Stockholm Syndrome

For the last couple of days, the streets under the 7 train in Queens have been eerily silent, and residents and shop owners are disoriented:

For nearly 90 years, life along Roosevelt Avenue has been pre-empted every few minutes by a sustained interruption of train clatter, as the elevated No. 7 train rumbles overhead. The 20-second interjection is loud enough to banish thought itself. It halts conversations and forces newcomers to hold their ears.

But since the trains stopped on Tuesday, the hammer of the gods has suddenly stopped, too. People who live and work along the avenue seemed slightly disoriented yesterday. The decibel level that has defined life there, as well as at other places in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx — is conspicuously absent.

“It’s strange, but the silence is more noticeable than the noise,” said City Councilman Eric N. Gioia, who represents Woodside, Queens, and grew up under the El. “When you spend your life hearing the screech of steel wheels over your head every two minutes, you almost forget what quiet is.”

. . .

Mahmud Hossain, 31, a Bengali immigrant who owns the New York Deli and Grocery at Roosevelt Avenue and 76th Street, said life on the avenue had always been about “the big noise.” For the past seven years, Mr. Hossain said, he has worked at his counter 12 hours a day, separated from the El outside by a pane of glass. Since he lives in an apartment building on the avenue, he also hears the train all night, he said.

He and his wife have a relationship based upon intermittent conversations. “When we talk to each other, part of every conversation is saying, ‘Hold on a second,'” he said.

“It’s funny to say,” he added, “but the silence is driving me crazy.”

Amazingly, some residents seem to miss the noise, a sort of 7 Train Stockholm Syndrome:

While many residents embraced the relative silence, others seemed bewildered by it, and, after only two days, even began waxing nostalgic for it.

“I actually miss the noise already,” said Cristina Fletcher, 33, a Filipino immigrant who for the past five years has lived in a building in Woodside, a half-block from Roosevelt Avenue. “You get used to it. It’s part of life here, the sound of the city. It’s strange to actually be able to walk down Roosevelt Avenue and talk on your cellphone.

“Living here is like having the subway running through your living room,” she said, “and now it’s turned off.”

Is There Some Light At The End Of This Stinky, Piss-Filled Tunnel?

News reports within the last hour indicate that transit workers may go back to work while both sides continue to negotiate:

After meeting with both sides through the night, state mediators have devised a preliminary framework for a settlement of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority contract dispute that would allow strikers to return to work later today, according to four people close to the negotiations.

The people emphasized that the details of a final settlement would take at least a day or two longer to be finalized, although buses and subways would be running before that.

The agreement, they said, would give every side some of what it asked for.

On The Subject Of “Inconveniences”

Yesterday, during Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint’s press conference in which he likened his struggle to Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, he attempted to apologize to those affected by the strike:

“To all New Yorkers, I’d like to apologize for the inconvenience and beg our riders and all working people for their patience and forbearance for the inconvenience caused by our strike. There is a higher calling than the law and that’s justice and equality. Had Rosa Parks answered the call of the law instead of the higher call of justice, many of us who are driving buses today would still be in the back of the bus.”

Let’s just get one thing straight here — an “inconvenience” is when the bus is ten minutes late. I think most would agree that this whole shutting down the entire transit system thing seems to go a little beyond mere “inconvenience.” But it also raises a bigger question: What would happen if he really wanted to put us out?

Look, The Race Card!

TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, invoking the memory of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks:

In an impassioned news conference, Mr. Toussaint invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks as he sought to rally his troops, and New Yorkers, in effect portraying the strike as a civil rights campaign to help a work force that is largely black and Hispanic.

Standing With The Working Man By Fucking Over The Working Man

The Times, stating the obvious:

The burden of the strike fell unevenly upon New Yorkers of different classes.

For many living in Manhattan, the strike remained an inconvenience, not a hardship. Some, like Dave Halman, a 35-year-old Wall Street banker, worked from home the first day. On Wednesday, he was out on West 96th Street waiting for a company shuttle. “It’s fine,” he said. “We went through the blackout, 9/11 and now most people are taking this in stride.”

But for many more, the impact was harsher. Stan Decker said he had walked nearly seven miles from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn to Jamaica, Queens. “They’re hurting the ordinary people, they’re not hurting the big shots,” Mr. Decker, 59, said of the union. A union member himself, he complained, “Everybody’s paying for health insurance. Why should they be different? When they overdo it like this, they hurt unions because if gives people a bad impression.