GREENPOINT — Former Park Slope resident Christie Walsh remembers in detail the night she made a trip to Greenpoint and ended up going home with a guy she'd met at a bar. He became her boyfriend — but after a couple of early treks to his place she learned never to venture there during their six-month relationship.
"I always refused to go there," said Walsh, 26, who now lives in Sunset Park. "After a couple of punishing rides on the G train I decided I wouldn't do it... Eventually he moved to California. The funny thing is, I'd date someone in California, because I'd like to go to California.
"I'd never like to ride the G train."
Walsh and some other Brooklynites say the G train's slow and unpredictable service has sabotaged relationships — and some have even sworn off G-train dating altogether.
"I had to make a rule that was, literally, if you live off the G you're not for me," said Bedford-Stuyvesant resident Mutale Nkonde, 26, who lives off the A and C trains, and said getting anywhere off the G involved a nightmarish array of transfers and usually getting lost. "To get to the G is such a monumental hike, it's two buses plus a long walk."
Nkonde — a member of the Rider's Alliance organization that has been pushing for more frequent and consistent G-train service and better communication with riders — said one date with a resident off the Myrtle-Willoughby G station scarred her from ever dating along the line again.
"The thing about the G is it comes middle of platform so if you're dressed in high heels you have to run what feels like 7 miles to catch the train," she said of the line's short length. "When you get there [to the Myrtle-Willoughby station] it looks 'Law and Order'-ish.
"It looks like a crime scene."
A representative for the MTA declined to comment for the story.
The strong sentiment of straphangers like Nkonde has even prompted a local comedian to make a video about a young man's horror when he learns his date lives off the G train.
"The Brooklyn Date," which Tyler Fischer created after "hearing people talk badly about the G train all the time," follows a couple on their first magical date — which comes crashing to a halt when the woman asks the man back to her apartment.
"I did date somebody who lived off the G and I was worried, but I have a car so I always just drove there," Fischer said. "I've just been afraid of [the train]."
As for Clinton Hill resident Alexis Saba, she and her boyfriend do rely on the subway since he lives in Greenpoint, she said — but the G has prevented them from having "casual get-togethers."
"He lives 3 miles away and it takes 45 minutes, at a minimum, to get there," said Saba, 28. "So that takes nearly two hours just to see each other. I'm glad it's there but it's still a huge pain."
Walsh, on the other hand, has chosen the easier life. Scarred by the G train, she met the man she is set to marry in the next few months when he lived within walking distance of her apartment.
"I'm getting married this summer and we met when I lived in Park Slope and he lived in Sunset Park so we'd usually just meet in South Slope and walk or take the bus," she said. "Learning to fit a relationship into each others lives can be difficult here already...and it gets even worse when you have to deal with the G train."
