for my next terrifying nightmare.

He can get all the crumbs he wants with that kind of loot.

A surprising diversity of poster ads — you usually see several of the same ones in a row.

This entrance leads to a three-block-long tunnel through the side of a hill. By the time you reach the train platform, there's 180 feet of rock separating you from the streets above you, making this the deepest station in the subway system. (Believe it or not, the next station north is above ground: the hill atop this station drops off quite abruptly as you head north.)

In 1947, Victor Hess — a professor at Fordham University in the Bronx who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of cosmic rays — needed to find a convenient location shielded from cosmic rays where he could set up a temporary research facility. He asked the Transit Authority if he could conduct his experiments in the 191st Street station, its depth inside the hill preventing the vast majority of cosmic rays from reaching it. For unknown reasons, he did not end up using this station, but he did set up shop in the nearby 190th Street station on the A line, which is also buried deep inside a cliff.

This is the three-block-long passageway that leads to the train platforms. I made an animated GIF of my progress through it.

The second entrance to the 191st Street station is located on top of the hill, and the only way to get from there to the train platforms is to take an elevator. There are four elevator cars, and one of them has a permanent human operator whose job is, basically, to press the elevator buttons periodically. It may seem silly to pay someone to do that, but there are a lot of people who feel much safer taking a long elevator ride if there's someone there to keep an eye on things.

The pedestrian tunnel connects to the elevator area outside of fare control, so people who are not riding the subway can still use the elevator as an easy (and free) way to get to and from the top of the hill.

Apparently the attendants (there are four other stations where they're employed, all in this hilly part of Upper Manhattan) used to be allowed to decorate their elevators, but the MTA has since cracked down on that freedom of expression.

You supply the bags.

Those tall apartment buildings in the background are two of the four built over the Trans-Manhattan Expressway.

This older gentleman, while slowly making his way up the hill, reached into his shopping bag and extracted a couple handfuls of unpopped popcorn, which he then tossed to the mob of pigeons currently snacking upon them. It's good to see New York's pigeon feeders branching out from the ever-so-clichéd bread crumbs.

I've seen a few of these little NYPD booths elsewhere in the city, but I must have passed by at least half a dozen (not counting a couple similar private security shacks) today while walking around Yeshiva University in Washington Heights. I'd guess it's been a couple months since this one was last used: that copy of the New York Post is from November 10th of last year.

that these guys are listening to house music.

An odd duck

And it's gone!

He wants to be just like his big brother.

There's no sign indicating what this fenced-in area is, but it has the feel of a memorial garden. Which would be fitting, given the man for whom the surrounding playground is named.

Broadway runs through a steep valley in this part of Manhattan, somewhere out of sight beneath all those barren limbs. You can see the top of the cliff on the other side of the valley, where street level is considerably higher than the roofs of the multi-story buildings one block closer to the camera.

The cable you see at my feet helps support a wire mesh netting that covers the cliff face to prevent loose rocks from crashing onto the FDR Drive below.

You can just make out the top of the wire netting in this photo.

That's the Washington Bridge, mind you; not to be confused with the nearby George Washington Bridge.