One or two mornings a week, I take the subway from the Upper West Side of Manhattan where

I live, down to Soho, to the radio station where we make this program.

I take the C-trains, about a half hour ride, and wear headphones, those ridiculous, big,

earmuff-type noise-canceling headphones.

Now I don't wear them because I'm listening to music, usually I read.

I don't wear them because the train noise bothers me.

I kind of like that old, clackety, clackety, steel wheels on steel tracks.

I wear them because when I get off the train at the Spring Street station, this is what

happens.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm not going to do to you what they do to me.

So whatever device you're listening on right now, turn your volume down, okay?

Now, this is what happens.

That's the alarm on the emergency door at the subway exit.

You can go ahead and turn your volume back up.

But this is no emergency.

This is what happens every morning during rush hour, and again during the evening rush,

every time a train arrives at hundreds of subway stations across the city.

You're supposed to exit through the turn styles.

Now these days, a lot of those turn styles are called heats, that is high entrance and

exit turn styles.

They look kind of like a cross between a floor to ceiling revolving door and a jail cell.

It's a turn style you cannot jump over or squeeze under, and they don't turn very fast,

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