2/5 Trains - 174 St. (Day 3, 12:20 p.m., stop #120)

Out: This is a major 3-way intersection of Boston Rd., Southern Blvd., and 174 St.  There is a deli, a Kennedy Fried Chicken, a liquor store and a beauty salon; pretty typical stuff.  There are more tenements around, as well as a lots of Mexican/Hispanic stuff.  There is an interesting run-down building with a façade made of stones, as well as a new-looking building proclaiming to be the “EAST BRONX ACADEMY FOR THE FUTURE” in green metal and red brick.  As I’m getting ready to get back on the train, I saw two black guys (one in dreadlocks, the other not) getting in some argument, seemingly about a girl.  As I walk up the stairs back onto the station, they also begin to walk up while fighting, and it looks like they’re gonna bring the fight into the station.

In: It’s similar to other stops along the 2 line, with curving lamp posts and a little bay window.  After coming back into the stop to leave, the same guys I saw fighting on the street brought the argument up into the station.  For a while, it wasn’t really clear what was gonna happen; I was afraid it might blow up into something big.  At first they both continued shouting at each other on the tracks, and I moved down toward the south end of the platform, away from the entrance.  At first it seemed like the non-dreadlocked guy was just going to leave, but then he ended up coming back and following the other guy.  Fortunately in the end nothing really bad happened, but it was bit dicey.  When this is all going on this woman next to me starts telling a long-winded story about how she never gets in fights because she grew up in the projects in “Far Rock” and fighting takes too much energy.  She’s just trying to get work, and I just want to get out of this station; the train took forever to come!  This fight is also accompanied by another guy in a wife beater getting in argument with a girl with tattoo on her breast.  There is a lot of action at this station!