It is not unusual for people to think that living in New York City condemns you to (or rewards you with) a life of anonymity and loneliness amidst strangers. But in my life, it couldn’t be further from the truth, as the cast of characters I pass by on my way to the train every morning demonstrates…

On a typical day, I walk out the door around 8:30am and head North along 5th Avenue. About one block on my right, I pass the man outside his office who is always greeting passers by. Sometimes I can muster up a hello, but usually not. Just past him is the old Mexican man that always sits with his 50-cent deli-coffee on the newspaper stand in front of the bodega, watching the world pass by.

A couple blocks up, I see the same Nordic-looking, scruffy-haired, ruddy-faced man each morning, sitting on the bench outside of the muffin bakery dressed in a t-shirt, and holding on to the leash of his black lab. Another block or so towards the train, I frequently cross paths with a Puerto Rican man with a paunch as he brings his young son — sometimes carrying, sometimes hand-in-hand –to the same apartment building and rings the bell.

And then there is the old fat woman who sits on a dining room chair propped up against a bus shelter. No need for a chair really, there is a bench inside the bus shelter. But, she sits on the chair anyway. On those rare days when she is not around, the chair sits empty and unused, but remains a fixture on the sidewalk.

As I turn and make my way to 4th Avenue, I usually pass a large women stuffed behind the wheel of her parked compact car, listening to R&B on the radio. She wears the security guard uniform of the welfare office around the corner, so I surmise that she’d much rather sit in her car than arrive at work early.

And then there’s the cat lady, who’s always standing at the fence of the parking lot behind the welfare office, with wild frizzy gray hair and a hunched back. She usually has a myriad of bags with her, which are strewn around the sidewalk as she waits for the stray cats to finish the meal she’s given them.

Once in the train station, I head down the stairs for the 4/5 train, and it’s usually about here that I’ll cross paths with an Italian man with slicked back thinning hair, sunglasses, and wearing a suit, but always always always with the tie undone and hanging around his neck. Every time I see him, I can’t help but wonder what kind of look he’s trying to pull off.

And finally, as I make my way up the stairs to the train, there is always an older woman in a conservative dress standing in front of the pay phones with Watchtower booklets propped in her hands. She’s silent and never makes any attempt to hand out the booklets – just stands there holding them. And every morning, in the back of my head, my Southern Baptist upbringing is secretly thinking, “Her eternal salvation is gonna require a hell of a lot more effort than that.”

I think if I were to get up a little later, or take a slightly different route to the train station or maybe even a different train, I would feel a bit off-kilter.  You know, like when you don’t notice that you totally depend on something until it isn’t there any more.  Not quite Mr. Roger’s neighborhood, but close enough for me.