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Thursday was a weekday I always looked forward to. In a break from the rigors of running a clinical practice, on Thursdays I would get up, hop on the MTA Green Line, and head to the Medical area. On a short walk from Longwood station I would pass five massive granite buildings and the Quad of Harvard Medical School to end up at the adjacent School of Dental Medicine, my alma mater. Once there, an international group of post-docs awaited my teaching buddies and me in the lecture hall and on the clinic floor. With students and colleagues from all over the world, the experience was like working at the UN. It gave me a buzz.

While on the ’T’ back in those days it was common to observe fellow Green Line riders passing the time engaged with all sorts of reading material, e.g., newspapers - all neatly folded, magazines, or books. Only a few were locked into PDAs or flip phones. This was the same observation I made riding Big Apple’s ‘A’ train express starting from 181st Street Station near where my son’s family lived in Washington Heights. That was then.

 

This is now.

Waiting for the 'A'

Seeing a rider with an open book is virtually a non-existent sighting - riders will be locked into screens reading anything from the cornucopia of engaging online offerings and social media feeds. 

Others may be somewhere in cyberspace plugged only in to sound, 

 

occasionally opting for both sight and sound.

 A few may shun earbuds and be somewhere only with their private thoughts, 

 whatever they may be and wherever they may go.

 

In conclusion, if Walter Cronkite was still with us today, he might sign off his nightly news report with this commentary, “and that’s the way it is as we begin 2024”. 

So for me, screen or no screen, sound or no sound, in Boston, NYC, Washington, or any other city, riding subways is always a captivating people watching visual escape.

All the best for the new year.