The word “straphanger” remains an archaic and anachronistic slang for subway riders. Coined in Chicago among the El trains in the 1890s, the phrase was a reference to those who ride trains while standing up and had to hold onto leather straps for balance. New York had cooped the slang in the early 1900s, and the name lives on most famously in conjunction with the Straphangers Campaign. In fact, 1969 was the last year subway cars featured straps in the city, and now, they live on only in the Transit Museum’s vintage cars.
Today, we can eulogy the last vestige of straps in the city. As Heather Haddon reports, the last of the leather straps have been removed from the Roosevelt Island tram. We now have stainless steel bars for balance, and true straphanging is no more. And thus another part of New York City transportation history will live on, as the IRT, BMT and IND do, as a reference to a bygone era.
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Both SF and DC have straps on their trains and buses, allegedly is to accommodate short people. Anytime DC proposes taking out seats, shorter people seem to scream and holler about this. Is NYC that much taller?
“Straphanger” still has a better ring than the alternatives:
-(Support) Pole Riders?
-Metal Bar Hangers?
-Strapless Hangers?
This would be a fund contest to bring this term into the 21st century
“fun”, not fund
Boston had gone strapless, but last year the MBTA re-installed straps on subway cars. Plastic this time around.
Nitpick as a recently ex-New Yorker living in Chicago, the trains here are called the ‘L’ (with the single quotes), not the El…
It’s interesting to note that Chicago is actually bringing the straps back on their latest trains and a series of test seating configurations on the Brown Line.
Just today, I found this pic of a portable strap hanger, at http://bit.ly/a20DS3
CT Transit buses have plastic flexible straps. Buses were purchased in the 2000s.
those new designs for the train (the E, was it?) had straps built in, yes?
Tokyo subways also still have straps:
http://www.japanvisitor.com/in.....8;pID=1027