(no subject)

[camwyn]

How you know you're a New Yorker:

Any number of bizarre things can show up in your dreams and get accepted without question, but you stop mid-dream-conversation to stare at the place where the train tracks are emerging to go from subway tunnel to elevated railway and think, "Wait a minute, that's not right- we're on 33rd Street, and there's no elevated railway in this part of Manhattan! And how come the signs say it's 33rd and 47th? Those streets don't even come near each other, let alone cross!"

And not only that, but the cognitive dissonance is so great that you promptly wake up.

Comments

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

HAH!

[sdelmonte]

You were in the Spider-Man movies' New York, with the elevated lines that don't exist.

[camwyn]

The elevated lines in Spider-York ran towards the east side of the island. This railway was on the west side, which made it even worse.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Should I be worried that you've actually worked this out?

[camwyn]

If a movie is deliberately going to set itself in New York City then it's going to have to deal with the geography to greater or lesser degree. There is absolutely no reason for Manhattan subways to head for the river on the western side of the island, because the western side of the island is across the river from New Jersey. The subway is confined to the five boroughs of New York City; train passage to New Jersey is done either via NJ Transit, Amtrak, or trains run by the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH), which is a different organization than the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The eastern side of Manhattan Island, on the other hand, is across the river from several relatively small islands like Roosevelt Island (where the tram seen in Spiderman 1 has anchorage) and then the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. There is both sub-river and over-river train passage to these boroughs, although the over-river passage to Brooklyn is as part of an existing bridge. The train in Spiderman 2 would've had to have been heading for Queens once the trestle got finished. My guess is that in Spidey's world, the Second Avenue Subway project got revived and portions of it were built elevated with the intention of running it over to Queens.

If you know the city, it's really not much more than logic.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

This both makes me desire to, and avoid, living in the Big Apple.

[camwyn]

The current incarnation of the subway's been around a good 103-104 years now. It's not getting any better any time soon.

[blackjack-svr.livejournal.com]

Yeah but aren't there, like, hundreds of miles of abandoned subway lines that may not even show up on maps? I mean.. just.. y'know. Tunnels. Forgotten architecture. And. Yes. *swoon*

... what? I'm allowed to geek out about this stuff.

*muttermutterraystantzthoughtitwascoolmuttermutter*

[camwyn]

I wouldn't go so far as to say hundreds, but there's a fair amount out there, yeah. I just haven't gotten past about 1910 in A Century Of Subways yet, so I can't say for sure. And understand that when I say 'better' I mean 'more comprehensible to outsiders'. I like the setup just fine.

But, well, that comes from someone who literally wakes up because of inaccuracies about the subway in her dreams, so take that as you will.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

The part that worried me most in Spidey 2 was 'How many people were sucked out of the apartments he accidentally tore open with his webs?'

And I hope the people he threw into the web-boingies had good hearts.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I can have dreams of hiding in the driveway behind a two pound weight and not wake up for the life of me.

Dreams about not finding a television show that should be on snap me right awake.