Subway Etiquette

That is gross and rude, and you are right to be bothered by it. If there’s a silver lining, though, I have always liked the connections with passengers that result when someone manages to turn the whole train car against them. It makes the world seem like a reasonable place.

In Oregon my brother was on the metro or whatever it’s called and smelt a putrid aroma. He turned around and a young homeless woman was shaving off the dead skin and encrusted dirt off her feet.

Needless to say he changed carriages.

I’ve heard about that happening on subways. Other grooming, too: hair-brushing, flossing. Before I moved here, some people decided I ought to be warned about what dark deeds go on underground. “Anything you can think of that people really ought to do in the privacy of their own home, you will see it on the subway if you ride enough.”

I was warned about people who pee and poop and masturbate on the subways, too. So far, thankfully, I’ve been spared.

It is completely gross. I am sure that other people would have been grossed out too if they let down there other-people-are-horrible-must-ignore bubbles. You get those, or you kill. People really can be so gross on the subway (and bus.)

But not as gross as non subway takers think. I worked in Queens for years and none of my co-workers took the train EVER because they all honestly believed they would be subjected to masturbation scenes. (The only place in New York I have ever seen that is in the parks — lived here 18 years, and the bubble doesn’t protect you from that kind of scarring.)

As for the peeing, I have seen that. And not some poor homeless person. It was a happy-hour victim who was so drunk they lost control of their bladder on a crowded rush hour train. There was just the horror as the surrounding standing passengers became aware of the puddle growing and of where it was coming from as we all madly press into the no-room car to get away from IT. Only once though, 18 years…

As a fulltime subway rider since 1971 (when I started college) I can tell you that believe it or not the subways were even far worse back in the 70′s and 80′s. Vandalsim was so bad on the IRT that you could not even see your station as the windows were covered with graffitti. Every day I fully expected (and often I was right) to have to get off a train that was being “taken out of service due to mechanical failure,” and let us not even start on the subway crime back then. The movies “Death Wish” and “The Warriors” really captured the terror that many people felt when they ventured udnerground into the NY City subway system

I was on the train once and some guy was clipping his toenails!

I sat next to a woman on the orange line last week. She looked normal, though somewhat eccentrically dressed, and was doing a sudoku puzzle.

I nabbed the seat next to her and she glared at me, which I ignored. After a few minutes, I shouldn’t have, but I looked at her. She was digging in her nose, almost up to her wrist. She alternated nostrils, but seldom paused for more than a few seconds for the next 20 minutes. No one in the car would make eye contact with me to be outraged, though.

I wish you warn it to him. They should do that at home. Subway is public place people have to consider other people. ^^;

I’ve lived in NYC since 1977 (interruped by 8 years in Paris) and have seen nail clipping, nose picking, etc., on the trains but the only masturbation I’ve ever seen was on the RER in Paris.

Howver, a friend of mine once had a guy jerk off on her on a crowded subway — she was totally unaware of it until a policeman approached her when she got off the train — he’d seen the whole thing, collared the offender, and asked her if she wanted to press charges. She had no idea what he was talking about until he directed her attention to the stain on her coat.

She screamed, refused to press charges, and went immediately home to be sick and change clothes.

Question about the cleanliness of the subway sit?

I never sit on a NYC Subway sit after this AwFuL experience. One day I was minding my business on the subway I noticed a smelly old man sitting down across my way. The man stunk up the whole subway car. It was a hot summer day. The man got of the subway for some reason and left his sweat stain on the seat. New people entered the crowded subway and some girl with a really short dress sat down on the same spot.

Has any studies been done on germs being passed from one human to another on crowd stinky subways.