Transit Museum show in Grand Central explains the right way to ride subways and buses (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New York Transit Museum
Annex & Store at Grand Central Terminal
Off main concourse in Shuttle Passage
Daily through October 30
www.nytransitmuseum.org

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you probably know that I am rather a stickler for common decency on mass transportation. As long as you understand that you’re not the only person on this train or bus, then we’re good. But if you don’t respect me or others, you’re going to hear about it. Of course, I’m far from the only New Yorker who documents his or her transit travails, as insensitive clods have been a part of public transportation since buses and trains first started running in cities around the world, as evidenced in the New York Transit Museum’s wonderfully cathartic exhibition “Transit Etiquette or: How I Learned to Stop Spitting and Step Aside in 25 Languages,” which continues at the Grand Central Annex Gallery through October 30. The display features black-and-white and color posters from London, Chicago, Tokyo, Montreal, Toronto, Taipei, Brussels, Madrid, New York, and other cities, organized into such sections as “Step Aside, Please,” “Be a Space Saver,” “Say It with Safety,” “Keep It Personal,” “Don’t Be a Seat Hog,” and “This Is Your Train, Take Care of It.” One of our new heroes is Amelia Opdyke “Oppy” Jones, who designed posters for The Subway Sun, using playful fonts and cartoony drawings to warn straphangers, “Don’t Sit Where You Can’t Fit!,” “If You Expect to Rate, Please Don’t Expectorate,” “Lady! Pul-Ease,” “Love Thy Neighbor, Even in the Subway,” and, getting right to the point, “No No a 1000 Times No.” A half dozen posters by Tokyo graphic artist Hideya Kawakita boast such figures as John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Superman, and Adolf Hitler telling passengers not to smoke, spit out gum on the platform, or monopolize seats.

Amelia Opdyke “Oppy” Jones shares her many messages about transit etiquette (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Trinh Loi tells SEPTA riders, “No One Is Interested in Your Conversation — Trust Us” and “Two Seats — Really?,” while the Chicago Transit Authority similarly wants to know, “Did Your Bag Pay a Fare Too?” and also points out that “the Middle of the Car’s Not So Scary!” and “Your Maid Doesn’t Work Here.” Blocking the door has always been a major faux pas, as depicted in the 1939 Toronto sign “Move Over” and the 1944 London poster “Please Let Passengers off the Car First.” One of the grandest works in the exhibition is the 1960 New York City four-part poster “Hayyy, Mr. Zookeeper, Now We Know What to Call Them,” a dictionary defining various offenders as “Litter Critter,” “Seat Cheetah,” “Hassen Ben Taughtwell,” “Mr. Noregard,” and “Crodwy Doody.” The Guangzhou Metro takes a more empathetic view of problems, tenderly explaining, “Small Conflicts, Tolerate Them.” Yeah, right. And a 1978 animated short from Madrid, Attention! Vehicles in Motion, graphically depicts ways people can die if they don’t watch out. It is all summed up beautifully in the title of W. K. Haselden’s 1920 London sign “We Are All Equals in Tube and Bus . . .”; no matter your social status, wealth, employment, race, religion, gender, place of birth, etc., we all paid the same amount to get on this bus or subway, so we all have the same exact rights. A lovely primer that everyone should study intensively, “Transit Etiquette or: How I Learned to Stop Spitting and Step Aside in 25 Languages” feels particularly at home in Grand Central Terminal, one of the busiest train stations in the world, where nearly everyone is always in such a rush. So the next time you’re taking public transportation, don’t be any of the above abusers; respect your fellow human being, who has somewhere to get to just like you do, and, in doing so, please stay the hell out of my way.