People Watching, N.Y.C. - Fall Edition

I was changing trains at Times Square. There was an older guy, kinda down-and-out looking, who was clearly uncomfortable walking. He was pretty much shuffling, not picking up his feet. We got to the stairs down to the 1-2-3 and I thought, he's gonna take a half an hour to get down to the platform. With that, he gracefully perched on the hand rail and slid on down. I was impressed.

* * * * * * * * *

Heading home, I walked past the modest brownstone church I walk past every night. There was a guy lying on the sidewalk, perpendicular to the church, butt up against the building, feet resting on the wall, playing the trumpet. Playing the trumpet.

* * * * * * * * *

This morning, as I waited to refill my Metrocard (behind some foreigners who were paying with a credit card and were flummoxed by the instruction to key in your zip code), I heard music in the distance. A solo trombonist, playing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. I detoured past him and gave him all of the change in my wallet.

* * * * * * * * *

And on the sardine-can-packed subway, I wished for discretion and fearlessness, but opted not to take the picture of the young Asian man in the black & white plaid shirt coiffing his hair just so, using the window as a mirror, standing next to (but not with) a young Asian woman intently reading her phone, wearing a fuzzy black & white plaid coat. Bill Cunningham or Neil Kramer would have found a way to take the picture. I couldn't do it. I could barely get my phone out of my pocket.

* * * * * * * * *

This morning's missive from the Union Square wall, with style points for using the N and Q subway line logos: Never Quit.