Subway Performers

In general there are two types of people who solicit donations from passersby on the subway system in New York: beggars and performers. Usually the distinction is clear, though in some cases the line is blurred – I’m thinking in particular of the highly entertaining version of “Amazing Grace”, sung by a ragged old blind man late at night on the F train. Most of the time, though, even people as ignorant as tourists can probably distinguish between beggars and performers. And while I avoid giving money to beggars, I will generally give money to a performer who, I think, has earned whatever small donation I want to give.

For the most part, “street” performers are confined to the sub-street level. The Times Square subway station, like the above-ground Times Square above it, seems to be the hub of subway performances. It is nearly always filled with easily-impressed, quick-to-donate tourists, and usually boasts at least one, and usually more than one, performer or performers.

Walking through that station, I have seen everything from flute playing South Americans to singer/songwriters dressed as butterflies to a man in a wheelchair playing blues on an electric guitar with a harmonica hung from his neck – and they’re all pretty good. Unlike the eager tourists, though, I don’t usually drop money in Times Square performers’ cups. After all, who wants to spend any more time than necessary in a subway station?

Occasionally, the stray performing musician will find his or her way to the surface. I remember vividly a time in my youth when my parents took me to a Broadway show and, after the show, we were among the crowd that gathered around two men who were frantically, and very loudly, beating empty 5-gallon plastic jugs. At the time I remember thinking “this city is really wonderful! It has people who can make music out of jugs!" Of course, the novelty of jug-beating wears off quickly and by now I consider that genre to be mass-market, low-brow entertainment, in the same category as summer blockbuster movies.

Outside Times Square, the diversity of subway station performers varies greatly. There’s a performance spot that’s usually reserved in the 34th street Herald Square station, but the station is always crowded and if I’m in that station I’m usually in a rush to get to Penn Station.

At Prince Street in SoHo there’s an old man who plays the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” over and over again. The first time I heard him play it, I dropped a dollar in his collection cup, but over the following few days I realized that that was his only song. Like any good entrepreneur, he markets his product (a song that everyone will recognize and like) and parlays it into countless one-time donations by tourists and travelers. I’d be more cynical if I didn’t like the song so much. Because really, is it possible to hate “Here Comes the Sun?”

Performers on the subway trains themselves, I think, are even more successful than those in the stations, though whereas the station performers are licensed, the train performers are not. They run the risk of getting ticketed and booted off the train. These performers play or sing for a minute or two and most people, myself included, feel compelled to give them a small donation. My favorite performance has certainly been “Barbara Ann”, of Beach Boys fame, sung by a group of men. For me, any distraction on the subway is a welcome distraction, and if the music is any good, then so much the better.

One of my favorite performers, who I discovered only recently, is a strange-looking ex-hippie with a huge gray beard who stations himself every day for who knows how long on the downtown B, D, and F platforms at the Broadway-Lafayette station. He plays a wooden instrument that he holds like a clarinet and sounds like a flute, but with a richer and more vibrant sound. Most of the time, especially during rush hour, you can’t really hear him above the people and the trains. But when it’s quiet, the sounds and melodies he produces are relaxing and make me think of quiet mountain valleys in dense East-Asian forests. I usually give him whatever coins I have, and the occasional bill.

Not all the performers are competent, though. On the uptown track at Prince Street, there is often a man who has taped modified cooking pans to his chest and leg and sits on a stool hitting them in seemingly random patterns. It’s certainly not music, and only by the broadest definition could you call it a performance. Spectacle, I think, is the better word. Maybe it would be funny if the man didn’t look so serious, and didn’t seem to be trying so hard to beat some sort of rhythm and sound out of the thick metal.

And of course there is the partially blind, stooped old man with a dying, raspy voice that might once have been strong who walks slowly up and down the F train late at night. His insane version of “Amazing Grace” is, like the man hitting the pots, more spectacle than performance. If nothing else it fits the physical appearance of the performer – wobbly, rasping, only slightly resembling the stronger original version.

When I see performances such as those, I wonder how long the performers ride the trains or sit in the stations, and what they do when they go home. I wonder if they perform for pocket money, or if it’s their only source of income. I hope it’s the former.

I once saw a young guitar player dressed like Bob Dylan playing in the Times Square station. He was pretty good, and three or four people had stopped to listen to him. The rest of the crowd moved past him, not seeing him. Several weeks later I saw him playing at a street festival on the Upper West Side – not on a stage, but off to the side, in the shadow of a shop tent near the sidewalk. Three or four people stood listening to him. The rest of the busy crowd moved past him, not seeing him. And I too walked quickly by.