NY Subways

[Bill Haithcoat]

Saw a brief item on NBC TV this morning about a proposed law to ban photography and video taping on NY subways. Hope it doesn't happen.

 

[Amfleet]

Here's an interesting article (with lots of photos) on protesting the New York MTA photo ban.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/protest/flashmob.html

 

[amtrakmichigan]

In my opinion, a law of any kind is not worth any more then the paper that it's written on if it can't be enforced or impossible to enforce. What I meen by this is that only people taking a picture out in plain sight in front of law enforcement would be the only people that really could get caught. If someone was up to no good such as a terrorist, they would be very discreet in photographing a target. Using a cell phone with a camera or a "bug" camera used inside of a backpack or on themselves would be impossible to detect. Hence making this law totally useless. A stupid "local ordinance" is not going to even slow down a profesional terriost looking to research his target. The only thing that this will stop is the family from Nomansland, Montana from taking a picture for keepsake to take home with them. Why don't these lawmakers use their time in helping come up with real and practical solutions to ideas that would really help. Like making a law that requires "bomb sniffing" machines at each subway station, and finding the means to finance such a project, instead of wasteing taxpayers money, yes the same the same money that could be used to fund such a project on laws that won't make a bit of difference in stopping a professional from doing what he is determined to do.

 

[denmarks]

The New York subways have been there for such a long time why would anyone need to photograph them. I'm sure there are hundreds of books with pictures available on the subject. Detailed maps are available all over New York.

 

[AlanB]

The New York subways have been there for such a long time why would anyone need to photograph them. I'm sure there are hundreds of books with pictures available on the subject. Detailed maps are available all over New York.

You're quite right, there is a ton of information available in books and thousands of pictures in books and movies. There is also a huge amount of the same available on the internet, including track maps.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Well, actually if you do not grow up in NYC or a place with rail transit, subways can be quite intriguing.

They can be fully as interesting to the tourist as the Empire State Building, The Statue of Liberty, or any of the things in other parts of the country, like the Grand Canyon.

They can truly be considered a "tourist novelty" very much something to take pictures of, if you did not grow up with them. Like the double decker buses in London. And that is not to mention peple who are railbuffs just like us---if they grew up without them.

Who knows how many tourists on on there every day, just as they are doing any of the other sites in NYC.

And of course people want to take pictures of themselves in the background. One of my prized possessions is a picture I took of my mother on her one and only trip to NY. She was in the beginnings of Parkinson's disease but we took a beautiful round trip sleeper car journey from ATL to NYC.

I took about two very lovely shots of her, still able to smile(Parkinson's eventually robs you of that) on the subway coming back from Wall Street to Times Square. (We had taken a taxi s.b.)

 

[panamaclipper]

Reading all the "train" sites I'm just amazed at all the folks being harassed for taking pictures of passenger trains. The powers that be seem to think it's entirely reasonable to treat everyone like a crook and disregard rail fans. Guess it's just a taste of what is to come everywhere. I used to hear about tourists in China being followed because they took a lot of travel photos. Now we all know what they meant.