That is Penn Station. The ugliest building in New York City. They tore down the old one in nineteen sixty-three. The old one looked like a Roman bath. The new one looks like a basement with a train schedule. And right there in the middle of it a kid is playing violin.

Nobody asked him to be there. Nobody hired him. The Long Island Rail Road did not put out a casting call for a string player to improve the commuter experience. He just showed up with a fiddle and a music stand and started playing. That is the whole audition. You show up. You play. The room decides.

I played Penn Station once. Not inside. Outside on Seventh Avenue. The cops moved me three times. I kept coming back. That is the difference between a gig and a calling. A gig you leave when they tell you to. A calling you come back to even after they drag you away.

Every person walking past that kid is making a decision. Most of them do not know they are making it. They are thinking about their train. They are thinking about dinner. They are looking at their phone. But somewhere in the back of their head a violin is playing and for three seconds they are not on the Long Island Rail Road anymore. They are somewhere else. That kid just hijacked fifty thousand commutes and nobody filed a police report.

That is what we do. We play in the station. We do not own the station. We do not rent the station. We just play and the station becomes ours for as long as the music lasts. Public. Right there in the open. A fiddle and a train schedule and whatever happens next.

See also: The Public — the moment the work hits the street. Sunwalk — morning in New York City. The Busker — the man on the corner with the guitar. The Strata — four ways to meet a stranger. The Sidewalk — where the pitch happens.