a typical day in nyc

Kind of a typical New York day. Worked eight hours (well, almost) at the day job, with a lunch stop at a MoMA Brown Bag lecture on Meatyard, then an hour and forty minutes trying to get home at day's end (average time: 35 minutes):

Got on the N train at 49th Street, waited maybe five minutes before the conductor announced that neither N nor W trains were going past 57th Street (one stop north) due to a “track fire” between Queensboro Plaza and Ditmars Boulevard. So about three-quarters of the train exited. And then about two minutes later the conductor announced that the problem had been corrected so we all shuffled our asses right back on.
At Lexington (two stops up) the train stopped once more and R trains were added to the list of moving conveyances not entering Queens.
After another ten minute wait another announcement was made: This train is turning back to Brooklyn. If you want to go to Queens, the announcement said, you should either take this train back to Times Square to catch the 7 train, or take the 4, 5, or 6 to Grand Central to catch the 7 train to Queensboro Plaza where you can take an N or W train to Astoria.
So off we go to Grand Central and onto the 7 train with absolutely no problems whatsoever. Until we got to Queensboro Plaza.
No trains. At all. At least no trains going towards Astoria.
However, if you go down to street level, semi-official looking people were saying, you can take either the Q1 or Q 2 bus to Astoria.
Uh, no.
About 500 commuters were lined up on the north side of the street with no bus in sight.
Thus began the long walk home.
But at least it didn’t rain.