Is this an urban legend?

June 21, 2024 9:47 AM

I have a vague memory of reading a funny story in the New York Times sometime in the late 1980s. The anecdote has all the earmarks of an urban legend, but it wasn't presented as such. I ran some Google searches but couldn't find any references to it. Details below the fold.

The story concerns an American company that produced industrial lubricants. The company's main source of income came from supplying axle grease to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City for use on subway cars. Everything was great for the lubricant company for many years: They shipped the axle grease to New York City, received payment, and all was good. Then someone in New York realized that following a change in design, newer subway cars were no longer using that particular type of axle grease. However, no one had bothered to cancel the standing order. Over the years, so much axle grease had accumulated that the MTA was forced to make special arrangements to warehouse it all.

Does this story sound familiar to anyone?

posted by alex1965 to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

As a life long NYer, it does not sound unreasonable to me.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:06 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Familiar, yes; the "someone in New York" was John Lawe (president, International Transport Workers Union) and the supplies issue was eventually acknowledged by Charles Broshous, then VP of Materials for the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), in 1986. "As a reminder of the purchasing issues he overcame, [David L. Gunn, president of the NYCTA (1984-1990)] had a pair of R9 subway car lubricator pads mounted on a plaque in his office. The authority had thousands of them among over $40 million worth of obsolete and excess parts, yet the R9 fleet had been retired since 1977, leaving just a few used on work trains. At the same time, needed parts were not getting purchased." NY Daily News Magazine, March 23, 1986, P.22
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:41 AM on June 21 [18 favorites]

Response by poster: I think Iris Gambol has it with the R9 lubricator pads. That's not exactly how I remember the story, but it's close enough that I think it's a match. Either the story I read was inaccurate – or, more likely, the information was garbled in my faulty memory.

Thank you, Iris!
posted by alex1965 at 12:23 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]

More about the R1 to R-9 subway cars. Maybe the article you're remembering was about the ghastly part, alex1965: The original pad manufacturer was Manhattan Rubber Company (later, aka Raymark/Raybestos-Manhattan Industries/Raytech). "In 1982, Raybestos changed its name to Raytech in an attempt to distance itself from asbestos. Around this time, the company also stopped using asbestos in products." The company knew about the dangers of asbestos as early as 1935 (Reuters investigation link):

The proof came in a carton of documents that had belonged to Sumner Simpson, once president of manufacturer Raybestos-Manhattan Inc. The documents exposed a conspiracy of suppression and silence among multiple companies even as workers sickened and died. “I think the less said about asbestos,” Simpson wrote in a 1935 letter to a lawyer at another company, “the better off we are.” [Link to .pdf of letter]

A few company-associated Superfund links. National Inventory of Sources and Emissions: Asbestos - 1968 (NESCP report at epa.gov); Asbestos in the Water Supplies of the Ten Regional Cities (1976 NESCP report at epa.gov)
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:07 PM on June 21 [5 favorites]