Something over one hundred years ago, O. Henry wrote a short story: "The making of a New Yorker". It depicts a situation very similar to this, in which a group of strangers, on a street instead of a subway car, gather to help an injured stranger; a previously ignored panhandler in fact, struck by an automobile.
(The Trimmed Lamp, Doubleday, Page, and Co.,1913)
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I was walking down 14 Street the other day. As I looked on the sidewalk I saw a pair of spectacles. I picked them up and put them on a fire hydrant. As I left I could see...to be continued...
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Even on the T (subway) in Boston, we give crazy people a wide berth. I have seen random acts of violence where we focus on the victim rather than the perpetator or simply ignore because the T provides no safety officers.
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Remembering a friend this late Sunday, and a favorite New York City anecdote of his, where he told of how an acquaintance was asked to look after an elderly dog in the absence of the carer. The dog died, and his acquaintance in a panic called the vet. She was asked to place the dog in a suitcase and bring him to the clinic.
Since she did not have enough money to take a cab, she struggled with the suitcase in the subway until a kind stranger stopped and asked if he could help. They made it to the train; she stepped into the compartment, and turned to take the suitcase from the man with her thanks. 'Sucker', he smiled on the platform as the door closed and the train moved away.
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After being a NYTimes reader and subscriber (online) for years because of the excellent news and reporting, I just today stumbled across the Metropolitan Diary feature and read the entries for several weeks. How delightful! I’ve been in NYC only twice long ago when I lived in Washington DC, a city I loved. I’ve lived in the Colorado mountains for many years now, but these letters remind me of how kind city people can be even in the midst of their busyness, and of the energy of city living. I like the “we’re all in this together” attitude. Thanks, NYTimes and New Yorkers, past and present, for sharing these lovely stories. I’ll be a faithful Metropolitan Diary reader henceforth!
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There is only so much a Diary entry can capture, given the word count. In response to some comments, I wish to contextualize the episode.
1. The backdrop: the usual sight on any NYC subway—commuters snoozing or chatting, scrolling or tuning in, looking for a seat or grasping for something hold on to.
2. The setup: the train jerked very suddenly and strongly. Even though I was seated by then, I still lost my balance. Straphangers were busily reorienting themselves when...
3. The eruption: within SECONDS, the man faced the woman, struck her, then stormed away. Bam, then poof. It was this speed and ease with which he resorted to violence that I found to be the most jarring and unsettling.
4. The key: a dimension that must be considered is that the section was comprised of mostly women. I wonder if this changes the views of some of the commentators? I can only speak for myself: as a woman, it was nothing short of distressing to see the senseless striking of another woman unfold before me. To watch it occur without forethought and without consequence for the man in question. I felt defeated, vulnerable and powerless.
But she remained powerful. The power belonged to her, and she refused to relinquish it, even—or rather, especially—to the man's forceful blow. So I wrote this piece to honor her, with the hope that it would amplify not the man's "unspeakable violence," but "the woman's fortitude, admired by all of us in that car."
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@Kang
Thanks for the whole story. but even in the abbreviated version, the message that people DID come through was there.
He had moved away, Going after him or trying to restrain him, could be very dangerous; helping the woman was right.
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@Kang
* grasping for something TO hold on to :-)
+ the quoted phrases in the last line are from my original entry before the editing process!
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@Kang. I was going to reply to the main text and the comments in reply but after I read them all I suddenly realized I didn't understand what any of them were saying.
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The last story made me remember an assault that happened last year, in the city near my home, in daylight, at a busy intersection. A crazed transient pushed down a young woman, jumped on top of her, and started pulling off her trousers, intending to rape her. Initially it was reported that passers by intervened immediately. Then it came out that many people drove and walked by and did nothing to help — assuming this was just street people getting up to who knows what, and ignoring the screaming — until a “woman” finally stopped and got out of her car to help. Then the real story was revealed: the person who stopped to help was a child. I think she was 15. She got out of her parent’s car and dove right in. Only then did other witnesses help the victim.
The wisdom of children.
The assailant was apprehended and was deemed competent to stand trial, although he has a history of psychiatric problems. He remains in jail, pending trial.
My point is that even though the “explosive” man on that train was likely not mentally healthy, he committed a criminal assault and that should have been addressed. Helping and calming the victim makes everyone feel better, and compassion for the troubled is an admirable thing. But it’s not acceptable for a man to punch a woman in the face for no reason. We need to stand up to such threats.
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@Passion for Peaches - Crazy people are everywhere. Thank goodness for that teenager who dove in to help the victim being assaulted on a public street. We all need to look out for each other, and not simply assume that someone else will take care of it so we can go about our business.
I was working once in an office on Madison Avenue - very nice building with a fancy lobby. The receptionists at the security desk were always very friendly. One morning one of the receptionists seemed distracted. I figured it was just an off morning for her and was about to go to the elevators to head up to work when she stopped me.
“Is someone with you?” she asked.
When I told her no, she said that she had noticed a man following me as I walked towards the entrance. He stopped outside the front door and stood in front of the large glass windows, watching me cross the lobby. She described him as grinning and staring. Once she realized that he was no one I knew, she sent security outside, but by that time the guy was gone. I was terrified that he would return - after all, he knew where I worked - but I never saw anyone. But I also didn’t know who to look for because I had no idea what the guy even looked like. I have no idea how long he had been following me or what he might have attempted to do had I not walked into the safety of a secure office building. I’m grateful that receptionist alerted me to this unwelcome stranger. We need to be each other’s ’ eyes and ears, in NYC and elsewhere.
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Dear Passion for Peaches,
I certainly agree with you but there is another dimension to good-naturedly intervening these days. In recent months I have read of several well-meaning people who stepped in to try to break up a fight who were themselves slain by a deranged person with a gun or a knife. Violent people who are also armed alas pose a threat to anyone and everyone.
Stay well,
Allen
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@Allen J. Share
If I were to die I would rather do so in the act of trying to protect or come to the aid of an unfortunate target of violence rather than the result of a natural death. Life is a precious gift worth dying for whether for yourself or others.
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I usually enjoy reading these vignettes of people’s lives, but the subway attack story was quite jarring and disheartening. I enjoy my visits to NYC a few times a year - always traveling by train to root for the Yankees - and often chuckle at that “we’re-New-Yorkers-and-you’re-not” type of attitude one sometimes encounters.
Though admirable that her fellow commuters tried to help this poor woman afterwards, that no one contacted law enforcement is simply wrong and not my idea of civic duty. It begs the question as to why. I don’t presume to know what thoughts others harbor, but I have my suspicions. Sadly, they’re not good.
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@Sherry
it's a little hard on a moving subway to get any phone service. Someone may very well have alerted the police (at the next station) or the conductor but that didn't make it into the letter.
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I like to think of the happier things that happen on the subway. I remember reading about a woman who got off the subway, took a brisk half dozen steps, then turned around, realizing she had left one of her gloves behind.
The doors were about to close, she knew she wasn't close enough to run back and retrieve that glove, so she tossed the glove in her hand back into the car just before the doors closed, so whoever found it would find the pair, not just a single glove.
I hope things like that balance out the karma for all of us.
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The usual weekend delay at the Grand Street station for the B train is about 56 hours - because the B train stops running on Friday night and doesn't start again until Monday morning.
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@EdNY If this is true, is the whole story bogus?
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@EdNY
Hi Ed. This incident occurred on Saturday, January 26, when I was commuting from Grand Street station to 34 St - Herald Sq Subway Station. I know this because I have photos and journal entries from this very day. Though the episode left an indelible mark on my brain, I failed to retain the exact train I took, for it was not my usual route (I was bringing a visitor to the Empire State Building, a tourist trap I usually avoid).
As I tried to recall which train it was for the purpose of writing this piece, I turned to Google Maps, for it was the very app I used on that fateful weekend day to chart the otherwise unfamiliar course. I was also certain about the departing station, the destination, and that I’d taken an orange line. At the time of the first search, the result only showed me the D train. Even as I conducted fact-checks twice more, I yielded the same, erroneous result because I did so on weekdays. I am new to the city and was not aware that the B train's schedule differed on the weekends. I realize this now and apologize for my negligence. Thank you for your careful read and critical eye. I hope this clarifies the situation and preempt questions about the veracity of this account. I promise to be more heedful in the future.
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@Kang
I know slip-ups are easy. I was trying to be a bit ironic - not critical. But don’t wait too long for a B on Saturdays!
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Something similar happened to me in midtown when I was a twenty something, but no one helped. People just walked past where I had landed after getting hit so hard I was knocked off my feet, unprovoked. Then I was yelled at to get off the sidewalk from the proprietor of the Korean market adjacent. Luckily no serious damage and my love for NYC didn't diminish, just toughened me up. I did report to the police to help this obviously disturbed person, but we couldn't find him.
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Absolutely stunning that no one or several no ones nailed that guy. Hitting someone for stumbling is more than just exploding, it's assault. Her response shows that she did not expect anyone to intervene, only asking for help to find her glasses. The excuse of "I'm glad it happened to me" is minimizing the act, making it easier to handle - since assault is assault and it's scary as all get out.
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@Nnaiden Her response was a way of taking control back of the situation- she tried to absorb the explosion and rationalized the situation. Unfortunately, explosive men continue to harm others. I did appreciate the crowd rallying around her.
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@Nnaiden exactly. As kind as everyone was, that guy is clearly a menace. It's not as if he would "explode" just once. It could happen again, and deadlier, next time.
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@Nnaiden Please see my comment (you can order them from 'Newest'). I hope it can contextualize the event and address some of your concerns. Thank you for your thoughts. I couldn't comprehend her words at first, either, given the gravity of what had just taken place. But I have to agree with Elizabeth here. I believe that it was the woman's attempt to recover the power that was momentarily knocked out of her.
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While I am glad that so many of the train riders banded together to help the woman who was punched on the subway in the aftermath of her assault, I am stunned that the guy who perpetrated it was not apprehended in some way, particularly if he didn't immediately exit the train. If nothing else, someone could have given a description of the man to the police/transit workers at the next station or alerted them that the guy had assaulted a passenger. Perhaps, between a description and security cameras, this violent jerk could have been arrested. While the woman who was attacked - because that's what happened to her, and it was a crime - was to a certain extent right that it was only a matter of time before that guy exploded, I think it was probably more of a case that it was only a matter of time before the guy exploded at a stranger on the subway. If that guy could punch a woman he didn't know simply because she accidentally bumped into him, then he's definitely violent with family and those close to him. And he'll be violent again and this time, the person on the receiving end of his violence may not be as lucky as that woman on the subway train. She survived it. Someone else - depending upon on the level of violence inflicted or simply getting punched, falling, and hitting one's head - might not.
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@Lindsay K Please see my comment (you can order them from 'Newest'). I hope it can contextualize the event and address some of your concerns. I appreciate your insights. By the time some of us realized what had happened, we tried to look, but he was gone, and to remember, but he was too nondescript. We did what we could at the time, which was to pick up the pieces. I cannot forget his incandescence, however, and pray that he will be apprehended for his (past and before his future) violence.
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A nervous woman talking to herself swung a plastic bag full of books (very deliberately) and hit me square in the back as I waited to cross 5th Ave at 42nd street roughly 10 years ago. No one said a word except a pair of tall 30-something men behind me who laughed to each other as I staggered and caught my breath. Then the light changed and we all just crossed the street.
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@Acfh
I'll bet it was their cruel laughter that shocked you the most ten years ago and still galls you now.
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The entire car should have pummeled that assaulter and left him for the cops to clean up.
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@Paulie
Well, I'm glad that didn't happen. We are not animals.... yet...
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Had I been the subway rider who had been smacked in the face and bloodied, with my eyeglasses knocked off and sent flying to boot, I do not believe I could have exhibited the grace and equanimity of the passenger upon whom this unwarranted assault was perpetrated. There are I fear far too many people for whom it is “only a matter of time” before they explode.
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@Allen J. Share, I'm figuring that's what makes it a real New York City story, maybe a story that's testing where the Diary can go, here showing the adversity and that she chose to handle it in a way I never could have. This was a New Yorker who knew there was nothing that can change what had happened, chaos to be grateful for the help from the other people, and chose to quickly regroup as her way to deal with it and be able to get to the rest of her day.
(Maybe she even took a useful lesson, that if you sense a person near you in the train is going to be trouble, move away. My reaction would have been to only take cabs for a while. The "equilibrium" lady probably got back in the subway again without hesitation.)
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This week's MD left me unsettled. Hope the tone returns to a more uplifting one.
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@justme Life isn't always sunshine and rainbows. I thought the last story was particularly uplifting.
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@Frank no, but the metropolitan diary usually is.
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@Caroline st Rosch Thanks Caroline. My thought exactly.
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This is the first time I read a terrible story in the Metro Diary--about the man who punched the woman in the face after she accidentally bumped him.
It is too bad the police couldn't have apprehended him and charged him with battery. He deserves to go to jail for two or three years
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Despite the people helping afterward, that last entry isn’t a charming New York story. It’s a crime. Incidents like this woman had — encounters with scary, awful people — are why some avoid the subway.
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And sadly, why some avoid NYC altogether.
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@E.G.you are so right.
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@Reader
New York is one of the safest big cities in the US. The subway is a miracle of cooperation among the millions of people who ride it daily.
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Re tips back in the day:
My first adult job was working for an ice house (this is 1959...) in New Orleans. I was the delivery driver's helper. We'd schlep pounds of ice into bars, restaurants, etc. I was making $0.75/hour. The driver $1.50. 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.
Our favorite stop was a restaurant that we'd get to around 11:30AM. After filling various coolers and iceboxes, the owner would give us each a po'boy of choice, a soft drink and a Hubig pie of choice. Total cost, had we paid, $1.00. THAT was a tip...
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So this incident in the train nobody did anything beside helping the attacked woman to gather herself ?
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@Malaika Please see my comment (you can order them from 'Newest'). I hope it can contextualize the event and address some of your concerns. Thank you for sharing—I imagine I would feel the same way if I only had the vignette to go off of. But by the time some of us realized what had happened, we tried to look, but he was gone, and to remember, but he was too nondescript. We did what we could at the time, which was to pick up the pieces. I cannot forget his incandescence, however, and pray that he will be apprehended for his (past and before his future) violence.
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@Malaika To all of you saying that people should have nabbed the guy--ask yourself what you would have done. Are you really that certain you would have lunged and grabbed him? Or would you watch him run away in
a moment of shock and confusion? I think most people do that.
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Great entries this week!!! The "Cheap Black Gloves" is funny!!!!
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@AJ - I had forgotten my gloves one day late fall or early this winter but was determined to take a walk in Central Park to bird-watch, in search of owls. Holding my binoculars without gloves would have been uncomfortably cold. I decided I’d do a short walk and keep my hands in my pockets as much as possible. Just outside the park on Fifth Avenue at East 72nd Street, I looked down and spotted a cheap black knit glove with stretchy fingers, lying on the ground, first one, and then a few feet away, its mate. Who knows how long they’d been there? Lost by a jogger, or a tourist? They were perfect. I picked them up, shook off the leaf litter, put them on, and enjoyed a leisurely birding walk, with warm fingers.
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$5 was never a big tip.
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@Heide Fasnacht
$5 in 1968, adjusted for inflation, is equivalent to about $37 today, give or take a couple bucks.
NYC taxi fares in 1968 were $0.45 first 1/6 mi., $0.10 per 1/3 mi., $0.10 per 2 min, a fraction of today's fares.
We don't know which airport, but it's a pretty safe bet that a $5 tip would have been unusually generous compared to the fare itself.
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@Heide Fasnacht- in 1968 minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. So unless the ride to the airport was more than 3 hours that tip was great!
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@Jeanne DePasquale Perez-I smiled reading this because I know you’re right. I got my first job that year. $1.60/hr is burned in my memory! I don’t think many people remember or can imagine that things were so much ‘less’ back then!
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