The SALMAGUNDI

The MTA is filthy, delayed, underfunded, and somehow deeply beloved. New Yorkers spend hours trapped underground complaining about the subway while simultaneously defending it with religious fervor. This is a city that learned to romanticize infrastructural collapse.

Before smartphones, waiting in New York meant sharing space with strangers, on subway platforms, buses, benches, and sidewalks. Boredom was public, attention was communal, and unmediated time felt unavoidable. This essay reflects on growing up before constant connectivity, arriving in New York without a smartphone, and noticing how screens have quietly reshaped waiting, presence, and civic life in a city built on shared downtime.