Have you ever taken the subway in New York City? Dashed through the turnstile mid-summer, getting clipped by the unforgiving mechanical doors, and squeezing past the cranky rush hour crowd only to realize the guy next to you is gearing up for an accordion concert and the train car has no air conditioning and is making all local stops?

When I first moved to NYC in 1999, despite having grown up just an hour outside of Manhattan, I didn’t know east from west, uptown from downtown. Descending beneath the streets to an underground world of screeching trains, furry inhabitants, and hurried passengers, frightened me to the core.

But alas, I had to get to work and in no time at all I got my “city legs” and the subway became my preferred mode of transportation. For all its smelly chaos, it’s inexpensive, efficient, and boasts some of the More >