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SubTitle: 7:40 am Barberi
Posted by: t.j. (XstatenX@hotmail.com) on 11/21/1997@01:34hrs:
In Reply to: The Staten Island Ferry posted by: rs on 11/21/1997@00:30hrs:
This is what I experience every Monday and Wednesday morning. First, everyone gets on the first car of the train so that they are the first on line at the token booth or so they get a seat on the boat. When you get off the train, you feel the blast of cold air as you try to dodge the puddles on the platform and the water dripping from the bus ramps above. One goes through the swinging doors and gets to hear the ear-piercing sound of the turnstiles beeping as people go through them. Then there's the run up the stairs to the main level where
I go to the newsstand and get my 50 cent Daily News. After that is the mad dash to the boat. (now normally everyone would wait at the doors under the "next boat" sign, and when they open there would be a stampede, but for this boat the doors are already open.) When
you get on the boat and sit down (the trick being to sit on the manhattan side so you don't have to get up halfway through the ride so you're one of the first off) you get to see everyone on the boat.. mostly wall street people, clerks, secretaries, you get some college students and the kids who go to h.s. in the city like Stuvesant and LaGuardia. Alot of people sleep or bury their heads in the papers, others sit in groups and discuss various goings on (which can get quite interesting). ALot of people sit in the same seats every morning. There are no tourists allowed on the rush-hour boats - anyone caught gawking at the Statue of Liberty gets thrown overboard! And of course you hear "Shine! Shine!" by one of the shine guys, though there are usually few takers. By the time your $.85 coffee cools down to a sensible temperature you near the docks, seeing Governor's Island on the right side of the boat. By this time everybody who was stuck with a seat in the back has moved up to the front, standing in the aisles. The captain of the boat comes on the PA and says stay off the stairs until the boat is "fast to dock" but of course no one does. It's pretty amusing too how these people will curse the ferry operators when the boat hits the pilings and they almost fall down the stairs. As the boat inches into the slip, the boat grinding against the pilings, everyone waits. Then as soon as you
hear a few clangs, the walkways are lowered and everyone runs off to where they have to go.
If you take a later boat you also may get to hear the "one stop shopping mall" guy with the socks and batteries along with his little blurbs of poetry. And the guy who sells the videotapes for $5.
anything missing?