The Lobster Shift: Why settle for a beer when the Nutcracker is here?

Illustration: Laura Davies
The Lobster Shift is a monthly column by Kenneth R. Rosen that explores the city at night.
There are roughly three different modes for subway cars, in my experience. There is, first and most familiar, the crowded commuter car in morning and early evening, where mere inches of personal space segregate straphangers into parcels of remorse or happiness or anger, based primarily on the day ahead, and its promise, or the day behind, and how those promises were either met o