I Work From Home and You Don't

There are always too many people milling around the station. They have time to sit around, read a newspaper, have coffee or breakfast, or wait in line to buy a magazine or a winning lottery ticket out of this rat race. Well, that is what it's all about. I mean we all want to get out of this rat race. 

We know the rats are winning. Remember that ugly blue-striped building? We go to work every day so we can some day stay home and not go to work. There are plenty of good jobs in the city, plenty for us to leave when we get tired of the crowds, the endless walks, the broken sidewalks, tripping potholes, sudden-stopping tourists, Bible spouting commuters. 

If we look long enough we'll see Murray the groundhog frolicking in the safe zone under the catenary wires. Murray is fat, dumb and happy. He doesn't have to commute to work in the city. Neither these days does Proud Mary, nor I. I write from home.... 

Continue reading This Seat Taken

This Seat Taken? Notes of a Hapless Commuter

This Seat Taken? Notes of a Hapless Commuter
By Anthony Buccino

If you ever commuted to work, you'll enjoy your ride reading Anthony Buccino's latest collection "This Seat Taken? Notes of a HaplessCommuter" about the joys and follies of getting to and from work in the city using public transit.

Buccino's bus and rail commuting tales and observations are collected in this new 224-page book which is available in print, on Amazon and Nook.

Buccino spent 12 years editing business news copy at Dow Jones & Co. for the Ticker, NewsPlus and The Wall Street Journal professional web pages in Jersey City and later at the NewsCorp building in the Times Square district of mid-town Manhattan.

For his first year working in Jersey City, Buccino actually drove the 12 miles each way to work and home. An average commute would take 20 minutes to reach the city and at least another 20 minutes to cross the city to his parking lot near the Hudson River. It wasn't long before the crosstown traffic and the monthly parking fee, nearly enough for a car payment, persuaded the author to use mass transportation to get to work for the first time ever.

For 11 of those dozen years, he rode public transportation including NJ Transit buses, Newark City Subway, Port Authority Trans Hudson's PATH trains, the occasional NYC subway and DeCamp buses.

For five years, Buccino wrote about commuting and transit in metro New York-New Jersey for NJ.com. His transit blog on NJ.com earned the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism award. Many of those blurbs are gathered in this collection.

Public Transit Gives Us Reasons To Complain

"That's what we do. Complain.

We complain the cars are cold. We complain the cars are too hot.

We complain when the cars leak water in the rain.

We complain the fare's too high...."

Continue reading: Commuters love to complain

LAST DAYS OF THE PCC SUBWAY CARS!

Check out the series on the last run of the retired Newark City subway cars.

Premodern Lightrail

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

The Old Jersey City Lightrail - One
The Old Jersey City Lightrail - Two


Copyright © 2007 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

WEEKEND SUBWAY - MONDAY PUDDLE

Pardon us as we contemplate the Navy while staring in the Reflecting Pond North at the Newark City Subway light rail station in Branch Brook Station.

You can say the place flooded Monday morning and evening because of the heavy rain.

But the place flooded because the drains were clogged ... probably with cigarette butts from the ineffective no smoking ban on the NJ Transit platforms.

Reflections at Branch Brook Park

A wider reflection at Branch Brook Park

"Hop on the bus, Gus, make a new plan, Stan..."

If you arrive on the weekend to see what's left of the famous cherry blossom trees blooming in Branch Brook Park and Belleville Park, you won't have to worry about riding on the light rail on weekends. Buses are provided ... for your convenience.

Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

Lot's Wife ... in Newark!

Ever wonder how long she's been waiting for the subway car?



Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Down Public Transit Lane II

My mother told me when I was a little kid that if I wanted the bus to show up, all I had to do was light a cigarette. She said that as soon as you lit a cigarette the bus would show up and you'd have to put it out.

She never smoked, so I guess this was an old wives' tale she once witnessed.

We've seen the queue for the bus and those smokers choking down the last puffs before the bus is going to pull away without them.

Sometimes they take the drag, drop the cigarette and exhale, then get on the bus.

It sucks when they take the drag, drop the cigarette, board the bus and then exhale.


Ever been on the light rail when the public address system is one stop off?

It drives the tourists nuts!

Have you ever ridden into the old Heller Parkway subway station and looked into the park? If you did you'd see piles of garbage in the fence behind the maintenance buildings.

Hey, we're not talking Burger King wrappers, we're talking big heavy pieces of crap that should have been cleaned up a long, long time ago.

Isn't it weird that the place called the maintenance yard is such a pig sty. Some day maybe they'll clean it up ... it's been there for years and I would practically stake my pension that the trash will be there when I'm dead and gone.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

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PATH Car Away From Ninevah III

Bare Naked Beach

Some people get upset riding backwards while traveling, say on the lightrail, the train, or a streetcar to St. Charles.

It seems that things move away - probably evokes the feeling of falling off a high cliff and not landing until the next stop.

It's odd to see the sun set in the east. But we're so grateful to be on the lightrail heading home, many of us scurried en masse down three flights of stairs to get on this car.

Facing backwards, looking out the window, see the brown leaves of the dying weeds, the buzz cut of the tree limbs that dog the catinery lines.

This subway car is full of people with tales to tell. They chatter away with different accents, speaking in pairs about who knows what.

The closer this car gets to the next bus departure time, the slower this car percolates.

This would be the night I sit next to the middle linebacker who spent the day riding a horse.



At Branch Brook Station, we see the tall building a half block away to the north. A huge chunk of the brick siding has fallen away.

Our bus driver, #31600 on the 93H points out the building, so we'll have something to talk about when we get home to our families.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

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74 Bus - 6:38 to Paterson

Here I am, a mild mannered reporter for an obscure web log named after a TV character half the people reading blogs never heard of since the show aired about 40 years ago. A week like this one makes you wish you had a larger audience, no?Three times in one September week, the 6:38 NJ Transit 74 Paterson bus pulled out on me after I'd exited the Newark City Subway and crossed the platform.

That's 3 of 5 times in one week the driver of the 6:38 bus took off when I was close enough to the door to spit on him … If I had any spit left.

The first time I was within spitting distance of the bus door when it closed and pulled away.

The second time I had crossed the station and was within ten feet when he closed the door and pulled away.

And the third time I saw the empty bus pull up as I was crossing the platform, the doors opened and no one got on or off. As I got closer, the doors closed and the driver pulled off.

This occurrence seems to have stepped up in the past few weeks. I noticed three specific times in one week, but I began to wonder how many other times, and believe me, there were other times this happened.

You can't complain to the station manager - there's only a guy in the booth between the light rail ramps and he says he has nothing to do with the buses. He said you have to go to Grove Street to find a supervisor.

Nobody's in charge and nobody cares. That's the perception. The bus drivers want to drive empty buses.

While Tom Cruise's Maverick character had a better shot at TOP GUN than I'll have of being a roving reporter for a large national newspaper based near Wall Street, I can have my say right here in this obscure little blog.

NJ Transit - News Item: Hiring Spies

I'm thinking of going into the spy business. Oh, what tales I'd tell!


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

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Preacher Man (Wed. PM Commute II )

H is for almost home!

Down three flights of stairs to the NCS Light Rail. A car is pulling in. I grab a seat and then see him.

“Brudders and sisters,” the Preacher Man says, “I am here to tell you the news about heaven …”

He always waits until the car pulls out of the station before he begins.

“I used to smoke, cheat, steal … Jesus gave me a new …”

You figure it isn’t easy to preach the word to these bones, these bones that ride these rails. The ones who hear him won’t give him the time of day, so to speak. The heavenly choir riding that peace train home is tuning out the song.

“Jesus came into this world to seek and to save that which was lost …”

On my fractured CD player, Marty Robbins sings in my ear. Yes. El Paso. One of the songs I can’t hear is about the bad cowboy saved while rustling cattle. In the song lightning stampedes the herd and a strike splits a tree into the shape of a cross and the bad cowboy sees it and is saved from his evil ways.

Kind of reminds me of the Sgt. York movie when lightning shatters the rifle Alvin is carrying.

Norfolk Street and the Preacher Man’s still going. I've been running in to him for about four years. A lot of good it did me, eh?

The walking dead are trying to tune him out. In desperation to get his baritone droning out of their heads they read the ads posted overhead. It doesn’t matter that they are written in Spanish "Su Dinero Cuando Usted Lo Necesita" – make funny sentences by mixing up the meanings of the foreign words.

This must be the 20th time “from out of nowhere Felina has found me.”

You remember, of course, that I got the CD player to play – more or less – in one ear, depending on a jostle here and there.

BUT it’s only playing ONE SONG over and over & I can’t reach down to get it out of my pocket to re-set it.

Here goes the “handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor.”

My fingers have given up & I’m writing in a fist. You could wonder – but my hand is asleep when I need it most.

Preacher Man got off at Bloomfield Avenue. I hear a lot of buses pass that way.

Our car rattles on to Davenport Avenue and Branch Brook Station.

Two more modes of transportation, "then Felina good-bye."


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

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Gunfighter Ballads & Trail Songs

Twin-Music Lyrics - El Paso

Bob Dylan - Desire

Romance In Durango

Walkman

Rain's a Coming (Wed. PM Commute III )

This September night looks like Ophelia headed our way and the sky is dark and menacing.

Finally the bus pulls up. It’s been here but only now put its lights on so we’d know if it’s the one we’re waiting for. The other busses sit with their lights out, the drivers on break. I suppose the riders need a union too?

There’s a good crowd but plenty of seats. I sit sideways in the old people seats behind the driver.

He weaves the giant bus off 5th Street through cars parked on both sides on Anthony Street to the light at Sixth Street.

Off to the left, you can’t see it now because it’s long gone, but once, before these senior skyscrapers came along, right over there, next to where the gas station is, that’s where the pony rides were located when I was a kid.

Did I tell you I was the fastest draw in the wild west city of Belleville, N.J., in 1961? That’s when Marty Robbins wrote and released El Paso. Oh. I did tell you. Wait until you get old and start to repeat yourself!

DRAW!

At the stop across the street from Clara Maass Medical Center, on gets Bam-Bam, a regular who hops this bus to Centre Street in Nutley to catch the 13 to Belleville which is where we are now. It’s a perfect example of “you can’t get there from here.”

The metal tip of Bam-Bam’s cane is bursting through the plastic cap. I don’t know his name, but when he talks to the bus driver, he ends his sentences with Bam-Bam. There are a lot of regulars on this bus, and except for Jimmy the magician, I don’t know their names, and that includes the few I have conversations with.

Bam-Bam looks like the actors Herb Edelman and Herschel Bernardi. He talks loud and clear and doesn’t care who hears what he has to say.

I got up from the senior seat for him and took a seat further back as Bam-Bam climbed aboard. Ahead of him a guy who seemed okay gets on and takes the seat I left.

Someone else got up from the opposite senior sideways seats and Bam-Bam plopped down, looping his cane in the hand-hold bar.

Bam-Bam thanked the guy who got up. I nodded as if to say ‘don’t mention it.’ But I don’t think he ever saw me either get up to give him my seat or nod back to say not to mention it.

My first wife calls that putting bricks in your house in heaven. All I did was give the guy a seat.

The 6:53 No. 74 Bus to Paterson is flying me home in the early dark of the night. I’m wondering if I’ll beat the rain. I know my umbrella will stay dry – it’s hanging on a doorknob in the basement.

In the silhouette of the night the few remaining buildings are backlit by the fading light as they wonder will they too be part of the Essex Park housing development or turned into rubble before the leaves change colors.

I turn off El Paso and pack up the Walkman.

Against the odds I sat safe and dry in my little red wagon. Before I could pull away from the curb the sky opened up. Driving home was not unlike a long ride through a car wash tunnel.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

Gunfighter Ballads & Trail Songs

Twin-Music Lyrics - El Paso

Bob Dylan - Desire

Romance In Durango

Walkman

Herb Edelman

Herschel Bernardi

Busy as Bamberger's on a Saturday Morning

When she was at wit's end with a million things to do, Mom said she was, "Busier than Bamberger's on Saturday morning!" and I knew to go away for a while.

The best part of going to Bamberger's for my back-to-school clothes was when Mom would buy me a hot dog and an orangeade at the stand next to the escalator in the basement. There was a sign that said: We don't boil the flavor out of our hot dogs

I can still remember the giant miniature circus displays they had and you got to look through a glass to see them. Awesome. I think it alternated with a giant train set up (sort of like the set Gomez Addams would blow up on the TV show.)

All I Want For Christmas ...


I'm sure all my Santa pictures were taken with the Bam's Santa. The lines were well recreated in Jean Shepherd's "Christmas Story." We kids wanted to tell the big scary Santa what we wanted for Christmas without forgetting anything or crying and our Moms just wanted to get the picture to send to the relatives.

Alas, Newark has changed in the past 40-plus years. So have I. And even my beloved Bamberger's is gone.

DISCLOSURE
Coincidence alert: I worked in the advertising department at the Newark Bamberger's store in 1984. I wanted to know if they still had the circus and train displays set up on a hidden floor - like in an episode of the Twilight Zone. I heard about Mahogany Row where the big shots worked, but I never got to see the circus set up or the train display.

See Also:
A Father's Place - An Eclectic Collection: Seventh Floor

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

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