'How Hot Is It On NYC's Subway Platforms?' WNYC Investigates
On a day when the temperature outside was 92 degrees, it was 106 degrees on the uptown platform of the 1,2,3 line at Times Square. Amy Pearl/WNYC hide caption
Our friends at WNYC, NPR's member station in New York, have a great -- and exhaustive -- new piece on their news blog: "How Hot is it on NYC's Subway Platforms? So Hot..." Check it out, and listen to the accompanying radio story.
"Every summer, New Yorkers have one more thing to kvetch about: the heat on the subway platforms," it begins. "You know, that eighth circle of Hell where your clothes turn wet with sweat and you find yourself smelling way too many things you wish you didn't know about."
(You don't have to be a bonafide New Yorker to know what they're talking about. Visitors to The Big Apple have sweated that sweat. Non-visitors and non-New Yorkers alike can imagine smelling those smells.)
Thankfully, and without getting all religious about the experience, there is salvation once a train pulls up. All subway cars are air conditioned. And the difference between the heat of the platform and the chill of the train is so striking, you might wonder why storm clouds aren't forming in between.
Beth Fertig, a reporter for the station, and Amy Pearl, a web producer, went underground, to conduct some subway science. "We wanted to see how big a difference there really is by taking a digital thermometer down to the trains," Fertig writes.
They charted some unbelievable temperatures. In Times Square, on the uptown platform of the 1, 2, and 3 trains, it was 106 degrees Fahrenheit. On the 2 train, it was 73 degrees.