Subways Are for Sleeping

It is an autobiographic story of living in New York City in the 1950's with no fixed address. Today we would call the narrator "homeless". But Edmund Love was not really homeless. If he is telling a true story we learn that he was an alcoholic who had long periods of sobriety but sometimes began drinking heavily and living away from his suburban home. He describes many of the well-known public places in the city and how he used what was available in them to spend his time: places such as the public library, the natural history museum and others such as the public pools that had showers in them. He describes how he could eat decently because of the Horne and Hardarte restaurants. The title comes from his admonition that one only used the subways for sleeping because one could ride to the end of a line, get off and get on another train going to the other end of the line. The book is, or was, a "survival guide" for living in New York City in the late 40's and 50's.