New York Minute 131 - Unsanitary Station

It was a horrible cough, deep, gurgling, and raspy, spewed from the lungs of someone inflicted with a bad case of bronchitis or something much worse. I glanced up to see an obese, elderly man walking slowly in my direction. I moved farther down the subway platform - I didn’t want the person with that cough getting onto the same train car that I did - but the cough got closer.

As the person neared my position, at which point I realized that it was actually a woman, I did a U-turn and walked in the other direction. If she wanted to be in the last car, that was fine with me. I was going to move toward the middle of the train.

I knew what was going to happen when I saw the woman walk to the end of the platform, beyond where any car of the train would stop. I knew what would happen, because I have seen it happen many times before. She stopped, turned around, and took a quick glance down the length of the platform. Then she stepped behind a supporting pillar, stopped down, slid her sweatpants down, and did her business. 

One of the surprising things about New York City is that there aren’t many public restrooms here. Tourists and people running errands can use bathrooms in hotels and coffee shops, but vagrants don’t have that option. People who struggle with addiction or mental health issues sometimes trash and seriously damage restrooms, so proprietors chase them away.

As a result, the indigent homeless use subway stations as toilets, urinating in corners and on staircases and defecating on the platforms themselves. It’s disgusting, not to mention a health and sanitation nightmare, but nobody does anything about it. 

I have no idea what the current administration at City Hall does all day or how they justify their paychecks. They don’t seem to have any interest in dealing with vagrancy. They let the homeless do whatever they want, sleep wherever they want, panhandle wherever they want, and go to the bathroom just about anywhere without restriction. Neighborhoods where you rarely even saw a homeless person under previous administrations now have bums on every block, begging, sleeping in boxes, rooting through garbage cans and throwing trash all over the place. It’s inexplicable and inexcusable that a city of this size and stature can take such a laissez-fairs attitude toward the vagrancy problem. It shows a  blatant disregard for the health and safety, not only of the vagrants, but of the tax-paying public that has to deal with them every day.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

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