Riding the New York Subway

The Invention of the Modern Passenger

by Stefan Höhne

$45.00 Paperback
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392 pp., 7 x 9 in, 62 b&w illus.

Paperback
9780262542012
Published: February 16, 2021
Publisher: The MIT Press

$45.00

eBook
9780262361996
Published: February 16, 2021
Publisher: The MIT Press

$44.99

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A history of New York subway passengers as they navigated the system's constraints while striving for individuality, or at least a smooth ride.

When the subway first opened with much fanfare on October 27, 1904, New York became a city of underground passengers almost overnight. In this book, Stefan Höhne examines how the experiences of subway passengers in New York City were intertwined with cultural changes in urban mass society throughout the twentieth century. Höhne argues that underground transportation—which early passengers found both exhilarating and distressing—changed perceptions, interactions, and the organization of everyday life.

Over the decades, discourses surrounding the subway system shaped passengers alternately as progressive heroes, fragile cargo, barbarians, patriots, or vigilantes. At the same time, authorities saw passengers as undisciplined masses posing a threat to order. Höhne investigates how authorities attempted to control passenger behavior with rules and regulations in an effort to ensure efficiency in transit. Meanwhile, passengers asserted their individuality by resisting imposed norms and inventing subversive practices.

Critically engaging with the work of Michel Foucault and other theorists, Höhne maps the subway–passenger relationship from the system's inception to its 1968 consolidation into the Metropolitan Transit Authority, as the subway—once a monument to progress—became a neglected infrastructure plagued by crime and fear. Höhne shows that throughout the course of the twentieth century, New York City subway passengers struggled to navigate the system's constraints while striving for individuality, or at least a smooth ride.

Stefan Höhne is a cultural historian of urbanization and technology and a Mercator Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen, Germany.

“In this rich and fascinating study, Stefan Höhne immerses us in the world of the New York subway system, using the figure of the modern passenger as a focal point for his analysis.”
Matthew Gandy, Professor of Geography, University of Cambridge

“Höhne's meticulous excavation reveals the rituals and rationality of one of the key innovations of modern urbanism, showing how the New York subway system became both a technology of power and the city's most anxiety-ridden public space.”
Sharon Zukin, author of The Innovation Complex: Cities, Tech, and the New Economy

“Riding the New York Subway is a fascinating complement to traditional infrastructure studies. Viewing that famous conveyance through subway passenger culture, it provides insight on how we respond to technology in our daily lives.”
Martin V. Melosi, author of Fresh Kills: A History of Consuming and Discarding in New York City

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