»After a 28-Year Hiatus, Miss (er, Ms.) Subways Is Back

The New York Times ran a poignant piece about Ms Subway (née Miss Subway). The currently reigning regent staged a performance-art brunch on a southbound A train; lord knows, you have to wait ages for either of them (the brunch and the A, that is).
Happy Hundredth to the MTA!

I found an MTA token (RIP) in my bag today.

After a 28-Year Hiatus, Miss (er, Ms.) Subways Is Back
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

lot was happening aboveground in May 1941 when the first winner of the Miss Subways contest smiled down on straphangers: Churchill evacuated British troops from Crete; Joe Louis and Buddy Baer were headed for a boxing rematch; and Fanny Brice joked on radio station WEAF's variety hour.

Since then, about 200 photogenic women have held the title of Miss Subways (including identical twins who reigned simultaneously, and at least one crack shot at the F.B.I.). But the contest wilted in 1976 under the heat of feminism. Yesterday, a new Miss Subways was crowned, just in time for the 100th anniversary of the subway system tomorrow. For the record, in a nod to its feminist adversaries, the name is now Ms. Subways.

Unlike her predecessors, who reigned monthly, Ms. Subways will preside for a year. Hundreds of women applied this summer. More than 40,000 votes were cast online or by mail for the finalists. The winner gets a year's free transportation on buses and subways; a 2004 crown and sash; and home delivery of The New York Post (a sponsor).

The winner is Caroline Sanchez-Bernat, 29, of Morningside Heights, an actress who a few years ago performed a piece of guerrilla theater on a subway train. (More about that later.)

For the contest, Ms. Sanchez-Bernat wrote an essay about why she is proud to be a New Yorker. Balancing a plastic tiara precariously on her head yesterday, she said her essay was about how "New York is a template for a lot of other cities, a place where different cultures and ethnicities live together relatively harmoniously."

Ms. Sanchez-Bernat is eager for the limelight, unlike two more reluctant finalists and a third who showed up nearly an hour late.

That finalist, Karen Allison Bobb, 33, of Brooklyn, a personal assistant, said that she had gotten up early for the 11 a.m. crowning ceremony but that "it's a trek to get to the L train from my house in Canarsie."

Another finalist, Elaine Chan, 23, of Manhattan, is a second-year medical student at SUNY Downstate Medical School in Brooklyn. Ms. Chan said she was very happy for Ms. Sanchez-Bernat because she seemed more poised in public than Ms. Chan would have been.

"I'm assuming there would have been a lot of ribbon cutting," Ms. Chan said, with a slight grimace.

The remaining finalist, Kerry Kent Smith, 27, of Manhattan, is an account executive for a financial-software company, Intralinks. Her mother, Eileen, was a Miss Subways in 1967. The younger woman has enjoyed being photographed with her look-alike blond mother, who urged her to enter the contest.

Is Ms. Smith disappointed that she did not win? "Well," she said, "I'm in corporate America (pause) and, uh (pause) it's been enough exposure, let's put it that way."

The Ms. Subways winner was announced at Ellen's Stardust Diner, at Broadway and 51st Street. It is owned by a former Miss Subways, Ellen Hart Sturm (1959), who has helped keep the memory of the contest alive with reunions. Yesterday's event was attended by 18 former Miss Subways.

The oldest was Dorothea Mate, 84, a 1942 Miss Subways. Mrs. Mate said her brother, who was in advertising, got her an interview with the agency that picked the winners. "In those days," she said, leaning over conspiratorially, "you had to know somebody."

She never sat underneath her poster in the subway cars, but her father-in-law did. He proudly buttonholed other passengers about his daughter. But she was shy, Mrs. Mate said, because she was "chubby."

A diet company spotted her and paid her to use its diet. Mrs. Mate lost 25 pounds and won a modeling contract. "How about that," she said.

Over the years, the winners of the Miss Subways contest were far more diverse than winners of other contests of the period, like Miss America.

Long before 1984, when Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America, there were Latina, Asian and black Miss Subways.

And then there were others who didn't fit into any neat category. Eleanor Nash, a Miss Subways in 1960, was described in her poster as "young, beautiful and expert with a rifle." An F.B.I. clerk, she was a member of a bureau pistol club who "consistently scores in the 90's."

The Keeler twins were winners in 1958. They were described as "identical as two cigarettes in a pack" but could be distinguished because "Mary smokes, Kathryn doesn't."

And now about that guerrilla theater.

In December 2000, Ms. Sanchez-Bernat, this year's winner, and a group of fellow actors boarded a southbound A train for a performance of "Sunday Brunch 4."

It was a 35-minute piece of performance art re-enacting a Sunday brunch. Riders were perplexed, The New York Times reported.

The dialogue was improvised, Ms. Sanchez-Bernat said at the time. "We were excited, but we were also, 'What are we getting into?' "

Yesterday, as she was surrounded by television cameras and news photographers, Ms. Sanchez-Bernat seemed to know exactly what she was getting into.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company