A Smiling Subway ‘Slinky’ …

AstoriaScape №. 7 — A Smiling Subway ‘Slinky’ — A Manhattan-bound Astoria Line Train climbs the ramp from 30th Avenue-Grand Avenue up to Broadway Station, reminding a photographer of a huge silvery Slinky. ©Steve Ember

…from a photographer’s notebook

Anyone remember from childhood a toy called the Slinky? It was an amazingly flexible fine-wire helical spring thingie that could fascinate by snaking its way down a flight of stairs, end-over-end and, once its energy was used up, recoil into its original neat vertical.

It was invented, quite by accident, by a naval engineer seeking to create a means to stabilize delicate instruments on U.S. warships during the World War Two years. Story goes, Mr. James had a bunch of such helical springs, of various sizes and tensions, on his workbench and happened to accidentally knock one off and observe its hypnotizing dance when it hit the floor.

He and his wife realized the potential for a toy and it was Mrs. James who came up with the name “Slinky,” after scouting through the dictionary and finding the definition “graceful and sinuous in movement, line, or figure” so descriptive of the accidental toy’s movement.

Of course, in those pre-videogame decades that followed Slinky’s introduction, we young ‘uns were more easily — and, perhaps even, more wholesomely — amused by physics and mechanics than by more heavy-handed and violent phenomena. (For me, it was electric trains, and that’s another story, but I did certainly enjoy and appreciate the Slinky’s concept.)

In researching the Slinky it was fascinating to learn more aspects of the history of the Slinky, including the fact that this helical spring “toy” resonates at 7–8 MHz and thus found its way into use as a radio antenna by the military! Also that the Slinky has had a remarkably long life as a toy, and while it’s had its, you should pardon the expression, “ups and downs,” it continues to be manufactured today. If you’d like to learn more about its history, why not slink over here.

So what does all that have to do with the New York City Subway?

Glad you asked.

I often enjoy shooting gleaming silver Subway trains with long lenses, thus “tele-compressing” their silvery flanks with patterns of windows and doors, as they climb or descend ramps on the elevated portions of the system, suggesting (to me, at least) big overgrown silver Slinkys, as the grades look more steep in such perspectives, often compressing two or more Subway stations, several blocks apart in the cityscape into the shot.

And why is this “Subway Slinky,” err, smiling?

Glad you asked that as well.

The New Technology Trains of the R160 type used red LEDs, unlike the large colored “bullets” on the opposite front window to that of the train operator on older types, to designate the line the train is traveling. Not quite as NYC-bold-and-in-your-face as those big colorful rondels — which I happily note have been brought back in the new R211-type trains — but all well and good, I suppose, as LEDs have long lives (kinda like a Slinky, as long as it’s not kept in a leaky cellar to rust and decrepitate!). Ah, but they can — and do sometimes — frustrate the well-intentioned train photog. It’s that “dance” they do that fools the eye into thinking it’s seeing solid letters or number … or circles! And often if a fast enough shutter speed is employed to freeze a moving train — or support the use of a long lens, there’s a good chance the image will include an “incomplete” circle around the route designator, as well as an incomplete number or letter.

Here, happily, that “partial” circle created a perfectly symmetrical “smile” under the N … or is it a W; they both operate on the Astoria Line.

Like a Slinky in reverse (for, as I recall, the Slinky can only descend!), a Manhattan-bound Astoria Line train of ten R160 railcars is ascending the grade from 30th Avenue-Grand Avenue Station (at right) to Broadway (approaching platform at left) on the elevated structure that runs above 31st Street in Astoria, Queens, NYC.

©2025 Steve Ember

More of my NYC photography (including, of course, the Astoria Line and other routes) may be viewed here and on my selling site.

You may also enjoy this Gallery of my NYC work, which can be viewed as a slide show: https://500px.com/p/SteveEmber/galleries/new-york-city

Most of my work, NYC and beyond, is available either for purchase or licensing by contacting me via email: emberphoto@hotmail.com.