'I Was Living Half A Life': NYC Subway System's Buskers Return

NEW YORK CITY — The sounds of Natalia "Saw Lady" Paruz's unique instrument echoed through New York City's subway system for 20 years — until the coronavirus struck.

Silence fell in the city's cavernous underground, where Paruz spent days drawing a bow along the edge of a saw, twisting its blade and making it sing.

Music from other subway buskers — the guitarists, pianists, violin players or beatboxers who were Paruz's peers — stopped too.

They all went on what Paruz called a 14-and-a-half-month forced sabbatical under restrictions designed to stop the virus's spread.

"I am a subway musician, if I can’t play in the subway, who am I?” she said. "I felt like I was living half a life."

Paruz's half life ends Friday, when MTA welcomes its officially sanctioned performers back into the subways.

The transit agency's Music Under New York program returns after 14 months.

"The last year has been difficult for these artists just as they have been difficult for the entire city," Sandra Bloodworth, MTA's director of arts and design, said in a statement. "To see Music Under New York return is the product of hard work from so many and I am thrilled that our customers will once again get to experience the power and joy that this program has long been known for. No one has to tell a New Yorker why the arts are so important, but the absence of live performance over the last year has only served to reinforce their cultural significance."

Paruz was as ebullient as a singing saw when she talked about returning to her favorite performing spot — the 34th Street Herald Square station — on Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.

In her words, she's "an old-timer, a survivor in the subway" since she started performing underground two decades ago.

Her path to subway "Saw Lady" actually began on Broadway, where she worked as a souvenir seller. On breaks, she taught herself to play the saw.

One day, Paruz's coworkers gave her a gentle push toward outdoor performing. They took her outside during another theater's intermission, put a box in front of her with a dollar inside and gathered around clapping. Her performance drew a wider crowd.

"Basically at the end of a 15-minute intermission there was as much money as I would make working that day,” she said.

Cold weather eventually drew Paruz to the subways, albeit with some fear.

She went down to the Times Square station and dared to play. It was a revelation.

"The acoustics in the subway is phenomenal,” she said. “It’s like you’re playing in a cave, there’s natural reverb."

"I heard that and I didn’t want to play anywhere else,” she said.

Not that the subway is Paruz's only venue.

The "Saw Lady" has her own Wikipedia entry, website, albums, video and short films, a formidable social media presence and a long list of credits on film and television soundtracks.

But a piece of Paruz fell silent when coronavirus restrictions forced her and other performers from the subway. She didn't even go underground for months, she said.

When she finally did, the emptiness reminded her of the somber days after the Sept. 11 attacks — the only other time Paruz said she saw the subway "fall asleep."

Paruz recalled going to her favorite place to play in Herald Square's station.

“It was engulfed in piercing quiet,” she said. "It was as if I saw my own ghost sitting there playing there."

But now, the ghost is returning to life.

Just as New York City has been written off as dead, Paruz and music will return to the subways.

"I really feel like having musicians in the subway is a symbol for the city … life is returning to normal in the city,” she said.

Visit Natalia "Saw Lady" Paruz's website here. She'll be performing Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Herald Square Station.