From Harlem and upper Manhattan to Brooklyn, Queens and the Atlantic Ocean - New York city's A Line subway route covers over 30 miles, takes two hours to ride from end to end, and is the inspiration for one of jazz's best known tunes.

Here - with archive images and vibrant present-day photographs from Melanie Burford - New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik takes a ride on one of today's A trains, and explores the communities living along the route.

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Adam Gopnik spoke to Columbia University historian Kenneth Jackson - Brooklyn trader Leticia Mulzac - and Howard Schwach who edits Rockaway's community newspaper, The Wave. Click bottom right for image captions.

You Must Take the A Train can be heard on BBC Radio 4 (FM only) at 1102 BST on Friday 29 June.

New York Transit Museum images cannot be reproduced without written permission from New York Transit Museum Archives.

Other images courtesy Melanie Burford and Getty Images. All images subject to copyright. Music by Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington.

You Must Take the A Train is a Corporation For Independent Media production.

Slideshow production by Paul Kerley and Judith Kampfner. Publication date 29 June 2012.

Related:

You Must Take the A Train - BBC Radio 4

Melanie Burford - Photographer

New York Transit Museum

Jazz Museum Harlem

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