Peter (Brooklyn Bridge Subway Station)

"i don't hate the place, it's just that it's very congested and everything is so expensive... all the candy stores are gone and there's nowhere to get a cheap icecream soda"

Bronx born and bred, Peter has been working for "the transit" for the past 22 years. He started as a platform conductor, a job that seems to have gone the way of the subway token (for you non-new yorkers that means extinct). Back then, the subway was scarey, "it was like the place was ready to be condemned, the trains were old, the subway stations were disgusting and everything was graffitied... it was out of control", but as we all know the subway is much cleaner and safer these days, (alas!) there is no more graffiti and wouldn't it be nice if there was a subway worker on the platform to aid us during delays & re-routes and who is trained to translate that indechiperable language they use on the intercom. Although Peter cannot fathom the thrill you would get from spray painting a train, he is even more at a loss to understand why people want to throw themsleves in front of them... he's had to clean at least one mess, which he estimates will slow us down approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes... not bad considering. As you know the city that never sleeps needs a subway that never sleeps, and during the midnight hours, the operators have to be even more vigilant... he has had a few near misses, "a lot of people like to roam around down there at night and they'll just run in front of your train, you gotta stay very alert".

Peter misses the simple merchant stores and repair shops... he used to like to sit at the counter in a candy store and have an ice-cream soda and bemoans "if i need a vacum cleaner repaired there's no vacum cleaner repair store in my area... years ago, you had all these little repair shops, if you needed an egg beater repaired or an orange squeezer, you could go to the repair store... they're all gone... now they want you to throw them away." Yes Peter, and guess what else? they don't even want you to wait until your egg beater is broken, they want you to upgrade every year... I mean if your egg beater doesn't come with a USB port, have an alarm clock and an mp3 player, you are missing out! (and for those of you who think an egg beater is a genetically modified yokeless egg in a box, let me tell they are complex mechanical machines used for whisking (you guessed it)eggs. When he's not whisking up his own omelettes, you might find Peter at Sizzler in the East Bronx, "the food's good and it's not too pricey".

Peter concludes that "the rent is outrageous, we pay more for everything and our children have asthma"... he likes to get out of town when he can... and concedes that he will probably move to the suburbs one day...

(he used to care, but things have changed
...how sad, how sad)