Underground Woman: My Four Years as a New York City Subway Conductor

Labor and Social Change

by Marian Swerdlow

Take a wild ride through the New York City subway system with author Marian Swerdlow, one of the first women subway conductors. In the days when subway cars were canvas for graffiti murals and there were no toilets for women employees, Swerdlow trained in Manhattan's underworld of tunnels and learned how to cope with the accompanying dangers and frustrations. Her fascinating insider's account from four years on the job is laden with anecdotes that range from the funny to the painful to the absurd. From her fellow employees, she got grief and harassment, but also camaraderie and love-and a distinct subway lingo that permeates her prose. At all hours of the day and night, New Yorkers in their glorious diversity rode her subway cars. Some spat on her and assaulted her; others were supportive and cheered her on.A white woman in a mostly minority male workplace, Swerdlow helped edit a rank-and-file newsletter, "Hell on Wheels," and tried to organize for better working conditions, confronting the Kafkaesque Transit Authority bureaucracy and complacent union leadership.This book is full of the experiences that give New York City its edge-the rush hour, crime, medical emergencies, fires in subway cars, floods in subway tunnels, and confrontation of ethnic groups. The conductor is the person who hears what New Yorkers have to say about the quality of life in the Big Apple. And Swerdlow is a narrator with attitude, who has her own words for the subway system of today, including the new standards of politeness that riders are supposed to observe. It includes a glossary of over 140 subway terms. Author Marian Swerdlow teaches high school social studies in New York City. After working as a subway conductor, she taught sociology at the State University College at Buffalo. Swerdlow was born and grew up in the Bronx.

Genres: Transport

262 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 1998

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love trains.
I love the subway.
I love things involving the 80's (although my inclusion into having lived in the 80's is debatable, does eleven months count?)

It was pretty much a given that I was going to love this book.

Marian Swerdlow was one of the first female subway conductors for New York City transit, and this book chronicles her four years as a TA conductor before she left for academia because she decided the job wasn't right for her. It dives into the day to day duties, the politics of working there, the abuse suffered at the hands of the riding public, (this was the 80's. When people proclaim the NYC subway as unsafe and graffiti-ridden, it's this era they're thinking of) and the boatloads of grief she got from fellow coworkers.

Definitely recommended for any transit geek and subway commuters. It definitely gives insight into what the job is like (although parts are different now) and shows that being a conductor is much more than pressing buttons to open and close doors.

And apparently Woodlawn is, to this day, still the nicest terminal - so I'm told ;)

[eRin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marian Swerdlow is one of the first few female conductors on the New York City subway. She recounts her four years as a conductor in her memoir, including the sexual harassment, assault by riders, inefficient unions and management, faulty equipment and horrifying accidents. Swerdlow also discusses the camaraderie among her fellow workers. She's white and female--an unlikely combination in the underground. She's also highly educated. But she's also fiesty and works hard to fight the union and the T.A.'s often ridiculous rules.

I wanted to love this book. It had everything I thought would make it amazing--a non-academic, first-hand account of her unique experience. But something just didn't do it for me. Part of it was that I found out that I am simply not interested in labor issues--and there is a lot of focus on that. Another part was her writing style--jumping to a different incident without warning constantly. Then at the end she started to repeat stories--not too frequently, but enough to annoy me. It is an interesting account, butit could have been a better book.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites.