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Monday, September 24, 2007

Castaways

Homeless
Photo by myself, on Eighth Avenue and 14th Street.

A man was wrapped up in a castaway rug on the sidewalk.

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I posted recently about a homeless person on the subway. Unfortunately, you see a lot of homeless men and women around, and it's hard to comprehend that these are human beings.

One of my first years in New York, I encountered a homeless man who had died on the subway. The downtown express train was pulled up at 72nd Street and Broadway, its lights on and doors closed. The platform was crowded with people.

In the middle of one of the cars, a man was sitting down. He was dressed in sweatsuit material and his chin was touching his chest. Apparently, he'd passed away but his body remained upright.

A subway worker said that the man had been dead for several hours, and rigor mortis was setting in. The passengers next to the body noticed there was something wrong, and alerted the crew. The train was stopped. I remember hearing someone say (with actual excitement),'I've never seen a dead guy before.'

I guess that's one way of putting it - 'a dead guy', a man who happened to live on the street, and died alone on a train.


1 comments:

Mom Knows Everything said...

Dead people freak me right out! Even at funeral visitations I have a hard time.

I know I should get the pets fixed, but the last two cats we got fixed ran away. It cost over $700 for both of them to get fixed and a couple of weeks later they were gone. I really need to do something though. I'm want to just have 1 dog and 1 cat, I just have to talk the rest of the family into it. Wish me luck!