New Yorkers sure do exert an awful lot of energy reminding everyone around them that they get to spend their days in the biggest, most cosmopolitan, unbelievably happening city in the world. Ever wonder why? It’s because the people they’re actually trying to remind are themselves. The truth is that for every amazing sushi restaurant just around the corner or charming overheard Central Park conversation, there are at least three dozen incidents of murder-inspiring frustration. Pedestrians knocking the gyro out of your hand, homeless dudes masturbating in front of your bodega, and film crews shutting down your street so they can shoot yet another episode of Law & Order: SVU.
There is no better vexation generator than the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The subway system is how average New Yorkers move about the city. It’s also how they plot their eventual suicides. This network of tunnels and cacophonous noise is sweltering in the summer, freezing in the winter, and stinking of urine year-round. But there is still one indignity left to withstand, and that is the subway door that mockingly slams shut in your face on a regular basis. Gothamist videographer Jessica Leibowitz created this tribute to those so routinely defeated: