Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street Subway Station of Mystery

It's time for...Unsolved Mysteries of the Subway! Let's tackle subway station dirtiness first: Emily at Amy's Robot happened to spy some vomit on the stairs at the 42nd Street A/C/E station on February 3...and then she still saw it there on February 10. So she called 311 - cut to February 13 and her email to the MTA:

However, yesterday, February 13, I saw that the vomit (now indelibly dried to the staircase) is still there. While I understand that TWU members are still without a contract, and that resources are tight, I am pleading with you to please have this situation remedied. It is a danger to myself and other riders to have to "hurl" ourselves, so to speak, into the middle of such a crowded staircase to avoid being covered to the ankles in puke.

And the MTA responded on February 15, saying their cleaning crews would circulate (Stations are routinely cleaned, and cleaners are instructed to remove litter, empty trash receptacles and disinfect unsanitary areas upon detection. In addition, stations are cleaned on a regular cycle by mobile wash teams using high pressure and hot water to thoroughly steam clean and sanitize the stairways, platforms and other areas.) As patient as she is, Emily refuses to let dry vomit become a rat-magnet and wrote to the MTA that since her various calls and emails hadn't been working, that she'll be taking pictures of the vomit stairs and posting them online. So, dear Gothamist readers who don't like graphic pictures, you've been warned - and you're lucky some people advised us against posting Emily's photograph (apparently the cat picture was enough for today; also, go Emily!).

And also at the Eighth Avenue-42nd Street subway station: A "tortured and severely beaten man" with his hands bound in wire was found there. According to the Post, the transit police were alerted to him by a subway rider and cops are trying to identify the middle-aged Eastern European man. He can write but cannot speak, and his notes say "he remembers something about being kept in a box." Very scary - could it be the Russian mob?

Photograph by Joe Schumacher

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By Jen Chung in News on February 17, 2006 4:44 PM

Comments [rss]

Think twice

"Wasn't the IRT and IND Private to begin with??"

It was the IRT and BMT (previosly known as the BRT). The IND was a muncipially owned system.

S.D.

Wasn't the IRT and IND Private to begin with??

Think twice

"I'm sure a company could do a lot more with the 5+ Billion dollars the subway makes each year."

Sigh...genuinely clean stations with the scent of lemony lysol...not the MTA's patented urine aroma. I'm surprised that tourists aren't gagging.

Like nostalgic pics of old Penn Station, pictures like these of the 23rd Street staion circa 1904 make me think the MTA is just a hateful bureacracy to let the station become what is today.

Privatize it.

grif

I also emailed the MTA recently about how dirty the E train is in the morning. I asked if the cleaners were still on strike because it seems like that's when the cleaning stopped. No vomit, mercifully, but lots of those free newspapers strewn around.

Privatize it.

And make the free newspaper people clean trains if they want to hand out litter, er, papers.

Patrick

Right on Craig! The subway should be privatized. It already seems that the MTA is treating it that way. Keeping the surplus to themselves. It's not profit!

I'm sure a company could do a lot more with the 5+ Billion dollars the subway makes each year.

outtake

Russian mob? Don't forget about the Albanian mob.

S.D.

(whew)

After the Appendix shot and that poor cat, I'm glad the Photo was skipped.

Hmmm, Maybe a link for the Really Curious??

craig

Right, cause it's so important to see pictures of DRIED VOMIT for chirst sakes.

It's time someone made a bid to privatize a few subway lines. I know, I know....but why not.

Sure the NYC subway is the biggest and 'best' but really, I have been many places, and haven't seen a system with so many problems yet generates so much revenue as NYC.