Subway Story Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2011 by Julia Sarcone-Roach

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sarcone-Roach, Julia.

  Subway story / Julia Sarcone-Roach.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Jessie, a subway car “born” in St. Louis, Missouri, enjoys many years as an important part of the New York City subway system, and after she is replaced by more modern cars, she begins another important job.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-0-375-85859-8 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-95859-5 (lib. bdg.) —

  eISBN: 978-0-375-98471-6

  [1. Subways—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.

  2. Artificial reefs—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S242Sub 2011

  [E]—dc22

  2010045487

  The illustrations in this book were created using acrylic paint on paper.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  To Cecile, who first put Jessie on the tracks, and to Nancy, who brought her home

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Title Page

  First Page

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  When Jessie was born in St. Louis, Missouri, she weighed 75,122 pounds and was 51½ feet long.

  She had a loud horn, four big fans, four large windows, bright lights for seeing, sturdy seats for sitting, and a gleaming coat of paint.

  She was a beautiful, shiny new subway car!

  Jessie arrived at her new home in New York City and got to work right away.

  She was strong and fast. People relied on her to get to their jobs or to school, or to see their friends and family.

  Jessie traveled all over the big, bustling city.

  When the World’s Fair began, Jessie had the special job of carrying visitors to the fairgrounds.

  Sometimes Jessie helped carry unusual things.

  She made sure to go slower around the curves so everyone—and everything—arrived safe.

  Sometimes musicians practiced on board, and Jessie was happy to provide some rumbles and clickety-clacks for their songs.

  Even the occasional pigeon came along for a ride.

  No matter who or what was on board, Jessie’s favorite part of her route was the curve of the track right before her tunnel ducked under the river.

  She would speed up for the curve and then zip down with a SKREEET! of sparks shooting off her wheels.

  And even deep down under the river, Jessie could hear the echoing BAAAOOOM of the tugboats far up above her.

  If she passed another train, she’d always give a friendly wink with a twinkle of her headlight.

  Over the years, Jessie saw the city change, and she had some changes of her own—her parts got fixed when they broke down, and she even got to change colors.

  But when Jessie got older, a new coat of paint couldn’t hide the cracks in her seats and the scratches and scuffs on her windows and floors.

  Still, she kept working as best she could, through springs and summers, falls and winters.

  Another spring came, and Jessie noticed more new shiny silver trains running on the tracks.

  By summer, Jessie’s fans were just not strong enough to keep her passengers cool. So newer, air-conditioned trains took over her route during the summer months.

  Jessie missed the people and the activity. She was always glad when fall came and she could go back to work.

  Then one year the air turned frosty and the leaves changed color, but nobody came to put Jessie back on her route.

  She sat in a yard with the other older trains.

  She thought about the people she had carried. Did they notice that she was gone?

  One day, workers came and moved Jessie inside. When they began removing her fans, Jessie was excited. “Finally, I am getting fixed!” she thought. As they pulled out her seats and windows, Jessie began to feel much lighter.

  But then she felt someone unbolting her doors. “Wait!” she thought. “My doors aren’t broken. I need them!”

  Instead of fixing her, the people were taking Jessie apart. Off came her lights, her signs, her brakes, and her horn too!

  Then they washed Jessie over and over again, and left her with a group of other cleaned-up subway cars.

  The cars were loaded onto a barge in the river, and a tugboat pulled the barge out of the city harbor. As the waves got bigger, Jessie felt the breezes whistle through her empty windows. Curious fish peered up at them as the barge moved into the open ocean.

  “Will I ever get to see my city again?” Jessie nervously thought.

  After traveling for hours, the barge came to a stop. The subway cars could see nothing but water. Everything was quiet.

  Suddenly the crane in the middle of the barge began to move. It shoved the car next to Jessie to the edge of the barge.

  SPLASH!!

  The car went over and disappeared beneath the waves. “Is that what will happen to me?” Jessie wondered.

  And then she felt the crane beneath her, pushing her toward the edge. Then—WHOOOSH!!—Jessie plunged into the salty ocean.

  Water thundered into every part of Jessie, and it got darker and darker as she sank down,

  down,

  down,

  until…

  THUMP! She hit the ocean floor. A huge cloud of sand and silt churned up around her, and at first Jessie couldn’t see anything.

  Then out of the dimness came a little silver fish. In and out of Jessie’s windows and doors he swam. Soon there were more curious little fish swirling around her. In the darkness, Jessie felt a little like she was back in the subway tunnels she knew so well.

  Over the next few days, more fish decided to move in and live with Jessie.

  In the following weeks, shellfish settled inside and plants began to grow all over her.

  Then bigger fish from the deeper parts of the ocean came to feed on the smaller fish.

  Sometimes a dolphin or turtle would stop by to visit.

  Now Jessie lives on the ocean floor.

  Tiny creatures called coral cling to the same poles that people held on to when Jessie lived and worked aboveground. Hundreds of fish dart through the doors that people once used.

  Jessie was once an important part of the city where she lived.

  And now a whole city lives inside her.

  Jessie’s story is inspired by a real subway car that arrived in New York for the 1964 World’s Fair and was “reefed” off the coast of Delaware in 2001.

  The car was a model R33 WF, which was one of the fleet of subway cars designed to impress and welcome visitors from around the world and to showcase the New York subway system. The first car of the model was even featured in TV ads and on a float in a parade.

  After the World’s Fair ended, the R33 WFs continued to work their routes. They began their lives on the tracks painted aquamarine and cream. Later on, like many other models of subway cars, the cars received the distinctive red paint job that gave them the nickname “Redbirds.”

  Throughout the world, people have found different ways to reuse older subway cars. In London, cars from the Underground have been made int
o artists’ studios and work spaces. In China, subway cars have been converted into shelters for people who were left homeless by earthquakes. Museums, schools, and even restaurants have preserved or reused retired subway cars. Some countries are selling old cars to other railroad systems.

  After they were taken out of service, many of the Redbirds were reused as artificial reefs in the Atlantic.

  A reef is an underwater chain of rock or a sandbar. And just as a house is built up from a foundation, a reef is a base where undersea creatures can attach and build homes. People have been creating artificial reefs all over the world for thousands of years. Shipwrecks may have been some of the first accidental artificial reefs. Modern reef builders have also experimented with reused materials—concrete pipes, steel highway bridges, even planes, automobiles, trucks, tugboats—and subway cars.

  After a subway car is sunk to the ocean floor, barnacles, blue mussels, oysters, soft corals, and sponges quickly begin to grow. Then sea bass, triggerfish, and flounder arrive. The flounder like to lie in the sand on the roof of the car, while the other fish live inside. Soon bigger fish from deeper in the ocean, like tuna and mackerel, come to eat the tiny fish that dart out of the waving sea grasses carpeting the floor of the car.

  Though they are not as great or as long-lasting as natural reefs, the subway cars will provide homes to generations of underwater creatures and new fishing grounds for both people and fish.

  For more information, visit:

  * epa.gov/reg3esd1/coast/reefs.htm

  * mta.info/mta/museum (for information on the New York Transit Museum)

  * nycsubway.org

  * reefball.org

  * www.fw.delaware.gov/Fisheries/Pages/ArtificialReefProgram.aspx

  Bibliography:

  * Cooper, Martha, and Henry Chalfant. Subway Art. New York: Owl Books, Henry Holt and Company, 1984.

  * Hanley, Robert. “Subway Cars’ Last Stop: Under Sea, Not Ground.” The New York Times, July 4, 2003.

  * Roach, John. “Artificial Reefs Made with Sunken Subway Cars, Navy Ships.” National Geographic News, August 18, 2006.

  * Sansone, Gene. New York Subways: An Illustrated History of New York City’s Transit Cars. Centennial ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.

  * Urbina, Ian. “Growing Pains for a Deep-Sea Home Built of Subway Cars.” The New York Times, April 8, 2008.

  About the Author

  Julia Sarcone-Roach got the idea for Subway Story after a visit to the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn. She was amazed to learn that old subway cars were having second lives as artificial reefs—that was recycling on a scale she’d never imagined! And soon after, Subway Story was born.

  Julia attended the Rhode Island School of Design and recently made her Knopf picture-book debut with the charmingly illustrated and ever-so-slightly naughty The Secret Plan. Like her rail-riding heroine Jessie, Julia is an avid traveler and has many adventures in mind for future picture books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she regularly rides the subway.

 

 

  Julia Sarcone-Roach, Subway Story

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