Why does "Sonny's Blues" start in the subway?

Baldwin begins "Sonny's Blues" with the narrator in the subway as a means of setting the scene and the theme simultaneously.  The scene is clearly an urban environment, since suburbs and rural areas do not have subways.  This is important to the story because the experiences of the narrator and Sonny were representative of many African-Americans in larger cities.  The theme, which we see even in the title with the use of the word "blues,"...

Baldwin begins "Sonny's Blues" with the narrator in the subway as a means of setting the scene and the theme simultaneously.  The scene is clearly an urban environment, since suburbs and rural areas do not have subways.  This is important to the story because the experiences of the narrator and Sonny were representative of many African-Americans in larger cities.  The theme, which we see even in the title with the use of the word "blues," is of darkness, and thus, from the story's beginning, we are in a dark place, "trapped in the darkness which roared outside" (1). If you have ever ridden on a subway, you will know that in spite of the fact that there are lights on in the cars, the darkness outside can seem quite gloomy and threatening, and the lights often will go off and on sporadically, too, leaving a car in darkness for several seconds at a time.  This theme of darkness persists throughout the entire story, the people, their lives, and their surroundings, as though they are hurtling through dark tunnels. The subway was a deliberate choice, to begin with darkness and to let the reader know that it was an urban environment that the story was going to unfold in.