Who's Bad?

Katy (aka KB) and I decided we needed to have (at least) one last adventure before she moves back to Virginia. If you ever want to go on an adventure - large or small - Katy is hands down someone you want, no, NEED, to have with you. Since we've been friends for pretty much as long as I can remember (I think I was 12?), we've got loads of great adventures under our belts. We came up with another great one this time!

While we were at Michael's birthday party back in August, Spike Lee mentioned the music video for "Bad" was filmed at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station in Brooklyn. That sounded like an invitation for an adventure to us! We decided Tuesday was the perfect day to go. After a little research in how to get there, we were off.

In case you would like a little reminding...

When we arrived we headed straight up to the mezzanine (my wikipedia research led us up there). But what was this? The mezzanine was clearly way too small to to be the right spot. We hunted around and couldn't find any other place to go except a door that said "restriced access." That wasn't going to happen - we're not that bad (pun intended). Unfortunately that was probably right where we needed to go. Since we'd come all that way we made the most of it and took some pictures:

Katy pulling the "grate" off the wall like Michael did in the video.

Me pulling some moves from the video.

So as you can see in the background of my picture, there is a cop. Inside Hoyt-Schermerhorn there is a police station. Right after Katy took this picture, he said in a boisterous voice "WHAT was THAT? Are you taking pictures?!" to which we answered yes. Then he said "Why are you doing that?" and Katy answered "We're being BAD!" Apparently all the officers had seen us and were real curious about what we were doing. When we explained why we were there, he struck up a nice conversation with us.

As we suspected, the mezzanine used for the video shoot is now closed off. Katy asked if he could get us back there but he said he couldn't and anyway if he did, we'd come out so disgustingly dirty because it's not opened up much or cleaned. He did share that it is opened up when film crews come in. Since that mezzanine and tracks around it are no longer in use, it's perfect for filming subway scenes. KB mentioned she knew The Warriors had also used the station and that got them on an interesting conversation about gangs in New York in the '70s and '80s. Our new friend, Office Ray Capers, was so informative and friendly! And also in a good mood... while we were talking a high school student jumped on of the turnstiles. Office Capers called him over and after a little talking to, let the kid go.

Right around that time, one of his buddy officers, Frank, came up the stairs and Officer Capers called him over. As they were greeting each other, KB and I looked at each other and whispered about Officer Capers' medals on his shoulders... one of them said WTC and we were pretty sure what that was for. Katy asked him about his medals and he explained one was for a robbery, one for a shooting, and a few others. She asked if the WTC was for the World Trade Center and he said yes. He wasn't very open about it and neither one of us pressed him for more information. He did share that he got a little upset because some officers wear the medal and they weren't actually there, many weren't even on the force at that time. They're not supposed to have them, let alone wear them, if they weren't there.

The conversation turned more upbeat again as we told both the officers about being from Virginia and that Katy was on her way home as I just got up here. Shortly after that we decided it was time to get going so we shook each others hands and he got one last laugh in at us for our dancing and pictures and we headed out. Even though this adventure wasn't ALL we had dreamed it up to be, I'd say it was still pretty successful and even made some cool connections along the way. If you're ever in the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, be sure to stop in the police station and say hi to Officer Ray Capers. Just tell him you're a friend of the crazy Bad girls.