Subway crime is down general, however not assaults — leaving the weak in New York Metropolis depending on, and grateful for, vigilantes and Good Samaritans alike.
A latest video exhibiting a person trying to seize a 20-year-old girl off a Brooklyn subway platform — and her narrowly escaping thanks solely to the intervention of bystanders — has renewed fears amongst native ladies.
A 2024 examine from the mayor’s workplace discovered greater than half of New Yorkers report having been harassed on the streets up to now six months.
Kelly Dillon had simply gotten off work as a site visitors reporter in Hudson Sq. round midnight one night time final August when she was shoved to the bottom by a stranger. Her elbow went via a spike in a sidewalk planter, and her head slammed into the pavement.
A carful of teenage boys pulled over and tried to catch the attacker on foot, however he was by no means apprehended.
“There was no motive that I can think of. It literally was just a random attack to inflict fear, to inflict pain,” Dillon, 41, mentioned.
Dillon, who lives in New Jersey, suffered a extreme concussion and has since been identified with PTSD. And she or he hasn’t returned to the town: “Even just the thought of going into the city, it gives me such anxiety. It breaks my heart because I love New York City.”
She commuted to Manhattan for twenty years and solely lately felt fearful: “In all those years, I never felt unsafe, honest to God. And looking back, it was COVID. Things just went downhill.”
Whereas subway crime truly dipped under pre-pandemic ranges this yr, subway assaults are up 68% in comparison with 2019.
An nameless 33-year-old girl dwelling on the Higher West Aspect instructed me she will get “harassed daily” to the purpose that it “makes [her] not want to go outside.”
“I am pretty much always on edge when I am in New York City, especially on the subway,” the New Yorker of eight years mentioned.
Final month on the 103rd Avenue 1 prepare station, a stranger grabbed her rear finish. “I literally started screaming, and everybody just looked at me,” the health skilled recalled. “No person actually tried to assist me.
“Everyone is on their phone, everybody’s in their own little world, and people are not paying attention, or we’ve been taught to just ignore the situation,” she mentioned.
The mayoral report discovered that, though verbal harassment is extra widespread, 53% of those that had been harassed within the final six months skilled bodily harassment. The commonest kinds had been following (46%), touching (38%) and exposing genitals (32%).
Andrea Giordano first moved to New York Metropolis from Philadelphia three years in the past and assumed there was security in numbers. However now, she’s not so positive.
“I felt safe because there were people everywhere all the time — like, lights on, stores open and cars everywhere. But the longer I’ve lived here, I’ve felt less and less safe,” the 28-year-old Murray Hill resident instructed The Put up.
She was bodily attacked in April, whereas strolling with mates to Jackdaw bar within the East Village on a Sunday afternoon.
She admits she was on her telephone when a person grabbed her face and tried to yank her in direction of him. He stalked her for a number of blocks and lunged at her, however a bunch of her male mates crowded round to guard her.
Giordano, an government assistant, has since determined to Uber extra typically. However the value of security, she estimates, is an extra $100 every week.
“When I’m out with guy friends and we’re ending our night, they’ll be like, ‘You’re not taking the train?‘ I’m like, ‘You’re a man. Like, you’re fine. I have to pay $40 to get home,’” she complained.
Kathryn Cross, in the meantime, has been harassed as a result of she doesn’t use her units whereas on the subway.
“The main problems arise if I’m looking around and make eye contact with others,” the 26-year-old Downtown Brooklyn resident mentioned. “That leads to crazies engaging with me.”
She studies month-to-month subway harassment and occasional racial abuse, like one time when she was referred to as a “c—nk” and instructed to “go back to China.” Most lately, at 11 a.m. on the Borough Corridor cease, a person spat on her head.
The unhappy fact is, each girl in New York has a horror story of her personal.
Between the Daniel Penny prosecution turning into a precautionary story for bystanders and the anti-police motion focusing a microscope on cops’ each transfer, it’s true that security in numbers feels extra doubtful than ever.
The latest viral video from the subway platform is a glimmer of hope.
Nevertheless it nonetheless makes me marvel: If I had been so unfortunate to be in that place once more, would I be fortunate sufficient that strangers would do the identical for me?
