reflects civility.

In contrast, when passing through a busier station like 59th St., Columbus Circle, an influx of riders on some mornings forced New Yorkers to abandon social distancing efforts. Despite overcrowding, I found that civility continued to shine through in these episodes. While riders were unable to social distance effectively, they continued to wear their masks and kept to themselves as the MTA signage encouraged. Reflecting broader New York city self-motivation, 1 Train riders were willing to practice social distancing, but they had no problem piling onto an overcrowded subway car to make it to work on time. However, despite slight overcrowding, subway riders collectively adjusted to the new space to create an even sphere of social distance between each rider. In these scenarios, subway riders adjusted their space from “public distance” to “neutral” (20 to 36 inches) or “near” (12 to 20 inches) to accommodate for more riders (Hall, 1959, p. 208). Despite inching beyond the six feet social distancing range, subway riders rarely dared to enter the “close” (eight to 12 inches) or “very close” (three to six inches) range (Hall, 1959, p. 208). With the threat of overcrowding, New Yorkers demonstrated civility toward one another by moving to accommodate more riders and accepting the new sphere of attempted social distance.

As intimacy increases with each range, these spatial jumps seem to reflect a level of comfortability between subway riders. For instance, I noticed this spatial pattern on Thursday, Oct. 22, almost a month after my first research day when more riders seemed to be piling onto the subway by the day; COVID-19 restrictions were being phased out and more New Yorkers appeared to be returning to the office. While there were about 15 people on my subway car when I first boarded at 242nd St.–a large number from the start with as little as four riders often boarding at 242nd St.–60 riders piled into the second car of the 1 Train by 125th St. On that Thursday morning, a middle-aged black woman wearing a lime green sweatshirt boarded the busy car, immediately abandoning the socially distanced seating by sitting directly between two men directly across from me. The subway riders around her seemed unbothered by her disruption to the rules of the COVID-19 canopy. However, as soon as the train arrived at 96th St. where several passengers transferred to the express trains, the riders immediately shifted to accommodate social distancing once again. W. Barnett Pearce categorized the coordination of speech acts to create better social worlds in three ways: changing our present situation to yield a better outcome, preventing an undesirable speech act, and facilitating desirable speech acts (Pearce, 2007, p. 106). In this way, the riders coordinated their actions, changing their present situation–close distance–to yield a better outcome–social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 1 Train riders coordinated their actions strategically, demonstrating respect for the cosmopolitan canopy in an imagined community that values COVID-19 safety.

Beyond the scope of COVID-19, I observed several instances when subway riders shifted their actions to protect the canopy. The most significant series of these episodes occurred on the rainy morning of Thursday, Oct. 29. When I boarded the 1 Train at 242nd St., I immediately noticed a middle-aged woman fast asleep, laying across the subway seats on the northeastern long, middle row of seats. Around 207th St., there were eight passengers on board the second car of the 1 Train; each of them sitting on the southern half of the subway to avoid the woman sleeping across the way. When a young Hispanic woman frantically entered the subway car from the northernmost door, she walked to a seat across from the sleeping woman, looked at the woman, noticed the empty seats on the other side of the subway, and slowly made her way over to claim a seat within the protection of the canopy. Two women who boarded the subway soon after followed a similar pattern. The women who moved across the subway to avoid the sleeping woman demonstrated human ability to influence speech acts, in this case protecting the canopy. Under W. Barnett Pearce’s CMM theory, these women are showing the potential to “prevent or resist the performance of undesirable speech acts” (Pearce, 2007, p. 106). When the women noticed the sleeping passenger aboard the 1 Train, they recognized the potential threat of waking her up and moved to prevent that potential aggravation, which would disrupt the cosmopolitan canopy. These women were correct in their supposed estimation as I witnessed the woman wake up. Around Rector St., she let out a large moan, stumbled to her feet and squatted between subway cars to urinate. As I was alone on the subway car with her when she woke up clearly agitated, I exited the subway at Rector St. to wait for the next train. This episode reveals how 1 Train riders can coordinate their actions to protect the cosmopolitan canopy.

Negating the Canopy

While the results of my ethnographic research revealed that 1 Train riders created a cosmopolitan canopy through their critical moments of communication, there were a few outlier scenarios that negated the canopy. The most significant of these episodes occurred on Wednesday, Oct. 7, around 8:43 a.m. at the World Trade Center stop. After a young couple exited the car, I was the only person left on the subway. As I was taking photos of the empty subway car, an elderly Black man who exited the subway from the first car met my eye contact and entered my subway car. He sat directly across from me, well beyond the range of “public distance” for such an open space, regardless of the social distance restrictions. The man asked me if I had ever been to Staten Island and whether the train was going uptown. Feeling uncomfortable, I exited the subway at Rector St. and waited for the next subway. Utilizing Pearce’s theory of preventing undesirable speech acts, I changed my current situation to yield a better outcome (2007, p. 106). This situation revealed the inability to separate myself from the imagined community of the 1 Train. Despite my role as an observer, I was also a participant in the imagined community; my speech acts had as much of an impact on the cosmopolitan canopy as the man who sat opposite of me. Given my subjectivity to the situation as a young white woman, both implicit bias and the very real fear of sexual violence could have influenced my discomfort. Perhaps, if I had stayed on the subway, the man and I could have engaged in a civil discussion. Yet, the fear of a potential threat outweighed my desire to see that episode to fruition. From my perspective, I prevented an undesirable episode from occurring. From his perspective, I could have offended him for my prompt exit from the subway. Regardless of the perspective, this critical moment of communication negated the cosmopolitan canopy.

Similar to 1 Train riders’ willingness to overcrowd a subway car in order to make it to their destinations on time, the imagined community allowed this self-motivation to prevent them from donating money to panhandlers. On numerous occasions, panhandlers politely asked for spare change from the morning subway riders. Time after time, members of the imagined community ignored their pleas, absorbed in their own scrolling or reading. On the morning of Monday, Oct. 19, a young Black woman asked, “Would anyone be willing to share a dollar? A cup of coffee? Something to eat? Would anyone be kind to help?” Not a single person so much as flinched, looked up or dared offer the woman a dollar. Only two people offered money to any of the seven panhandlers I encountered in my research. While the imagined community did not act overtly uncivil toward panhandlers, their repeated lack of concern for them negated the cosmopolitan canopy. Even in these negative episodes, the morning 1 Train riders demonstrated such comfortability in this imagined community that they were unaffected by this episode.

As much as I contributed to and participated in the canopy, the subtle glances and questioning looks I received from my fellow subway riders revealed my status as an outsider to the cosmopolitan canopy. For instance, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, an elderly Hispanic woman hummed along as she peacefully played music from her phone aloud. While this woman embodied the cosmopolitan canopy–comfort on the 1 Train, unabashed self-expression and civility through social distancing and mask-wearing–my outsider presence gave her noticeable tension or discomfort. Through her furrowed eyebrows and following eyes, I realized the threat I posed to the cosmopolitan canopy by watching and observing the imagined community. Following this interaction, I noticed at least one person staring at me during each of my subway rides. While I threatened to negate the cosmopolitan canopy, the members of the imagined community–through their subtle gestures toward me–demonstrated their willingness to protect and maintain the cosmopolitan canopy.

Conclusion

Because 1 Train subway riders interact with one another comfortably despite ever knowing each other beyond the turnstiles, New York City’s 1 Train is an imagined community. Through my ethnography of the 1 Train during the morning rush hour for two weeks, I found that critical moments of communication, specifically gestural and speech acts, created a cosmopolitan canopy. Within the protection of the cosmopolitan canopy, men, women and gender non-binary individuals from different demographics acted with civility toward one another. Given the context of COVID-19, civility was predominately qualified in terms of compliance with safety regulations and social distancing norms. However, the interactions and episodes between diverse individuals that promoted positivity, demonstrated through respect, proved to be the driving force of the 1 Train culture. Pandemic or not, the imagined community of 1 Train subway riders participate, engage and contribute to the cosmopolitan canopy. Every New Yorker–regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality or ethnicity–has a safe space on the subway to read, scroll, dance, sing, sleep, study, type, eat and travel. The 1 Train functions as an equalizer: a place where classist divisions are diminished under the protection of the cosmopolitan canopy. As New York City is renowned as a liberal bubble of diversity, the 1 Train has proved to be representative of that rhetoric. In a time when our country feels more divided than ever, anyone can find comfort in the warm, bright seats of the subway’s 1 Train.

Suggestions for Further Research

While my ethnographic research revealed the validity of the cosmopolitan canopy on the 1 Train, my role in this ethnography was solely to observe. While I had initially intended to conduct interviews with those I observed on the subway, I was unable to complete this portion of my research due to the scale of the project. Not only would it have been difficult to set up interviews with those I observed without obstructing my ethnography, but COVID-19 safety did not permit the “close” conversations these interviews would require. As I laid out instances where my subjectivity dictated my perception of negating or creating a cosmopolitan canopy, it would be valuable to document multiple perspectives in the analysis of this ethnography. By hearing from a diverse pool of interviewees, I could confirm the presence of a cosmopolitan canopy beyond my own interpretation. As a young, college-educated white woman, my interpretation of the canopy could differ immensely from that of anyone else.

In addition to interviews, my ethnography just begins to scratch the surface of the potential for this on-going ethnographic study. With more time, I would have had more opportunity to witness new critical moments of communication. Each subway ride taught me something new about the function of the canopy, and I can only imagine the depths of understanding I could gain for this imagined community if I continued my observational hours. Notably, I only conducted research during the morning commute hours of 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. The morning commuters on the 1 Train could differ in social norms and frequent episodes from the evening commuters. Additionally, morning commuters seemed to be tired and quiet on their way to work, whereas a late-night subway car could yield groups of excited party-goers. For example, I did not encounter a single street performer during my research as they tend to perform in the afternoon or evening hours. Street performance is a subway essential, so I can only imagine the series of episodes that more research times would reveal. In order to truly understand the 1 Train’s cosmopolitan canopy, ethnographies need to be conducted at every hour of the day. More research will only reveal more characteristics of the imagined community.

Considering the depth of COVID-19 research conducted, this entire ethnography could be adjusted to analyze the cosmopolitan canopy from a solely COVID-19 context. While I dedicated a great deal of my research to subway riders’ compliance with COVID-19 safety laws, more research could be dedicated to the very subtle episodes that relate to mask-wearing and social distancing. Further research could be conducted to analyze the degree to which COVID-19 alters how we communicate with strangers in public spaces.

References:

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