dreading the underground during hot summer days

I am loving my ride to work via boat (sometimes I call it a ship, so I can sound like my Dad), but I am not loving the subway ride it requires. I have been lucky enough to work places where I haven't had to ride the subway - there was always a way around it (PATH train, my legs, etc.). However, my office is very far from most places and a subway is required...and even still the subway is quite a walk. When I came to work by train I could walk a mile or take the subway one stop. When I come to work by boat I need to take the subway four stops. I am hating it. The speediness of the boat makes it worth it by a landslide, but the subway is just nasty. I know that probably annoys the hell out of everyone I know that lives in New York, but it is not a good scene, especially when it is hot. I was breathing on a platform the other day and it felt like a sauna - literally. Have you ever been in a sauna and taken a nice, deep breath through your nose? Even though saunas are Relax City, USA, you quickly learn that deep breaths through your nose are not a good idea and hurt like hell. That is how breathing feels on the subway platform at Fourteenth Street. It is scorching hot and singes one's nose. I can assure you I am not taking any super deep breaths down there, but even the little ones burn. I am not sure what else to do though. I need to ride it and I need to breathe. Help.