New York City Transit created a social network on Saturday when it deleted a denounced tweet announcing that the agency will remove the subway station benches “to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them.”
The flap started on Friday morning, when a Twitter user with the handle @ Des4gr8ness, who uses only “Jeremy” as a display name, posted a photo of an empty platform at a station on 23rd Street with the comment: “Damn, the banks were f – Do you increase your budget so much? It’s crazy @MTA. “
The official subway feed, @NYCTSubway, responded: “Hi Jeremy. Bankers were taken out of stations to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them. ^ JP ”
The initials at the end appear to be those of the person who wrote the tweet.
The post was distributed thousands of times and garnered hundreds of comments until Saturday morning, with critics telling the agency to put f-king banks back in the typical colorful language of New York.
Indeed, many of the comments have suggested that the MTA violates the Americans with Disabilities Act by not providing customers with disabilities a place to wait for the train.
One of the more polite answers said, “Hi, NYCT subway. No one’s compassion for other human beings should depend on the weather or the number of deaths from a disease – but at a time like this – this choice is particularly disgusting. Not only do you deny humanity to the homeless, but you hurt employers with disabilities. ”
Another said: “We disturbed you and made the station more inaccessible to pregnant women, people with disabilities and the elderly, but you have to understand that it allows us to cause even more misery to homeless people.”
The original poster, @ Des4gr8ness, made its private account in full revolt, and until early Saturday, the NYC Transit response was deleted.
But that didn’t stop New Yorkers from giving the agency an extra shadow.
Each of the official tweets posted about the subway service on Saturday continued to receive comments about banks.
In a post saying that “ACF trains to the north continue with delays after I removed a Jay St-MetroTech mechanical train from the car,” a woman asked, “Was it a mechanical problem or a homeless person? was he sleeping in it? ”
The MTA said in an email comment that “the tweet was posted by mistake and has since been deleted.”
“The subway doesn’t replace a shelter, and homeless New Yorkers deserve much better care,” spokesman Abbey Collins said in an email. “We have been working with the city on this important issue and have called for medical resources dedicated to mental health and medical resources that are urgently needed to resolve the homeless crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.”
This is not the first time the MTA has taken out banks to discourage homeless people. Last year, he made the same move at West 4th Street Station.
