Underground

Lazy Monday today, so here's the fruit of my haunting the web this weekend..

New York

NYC --Subways and other buildings--

NYC --Chambers street--

London

Paris


Since I cannot remember when I have always been fascinated by abandoned places... As far as I can remember, I always been looking around me, taking a little more time when passing by abandoned places,houses, buildings, and wondering what wooden panels or metal gates could possibly hide...

Above all, I have a particular inclination for subways. I guess you can talk about fascination. It all dates backs circa 1993, when I first used the Underground in London,also called the "Tube". I will never forget the sensation of fear, mixed with excitement. I have to say that I am a bit claustrophobic, and that closed spaces, like elevators or crowded places often gets me nervous.

I will never forget the long descent, endless escalator, or crowded huge elevators. Then the heat underground, the sounds magnified by the round walls, the passing by of metallic trains in a wooooooooooooosh, the crowd pushing, the colors of the various underground lines, the fever while watching the stations names rolling by, and the anxiety whenever the train stopped in the middle of a tunnel.

Darkness everywhere, impossible to peek further than half a meter, cables, hissing of the trains sliding along the tracks, signs, stairs, again, then , finally, fresh air.

And the sensation to be born again.

Same feeling in Prague, where I took the subway once. endless escalator plunging down in the heart of the earth, stainless steel-looking walls and trains, heat, and ablurry memory of it.

Brussels, then, and its ugliness. Huge rectangular spaces, endless ceilings, painted faded yellows or dusty oranges. And my nose stuck to the windows, watching the cables, paintings, devices, and tracks. What I like most is the coming out of a tunnel, when you see a cirle of light, ready to save you from darkness.

Paris, at last, my all-time favourite. Old "art-deco" entrances, white and blue pavement, rounded halls and tunnels, but not as stiffling as in London, stairways, halls, stairways and halls again, like a giant labyrinth. I am a lost Ariane in search for the Minotaure...

* * *

I guess abandoned stations have a particular flavour. There is something melancolic when seeing those places, times ago crowded, now reduced to dim-lit empty halls. Covered with dust, filth, and tags. Silent, eerie and rather ominous. I wouldn't dare aventure myself along those forlorn places. So I dive into the images, wondering about the places outside the picture frames, waiting for a phantom train to pick me up.