A (New York City Subway Service) - Cultural References

Cultural References

• Take the A Train is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn, referring to the A subway service that runs through New York City, going at that time from eastern Brooklyn up into Harlem and northern Manhattan, using the express tracks in Manhattan. It became the signature tune of Duke Ellington and often opened the shows of Ella Fitzgerald. Part of the significance of this is sociological: it connected the two largest Black neighborhoods in New York City, Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
• Cinderella & The "A" Train is a song by Joe Purdy. Purdy has several songs about (or with references to) New York City.
• "Walking Down Madison" by Kirsty MacColl mentions the 'A-Train'.
• In the Broadway musical In the Heights, during the title song, Usnavi tells the audience to "take the A Train" (to the melody of Strayhorn's Take the A Train) "even farther than Harlem to Northern Manhattan and maintain. Get off at 181st and take the escalator. I hope you're writing this down, I'm gonna test ya later."
• Rapper Azealia Banks says in her single 212 that she grew up in the neighborhood of Harlem serviced by the A: "I was in the 212, on the uptown A..."