The photo basically cherry picks the worst looking photo of an NYC subway and possibly the best photo of a Moscow subway.

“Looking at the subways, nobody would guess America won the Cold War”.

Here’s why that’s probably one of the most foolish things I’ve ever seen.

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The differences in origin/conditions.

The NYC subway was first made in 1904 and many of the stations began use in the 1960s for different types of trains at the time and were designed original just for in city labor.

The Moscow Metro started in the 1920s and scaled up as a larger project in the 30s. Most of the stations were also constructed later on and they had an intent of an art style early on called “Socialist realism”.

The big gap early on in design was that NYC served a goal of just functionality, but later subway systems like Moscow and other places tried harder to make them look appealing.

There’s also a point with Moscow that there was a slight agenda push with them.

One notable thing I found is a lot of Moscow Metro stations have chandeliers in them. The reason was that Russia began a smear against the west saying western culture only has chandeliers for the wealthy and Russia have them for all.

The big gap here is NYC made a subway for workers that evolved into one of the worlds first mass public transit train systems and Russia/other countries & cities designed them to be a symbol of culture as well as utility.

Depth

The deepest the NYC subway will go is 173 feet deep and that’s on 191st street.

The deepest the Moscow Metro goes is at Park Pobedy, which goes 270 feet.

The moscow metro is generally deeper over the NYC subway and there’s actually a big reason for that.

Russia partially designed there metro system as a shelter zone for wars/bombs.

Why it was designed much deeper and why Moscow for decades had safety procedures planned to move the public into the subway in the event of a nuclear attack or war.

The Moscow Metro is different in the NYC subway that it’s just as much of a mass bomb shelter as a train station. This influenced some changes in the design.

Obvious bias

The photo shown is an example of how people using memes or quick things online can control bias very easily and people don’t think enough while scrolling.

The photos used were a pretty unfair comparison.

The NYC subway photo was at a train stop on chambers street, a pretty ugly spot and right next to where trains come from.

The Moscow shot was the entry point of one of their most famous subway stations.

NYC
The World Trade Center
Union Square Park
Times Square
Grand Central Station
Penn Station

There are tons of beautiful train stations that connect to parks and are beautiful.

Cherry picking happens.

And that’s the importance to writing this.

This meme was very stupid, but it got 10,000 likes, 3,000 shares and that’s one page among hundreds that’ll likely spread it around.

I imagine it is going to be seen by millions of people and marked by many as a truth.

There’s nothing that makes any sense to it and even if Moscow has nicer subways, I’d rather have NYC’s ugly subways over life in a homophobic communist leaning dictatorship, as I’d hope everyone else does.

And worst part, I write this as a person who’d like to not see Donald Trump win in 2024, but content like that will get the GOP votes.

When one group that has a massive reach with the left posts something literally defending a dictatorship over something as stupid as a subway and thousands share it, it’s fuel for the opposing side to go “Look at those jokes”.

It’s really cool Moscow has a nice subway and I doubt the guy who made the meme thought that deep into it, but one of the dumbest things I’ve seen online.