A week ago, bwogger Armin Rosen traveled to the ends of the earth--at least for a New Yorker.

You're a long way from Manhattan by the time the A train finally reaches the most scenic stretch of track in the entire New York subway system. Once it finishes plodding 25 miles of subterranean darkness, the A speeds through a national wildlife refuge, and passes scenery more suited to New England or tidal Virginia than New York's largest and second most populous borough. But people don't travel to the Rockaways looking for a typical New York experience--while The L Magazine once deemed the Nassau Avenue G station (not far from the Rockaways, relatively speaking) one of the foulest-smelling places in New York, the Broad Channel station treats passengers waiting for Rockaway Beach-bound shuttle trains to a scent they probably never imagined encountering within the MTA system: salt air.