Only something as important as the 2010 Olympics (which will take place in Vancouver) could bring the New York subway system into the future. Remember those 3-D glasses you needed for The Grammy Awards? You’ll be needing them again – to watch the Olympics in the subway!
Reports the NY Daily News:
The 105-year-old subway system has gone 3-D.
Subway riders paused underground in midtown Tuesday to don paper-and-plastic 3-D glasses and watch Olympic images – a skijumper soaring through the air, a skater twirling on ice - on a 8ft x 14ft projection screen.
“Sweet,” said Grace Bendle, 26, a dancer on vacation from England, said.
“Very cool,” agreed Ishana Fleurante, 20, a college student from Brooklyn said.
Promoting the Olympics – and their credit cards - Visa created the mini-theater and passed out 3-D glasses to subway riders in the long tiled hallway between Grand Central Station and the Times Square Shuttle.
There were no seats. No popcorn. And the two “shows” lasted just 30 seconds each before repeating.
Still, as Fleurante pointed out, “You don’t see stuff like this everyday in the subway. Only in New York, right?”
You don’t hear Morgan Freeman over the subway intercom on a daily basis either. Freeman narrates the commercials, delivering phrases from on high meant to inspire the inner Olympic fan in all straphangers.
“There’s a chill in the air but a mighty flame will soon ignite,” Freeman intones.
There was, of course, one critic.
“It’s too short, they show ‘Visa’ too much and they didn’t name one person,” Marvin Herskowitz, 80, said before shuffling towards his office.
David Ezell, 40, a therapist heading to work, marvelled at the technology that gave the impression one could reach out and touch snowflakes falling to an Olympic stadium.
Then he snapped out of his daydream: “This is as close as I’ll ever get to the Olympics,” he said.
Just 20 feet away, Marjorie Bogle, of Brooklyn, passed out photocopied pamphlets about the “Day of Judgement.”
“What year is the Olympics,” she asked in a soft Caribbean accent.
This year, she was told.
“That’s the last one,” she said.
(Visa teams will distribute 3-D glasses for viewing in the passageway 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. through Feb. 28)
