I love it when Amazon delivers a new book on a Friday afternoon, just as I’m finished with working and facing a weekend of cleaning and laundry and errands.
This weekend’s reading is going to be fascinating — I got “The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro.” I’ve always been fascinated by Metro ever since that day in the 1970s when, as a kid, I boarded the train in Arlington for my first trip on the new subway. I remember how cool I thought the paper farecards were — like a little credit card.
Love this quote from the jacket:
The NCTA had long resisted using the terms ‘subway’ and ‘elevated,’ for both connoted the noisy, dirty systems of New York and Chicago. Staffers played with alternatives, including ‘the Rapid’ and ‘the Underground,’ as well as monstrous names that only a politician could love, like the District-Maryland-Virginia-Rapid-Transit-System. One jokingly recommended ‘Federal Area Rapid Transit.’
