On Becoming a Transit Freak Pt. 2

Apologies, I meant to publish this sooner but I’ve been grappling with the reality that its another conclave come and gone and once again I have been iced out for the position of Pope. Am I surprised that they went the more traditional route of selecting an elderly cardinal with years of service and administrative experience in the church instead of an early 30s lapsed Catholic who would make a big stink about having to move to Vatican City? No, but rejection hurts all the same. Well, the work must continue, and my higher calling seems to be chronicling my recent visit to the New York City Transit Museum.

If the subway is the arterial system of the body of the City and we passengers are the blood flowing through it, the aorta would of course be the humble turnstile: the mechanism through which we pass to begin our journey through the system. Much to my delight, the Museum has a display of old turnstiles that you can go through, which adds a fun interactive element to your visit. While I am certainly courting controversy in doing this, I will give my definitive ranking of turnstile models here, complete with analysis.

Honorable Mention: Turnstiles by Billy Joel, 1976

I’d be remiss if I made no mention of Joel’s fourth studio album. Admittedly, I prefer the live versions of “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)”, “Summer, Highland Falls”, and “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” from Songs in the Attic, and the live version of “Prelude/Angry Young Man” from 12 Gardens Live. But this album has a lot of classics, and I think this album cover is one of the most “Billy Joel” album covers of all time.

7. AFC Turnstile, 1992

Subtitled “The Workhorse” by the museum, this is the original model of the turnstiles that are the standard model in stations across the city today. Designed by Cubic Automatic Revenue Collection Group, these turnstiles accepted the Automatic Fare Card and were installed in 69 stations in 1992. They had token slots as well, since paying with subway tokens was still the preferred method for straphangers. In ‘94, AFCs started accepting MetroCards and in ‘97 every station had these turnstiles installed. Today, the turnstiles have been re-fitted with contactless payment readers, the token slots are gone and obsolete, and eventually the MetroCard slots will be as well as those are slated to be phased out.

Design wise, I find the AFC Turnstile utilitarian and uninspiring, but I have to give credit for the fact that it seems like the design is adaptable to new payment methods and technologies. I can remember when there were a few scattered stations with card readers not that long ago and now it seems like they’re everywhere; I can’t imagine how much longer that would have taken if they had to fully replace the entire turnstile apparatus. Does the AFC suffer from familiarity? Perhaps!

6. Duncan TC, 1980

This might be controversially low on the list but based on the eye test, I am a bit uninspired by the design. It strikes me as the progenitor of the AFC in terms of starkness. The main credit to the Duncan TC is that it was an experimental turnstile installed at only one station on 34th and 8th; the experiment was in accepting both subway tokens and regular coins as subway fare in one machine. The experiment did not last long because too many people were paying using washers or “slugs” - counterfeit tokens. More on slugs later.

5. High Entrance Turnstile, 1945

This is a model that started to get rolled out in 1931 to stations that didn’t have an attendant. You’d pay your fare to unlock this revolving door contraption and nervously jam your way through, hoping not to get stuck, which some passengers did. They nicknamed this sucker the Iron Maiden after the medieval torture device, which is a lot of fun, and the basic concept of design is still employed in the High Entrance Turnstiles we have in stations today. Newer models instead have a series of curved metal bars to separate the compartments of the door, reminiscent of some kind of grain thresher.

Some older turnstiles bear similarity to modern ones, but have a little more warmth and personality. I can’t say I feel that way about this particular model, but the little sign telling you where to push is a bit more hospitable.

4. General Electric Electric Turnstile, 1922

Check out this behemoth! I walked through this thing and gave a low, impressed whistle. I think the only other patrons who appreciated the GE on that level were the children who had to push with all their strength to move the wooden beam forward. I was impressed none of them bonked their heads in the process, though doing so would have been a great teaching moment for how good you have it now. Just think, kid - if you were alive when these things were standard use, you’d have to try to not bonk your head every day as you took the subway to your job at the lead refinery, where if you met your quota for the week you would be rewarded with a pint of whiskey and a pickled egg. If you were lucky enough to not die in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, you could look forward to a stooped, hunched, and tubercular young adulthood. Thank goodness they had these handsome machines, life seemed pretty shitty back then!

3. World’s Fair Turnstile, 1939

So, for the 1939 World’s Fair, the IND built an extension off the Queens Boulevard Line that led to the fairgrounds called, appropriately, the World’s Fair Line. This turnstile utilized the standard Coinpassor technology that recognized the size of a coin to collect the additional 5 cents needed to get admission to the Fair. You can’t really see in the photo, but this also has the big wooden turnstile arms which would unlock when you put your coin in. Pretty unassuming, I guess, but then again you’d want your mind to be cleared before heading to the Fair, where you could see things like consumer product demonstrations for nylon and cellophane, the first televised baseball game, or Paul Vermeer’s The Milkmaid.

2. Kompak Coinpassor, Model 107, 1968

Now we’re talking. This was not the first subway turnstile to implement the more efficient angled arms, but it works with the design of the body well. This thing is pretty slick, and when it was rolled out was the first turnstile to feature the typography of what was then the new Metropolitan Transit Authority. This was the most common model of turnstile throughout the 1980s. Eagle eyed readers will note that this is the model of turnstile featured on the cover of the Billy Joel album, Turnstiles, which means this model was THE turnstile of the popular imagination for decades, possibly still to this day.

1. Round-End Kompak Model 97, 1946

I mean come on! Now THIS is style! Undoubtedly my favorite. Sure, a little rusty and could use some paint, but damn, get a load of this thing. Just think of how much post-war optimism went into the decision to make turquoise turnstiles with accent stripes. The top plate was originally designed with a window to spot slugs but these were vandalized so much (no tolerance for narcs) that they were replaced with stainless steel, which is more handsome anyway.

And hey, speaking of slugs…

Check out this display of counterfeits! The description starts out with a bit of a scold, reminding us that fare evasion is a crime (to which I gave a deserved eye roll), but I have to imagine the museum is just covering the bases, because if they actually were humorless about such a petty non-offense, they probably wouldn’t have included this piece at all. One of my favorite things I learned on this trip was the practice of “token sucking” - a method of fare evasion where someone would jam the coin slot with paper or cardboard and wait for someone to unsuccessfully try to deposit a token. When the customer would go to the booth to alert the attendant, the farebreaker would suck the token out of the slot with their mouth. Nasty as hell, and if you’re willing to put your mouth on a subway turnstile to suck a coin, you should just get a free ride in my book! Not to bemoan our modern times too much, but these days people just hop turnstiles, there used to be a real art to fare evasion back in the day. I mean look at some of these slugs up close:

Foreign currency, homemade slugs, people even used tokens for other transit systems! What ingenuity!

Believe it or not, I haven’t covered everything in my visit yet, so expect part 3 soon, unless I am dealt another blow like not getting picked to be the next Dalai Lama!