Crime and subway ridership have both dropped off dramatically in New York City amid the coronavirus shutdown. Yet the subways may be becoming more dangerous.
Fires are on the rise in the subway system, as are train cars crowded with sleeping homeless people and their bedding and belongings.
On April 16, a homeless man stabbed a 47-year-old woman in the back on the 71st Avenue train platform in Queens. A dead body showed up in the tunnel of the N/R train beneath midtown Manhattan on April 20.
The virus is transforming the subway system.
Typically, about 2,000 New Yorkers sleep on subway cars every night in the winter, with lower numbers in warmer weather, according to the Daily News. But during the pandemic, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has responded by running fewer trains. At the same time, libraries are closed, as are other indoor places where New Yorkers without a home would get some rest.
Then, there are reasonable fears about the possibility of social distancing in the city’s shelters, and you can see why the homeless would flock underground. One man living beneath Rockefeller Center with a scarf as a “corona mask” told a reporter he was safer in the subway than in a shelter. “This way, you know that you won’t catch it. A lot of people are dying in the shelter, and that tells you the shelter is bad.”
Fewer trains, and more homeless people, means more New Yorkers lying across each subway car.
“The last couple of days, I’d say at least a third, if not half, of the folks who have been on the train car with me appeared to have no place else to go,” one top subway official told Reuters.
“The homeless situation is out of control like I’ve never seen before,” one train operator told the Daily News. “They’re setting up shop because they know they can get away with this. The cops don’t want to touch these homeless people, and we don’t want to go into the same car as them because they’re not wearing masks.”
Homeless riders were caught setting three fires in subway cars in the two weeks before April 17. In general, subway fires are happening more often, despite the 93% drop in ridership.
MTA’s chairman, Pat Foye, denies that homeless, sleeping riders are more packed in. He says it’s just that there are fewer commuters, making the homeless more noticeable (and presumably more willing to set fires).
From the perspective of the homeless, it may look different. This virus is allowing them to get some decent sleep without the noisy commuters.
