The Trouble With Turnstiles

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just have a serious aversion to office building gateways. Exhibit A: disdain for revolving. Exhibit B: lack of enthusiasm for elevators.

And now, drum roll please, Exhibit C: hostility towards…turnstiles.
Turnstiles, as we know them, were introduced at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair. Ingenious mechanisms, insert a coin and gain passage through the three armed monster!
The concept of these loathsome machines hasn’t changed all that much in 70+ years. Their ingeniousness has translated to staying power. But just because they’re good at restricting access to people who have paid (as in subways or stadiums), or people who are authorized (as in Manhattan office buildings), doesn’t mean they deserve an A+.

Turnstiles – apparently also known as “baffle gates” – can be EXTREMELY…well…baffling. Unbelievable, I say! Frustrating. Exasperating. Annoying.

They’re vindictive little shits. Always, always, always on a power trip. “Oops, sorry. You’re gonna miss that subway, buddy, cause you monthly card just expired.”

Or, “Tsk, tsk, that microchip in your ID card ain’t working, to the front desk you go!”

“Five cents short? NO ADMITTANCE FOR YOU!”

Turnstiles are simply inescapable in our world. Amusement parks, concert venues, stadiums, subways, and yes, even office buildings.
Granted, they keep count of peeps to prevent overflowing. And they’re cost-effective regulaatooooors. So yeah, they succeed at their tasks, but come on turnstiles!

There’s nothing worse than seeing the lights of an approaching train, hearing the screech of the brakes, feeling the whooshing wind – and not making it on. We know another train will be along shortly, but that’s beside the point. It’s seriously the most maddening thing in the world when you card just isn’t good enough.

Oh no. You’ll be pumped, not believing your luck, a train’s entering the station the same time as you, OMG! But Big, Bad Mr. Turnstile has got different plans for ya. Swipe, double beep, SLAM. Re.ject.ed. Furiously fumbling that MetroCard, you swipe again, rush forward, and bam...de-nied.

We should get one free pass. If the train is there, the turnstiles should just let us by. It’s blasphemous. As if the fare hike WAS NOT ENOUGH. Oh no, you’re gonna hold it against us for being five cents short? EFFFFFFFFF YOOOOOOOU TURNSTILES.

And eff you people, too. It’s really infuriating – no, stronger than infuriating…violence-inducing – when a train has arrived and people are pouring out through the turnstiles, hogging every.single.one so you can’t get in.

Clink, clank, clonk go the arms, spinning in the exact opposite direction you want them to be. You want to scream at the stupid, selfish people that won’t let you pass. You want to smack that stupid, selfish turnstile for only letting people out, not in. (There should be rules and regulations.) Come on, come on, COME ON, you want to shout (and sometimes do), while the doors are closing and the train is pulling out of the station.

It’s just not fair.

And those are only the first turnstiles of the day.

Turnstiles in offices are a different beast entirely. And I do mean beast. They shun their three armed cousins, look down on them in disgust, cause man oh man, Buddy Boy’s be automated.

Automated? Automated. You scan your ID card or your bar-coded guest pass, two arms open outwardly, and you zoom into the super special, closed-off universe that is a New York City (or any city) office.

That is, of course, if you manage not to get caught. For these more futuristic turnstiles are pretty terrifying. They shriek at you, literally a high-pitched, buzzing-honking shriek, if you even THINK about TRYING to get by their super sensitive sensors.

They snap at you if you’re lollygagging and don’t walk through fast enough (ever wonder why NYCers are speed demons?), or if you are too lazy to bust out your ID card and try to creep in on the heels of someone else.

And beware: these turnstiles and their fangs (aka their two bitchy little arms) WILL bite you if you get too close for comfort. Yes indeed. They will snap shut on you in a second. I’ve witnessed peeps getting caught - YIKES.

I could care less about people who don’t pay the exorbitant subway fare, or who’ve lost their building pass and need to sneak by, or if a stadium needs to count how many customers they’ve had that day. Turnstiles are just line-creating, fright-inducing, hassle-full pieces of machinery that I could, simply, do without.