The Subway Game

The Subway Game was a diversion that developed out of the frequent visits to New York by myself and various friends at M.I.T. In its basic form it requires two participants: an innocent victim, called the Contestant; and a more knowledgeable companion, called the Monitor.

With some allowances, the game can be viewed as a simulation of the following scenario. A stranger to New York is going to visit some friends there. He gets a ride into the city and is let off at a subway station. His friends have given him the name of their subway stop, and directions to their place from there. His driver left him with one piece of advice: Don’t ask directions of a native! So our stranger, knowing neither what part of the city he has been dropped in nor what part of the city his friends live in, must find his way to a designated subway station, using only the signs and maps to be found in the subway system.

In our implementation, the Contestant takes the part of the innocent stranger. The Monitor leads him to a point just outside a (carefully selected) subway station, and gives him a subway token and a slip of paper bearing the name of another station. The Monitor then accompanies the Contestant as he enters the system and proceeds to the designated goal. The Monitor enforces two rules: (1) no asking anyone questions; (2) no leaving the subway system. There is of course no restriction on conversation between the two, though the Monitor can be expected not to give useful answers to questions bearing on the problem at hand. The Contestant is scored according to the number of his mistakes: actions which in the light of information available to him are not the most expeditious means to his destination.

The classic problem for this game existed from November 26, 1967, until April 28, 1973. It was a pair of stations, to get between which required a minimum of four transfers, i.e. at least five trains. We used it more than once on several friends and acquaintances who started out not knowing the New York Subway System from a hole in the ground. (After this game, they know it better than most New Yorkers!) We would take him for a walk through a characteristic New York neighborhood, then into an above-ground station. We gave him a token and his destination “13 Av.” Then he went through the turnstile and scoring began. In view: stairway to left, marked “To City;” stairway to right, marked “To Gun Hill Road;” system map in front. Right move: up stairs “To City” to see if a train is coming, also to find what station this is: Claremont Parkway. Then (if no train is coming) back to the system map. (If you have a map of the right era, I suggest you try solving this one on your own before reading further.) It would be judged a mistake to miss a train while studying the system map, since To City is the overwhelmingly likely direction and there are maps on the trains. Of course, on this particular line the maps in the cars were either nonexistent or way out of date….

The Contestant would eventually find the two stations involved: Claremont Parkway on the Third Avenue El in the Bronx, and Thirteenth Avenue on the Culver Shuttle in Brooklyn. (If you spent too much time looking for 13th Av. in Manhattan, you are not alone.) Then he would see the straightforward (and, in general terms, correct) route: 3 Av. to 149 St; a Lexington Av. train to Bleecker St., then the B (not the F—less direct) to the Culver Shuttle. The route offered plenty of chance for error in its execution. Most likely the Contestant would get to the right platform of 149 St.–3 Av., and might even get on the right train (a 5, not a 2). He would then zorch down Lexington Avenue full of self-confidence and get off at Bleecker St./Broadway–Lafayette... oops… the 5 doesn't stop at Bleecker Street, only the 6 does… turn around at Brooklyn Bridge... this time take the 6 and get off at Bleecker Street…. What! The connection to the B train is only from the downtown 6, not the uptown!... turn around again at Union Square (Oh, no, you mean I could have crossed over at Astor Place?), then at last connect with the B and take it to 9th Av. in Brooklyn. Even there, with victory almost in sight, there was room for error, if the Contestant did not immediately spot the decrepit sign pointing down the obscure stairway; for the Culver Shuttle train was scheduled to leave from its cobweb-festooned little grotto no more than 1 minute after the B train passed through. Then came the grand finale, a ride on the Culver Shuttle: single track, uncovered third rail, stations which last saw a maintenance man in 1951, operating one 3-car train (though in rush hours it had a motorman at each end)!

The Third Avenue El was torn down in 1973, and the Culver Shuttle in 1975. For those reasons, and because several important new free transfers have been established, four-transfer station pairs are a thing of the past (during daytime hours). In fact, there are not even any three-transfer pairs now except some involving the Rockaway Park branch, and a few others which only exist on Saturdays and Sundays. Of course, the most expeditious route is not necessarily the one with the fewest transfers. For example, a Contestant going from the Pelham Bay line to downtown Manhattan would be faulted if he did not change at 125th St. to an express.

One problem which is perhaps more interesting now than ever before is to get from Junius St. to Livonia Ave. (Pause while you find them.) These are both in the East New York section of Brooklyn, and can in fact be seen from each other. The elevated lines they are on cross , one above the other, without any connection. If it were permissible to go outside the subway system, the problem could be solved with a two-minute walk (not advisable after sundown), crossing a footbridge over the former LIRR Bay Ridge line (funny how that keeps cropping up). Finding the most expeditious route by subway, however, is difficult. There is now (thanks to a new free transfer) a one-transfer solution, but it is terribly slow. (If you have a current ap it will be fairly obvious.) There are two plausible solutions staying in Brooklyn, but they each involve four transfers (five trains again). The route I favor is one of two possibilities which involve transfers at the same two stations; the route I prefer is the southerly one of those.

Lest it be asserted that all these problems involve the tedium of long distances, let me mention a short one: Whitehall St. to Hoyt–Schermerhorn.

The Subway Game can be played in competition form with two Contestants and two Monitors, in which case it should be arranged that the Contestants can not get ideas from each other. We did this by starting at a place where two lines cross but do not intersect, and having the Contestants take different lines. Some current examples are where the J crosses the GG, and Court Square/Court House Square. It is best, of course, if the Contestants are brought there by a third way; I recall George Mitchell and myself taking two people to where the Myrtle El (now razed) crossed the GG line, in a taxi, with each of them given a section of the Times to read very closely on the way. In such a competition it is all the more important that Contestants be judged on mistakes, rather than running time.

An alternative game for more advanced participants (all contestants, no monitors) goes as follows. Everyone gathers at one place, then each writes down one or two station names. Then all the names are read; each player must then visit each of the stations, with everyone ending up at a particular one of them. It is expected that different players will choose to visit the stations in different orders.

No other subway system is as well suited to games of this sort as New York’s, due to its combination of complexity, poor signing, and flat fares. including unlimited transfers. Complexity refers not only to the number of nodes in the network, but also to the fact that different trains will appear on the same track and to the substantial differences in service patterns at different times of day.