Violent crime has created a grim new regular in Huge Apple subway stations — the platform wallflower.
Skittish straphangers are steering away from the sting — and pinning their backs to the wall as they await their practice, terrified they’ll change into the following sufferer of a random shove onto the tracks, riders instructed The Put up.
On two afternoons just lately, The Put up witnessed tons of of riders hugging the partitions inside stations at East 86th, East 77th, East 68th, East 59th and East 51st streets, and West 18th Road, 14th Road-Union Sq., and Wall Road.
“Ever since the [attack last month], I don’t wear my headphones and I make sure I stay away from the platform edge,” stated West 18th Road straphanger Mariana Castillo, 25, referring to the near-fatal assault on the similar station on Dec. 31. Police stated Joseph Lynskey was pushed onto the tracks by an unhinged Kamel Hawkins.
“I’ve definitely started moving back as far as I can,” stated Hoboken resident Tanner Crochet, citing the identical incident, as he waited for a southbound 6 practice at East 51st Road.
“[Lynskey] probably thought that nothing like that would happen to him, because that’s what everyone thinks,” stated Crochet, 23, who additionally tries to face close to cops if he sees them.
Even MTA board member Lisa Daglian takes precautions.
“If there’s not a lot of space . . . I will either walk very close to the wall and hug that wall, or I will stay where I am,” she instructed The Put up. “And maybe that means I won’t be in the place I want to be on the train, but if there are a lot of other people lined up, I may not want to risk walking by them.”
Sheila Rodgers, 62, additionally stays away from platform entrances. “It’s my fear that somebody comes down from the street angry and the first person they see, they shove,” she stated on the West 18th Road subway station.
“I always stand back as far as I can now,” stated Roosevelt Island resident Penny James, 59, whose backbone was virtually plastered to the blue barricade contained in the 59th Road station whereas awaiting a southbound 6 practice.
The alarming pattern caught hearth on social media this week.
“New Yorkers wait against the platform walls for the train. This is what living in fear looks like,” reads the caption of a picture of 9 straphangers hugging the wall on the East 86th Road 6 station. The photograph, posted on X by Asian Wave Alliance President Yiatin Chu on Wednesday, has amassed an eye-popping 3.7 million views.
A separate picture posted to Instagram exhibits not less than eight straphangers pinned to the wall on the East 51st Road 6 station, and is captioned, “How absolutely everyone stands now after the recent subway pushings/altercations.”
Final 12 months, the subway system noticed 10 murders – the very best in 25 years – in addition to 579 felony assaults, which was barely greater than there have been in 2023, based on knowledge from the NYPD’s transit bureau.
