A subway map with so much more
Daily, I ride the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan as I commute to work. And daily I can't help but notice the prominently displayed maps. Without fail, my eyes are immediately drawn to the uncanny resemblance that the two main South Brooklyn lines bear to the image 12 dress shape.
A hard angle to the left and a soft angle to the right correspond to the Rusalka's sleeves as the D train cuts around Greenwood Cemetery and the B/Q veers around Prospect Park respectively.
The distinct notch in the southern portion of the D line that matches nearly perfectly with the suspicious gap where the Rusalka's right leg should be.
And for the inevitable, but in 1980...!?
Yes. This is the actual shape, and the maps have portrayed it as such for many a year.
Has the resemblance been slammed home? No? Well, good. Healthy skepticism is welcome here, and there's more to the tale!
People love to talk about Brooklyn being the home of Preiss, so obviously he'd bury a casque there. I don't love this. I don't even like this. But sometimes the tangential evidence just becomes too much.
The subway line that outlines the right of the figure is the B/Q or Brighton line. The same Brighton as "Little Odessa," or the burgeoning Russian hub of South Brooklyn in the late 70's. Add to this that census records show the Preiss family lived on Ocean Ave; this is the subway line Byron would have grown up on.
The subway line that outlines the left of the figure is the D line or Culver line. From 1967-2001 it was rerouted via the Brighton line making it literally the express train to Brighton. Remind me, were we looking for a way to tie in a Russian connection with this puzzle?
My only reservation with this concept has been the little wavy portion in the lower right segment. This small section doesn't correspond to the subway path and might be indicative of something else... it is directly over Little Odessa/Brighton Beach proper--you could almost argue it's pointing directly at it... maybe that's where we can find our wave?
(Ocean Ave is also pretty good for 1/3 of the image being devoted to a seashore...
...but that's for another day.)