The following is a story I wrote down on a pad of paper and later revised after spending nine minutes on the E train transfer platform at Lexington Avenue and 53rd st. I can’t tell you why, but that moment grabbed me. Maybe it was where I was going, maybe it was where I was coming from. Whatever it was though, those nine minutes with that man playing guitar held on to me tightly long after I departed. For those who want to hear Tye play, he’s there on that platform every Saturday until his fingers get too cold to move along the frets. Leave him a dollar, bring him some soup, hand him some gloves. However you can manage, if you see him there playing, let him know that he’s doing something to brighten the day for everybody.
A crowd gathers in the center platform between the uptown and downtown E trains at Lexington station. There’s rust on the walls and small pools of brown water collecting between the tracks. It’s a cold, dim and ingratiating spot under Manhattan’s bustling midtown East – just the place for Tye to play his blues.
Propped up against the service entrance, sitting on a small Fender amplifier, Tye picks away at his guitar. From it come his own blues renditions of songs we’ve heard a thousand times in our lives. Songs we thought we knew, but can only witness the soul in when played by an old homeless man with a puffy orange jacket and no front teeth. Songs that resonate in our hearts until the vibrations that carry them are gone like the six pack of Presidente sitting in a plastic green convenience store bag half-drunk at his side.
Tye taps his feet and strums along, moving rhythmically with the music.
“When she gets there she knows, all her glitters is gold. And she’s buying a stairway to heaven,” sings a joyous voice.
But it isn’t from Tye’s mouth that the voice is emanating, it’s a large black man passing by. He has a startling presence that is at once disarmed by his grandiose smile and penchant for singing along with local street musicians in a crowd of strangers. Of course, this is New York and he is doing what New Yorkers do- he’s celebrating through music a day that could have gone any number of unpredictable directions, but instead chose at this moment to deliver a cast of unfamiliar faces to a rhythmic respite underground- on the narrow platform where the four corners of Manhattan greet each other and transfer.
I’m trying to picture Tye on a train platform in Jersey. Nope. Would never happen. We’re musically deprived here, we commuters, because someone would call the cops and off Tye would go in the back of a squad car. Likely there’s a no musicians ordinance (we love ordinances in NJ), there’s absolutely a drinking in public ordinance … Tye is lucky to call NYC home. And you NYC commuters are lucky to have him.
Cindy, I absolutely agree. Though I’m sure the beers were not a city-sanctioned part of the act. However people are more likely in New York City to engage in street music than try to suppress it, and for that I am fortunate to live here and have people like Tye make commuting an enjoyable experience. Thank you for your comment.
How very profound Nick. I can see the crowded station and hear the music playing. Thank you for the experience.