Many Are Called - the NY Subway Photos of Walker Evans

(Click here for the Romanian version)

Walker Evans made his New York Subway photos in 1938, with a camera hidden in his coat. In 1966 the photos would be collected in a book, Many Are Called.

Many Are Called - there is a story on display on one of the walls of Ellis Island Museum. It's a story coming from the folklore of Italian immigrants: We have been told that in America streets were paved with gold. We came here to find out that streets were not paved with gold, they were not paved at all, and we were expected to pave them.

Yes, Many Are Called. The American Dream is for all, the winners are some.
The others are the people populating the photos of Walker Evans. The images were shot in 1938, yet I met these same people in the New York subway - the commuters, looking for a job or running from one job to another. The same characters in 2006 as in 1938. This worker, lost in his thoughts, is in the train number 1, going to the Staten Island Ferry (the persons in the first image seem to be in the same train, toward the ferry). In all subway stations the platforms fit 10 cars - only the South Station (for the Staten Island ferry) has a platform accommodating only the first five cars of the train.
So trains number 1 have a notice in each car, informing the passengers that for South Station one has to be in one of the first five cars. The notice is in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Italian. And starting with the station from Canal Street, the train operator reminds the passengers that for South Station they have to be in one of the first five cars.
I was once in that train, going to the ferry, and I took place in the first car. The operator was repeating the warning in each station. Chambers Street station came and the operator announced us that this was our last chance to change the train for Brooklyn. Then again the announcement with the first five cars.
Rector Street, the last stop before South Station. Again the announcement. The train put itself in motion. Two minutes, and the train stopped. We waited patiently, only after ten minutes people started to loose patience. The operator went out of his cabin. We asked him what the matter was. He didn't answer. He traversed all cars, and put the train in motion backwards, so we arrived again at Rector Street. We went out of the train and asked the station manager what happened. I don't know, was the answer. People were angry, but we need to go to the ferry.
Then you should have been in one of the first five cars, replied the manager.
I arrived very late at home that evening. I started to tell the story, I was interrupted, you should have in one of the first five cars!

Billy Bitzer (the cinematographer of The Birth of a Nation and of Intolerance) made in 1905 a short feature (5 minutes) having as unique character the New York Subway: a view of a subway car, taken from another one, as it makes a trip through the tunnels from Union Square to Grand Central. The New York Subway Network had started to operate just seven months ago.

I came once to New York when the whole transportation system was in strike. It was in 2005, just before Christmas. I spent three days wandering through the streets of Lower and Mid Manhattan - one of these days I went to meet a friend, so I walked the whole distance from Union Square to Grand Central.

This New York Subway is part of the collection of short movies about New York, produced between 1899 and 1940. Billy Bitzer is present in the collection also with another movie, Panorama from the Tower of Brooklyn Bridge, made in 1903. Only 30 seconds of film could be recuperated for the collection: a view of Lower Manhattan from atop the Brooklyn Bridge. The image was seriously damaged, which makes it a masterpiece! One of the most hallucinatory images of Lower Manhattan I have ever seen.

Am petrecut toata noaptea pe schelele mahalalelor
lasandu-mi sangele pe stucatura proiectelor,
ajutandu-i pe marinari sa stranga velele sfasiate.
si stau cu mainile goale in murmurul gurii fluviului.
(Federico Garcia Lorca, Christmas at Hudson,
Romanian version by Gabriela Banu)

Tide swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown
(Walt Whitman, Mannahatta)



Many Are Called - this accordion player, the singers on subway trains and stations, or on the Staten Island Ferry, the ambulant preachers with Bible in hand, some people are looking at them, others are reading the newspapers, some mock them - I remember the ambulant preacher coming everyday on the Staten Island Ferry and reminding us every time that End Is Near - he had once an accident but kept coming in crutches - I admired his will.








The suspicious couple seems to go in the same train number 1, towards the ferry. And the ladies? I met them so many times on subway and on the ferry: the ladies of Staten Island, I should tell once their story.
The universe of New York subway: commuters between two jobs, people looking for a job, music players and preachers, indifferent regards, suspicious regards, gossip... Many Are Called.




(New York, New York)