100s Of NYC Subway Info Screens Being Damaged By Vandals
September 22, 2020 by Dave Haynes
Via The City / Photo by Jose Martinez/THE CITY
The non-profit NYC publisher The City has a post up about how vandalism is on the rise in the city’s subway system, and a primary target are the information displays in the stations and on platforms.
And 200 window smashings have occurred since the early May shutdown of overnight subway service as the pandemic sunk daily subway ridership by nearly 70% compared to last year.
Meanwhile, the subway system has been beset by the damaging of hundreds of digital video screens, a rise in some violent crimes and the derailment Sunday of a Manhattan train at the hands of an alleged vandal. The property damage for broken windows and screens alone exceeds $2 million.
Windows in cars are being kicked in, but the big dollar problem are the screens:
Beyond the damage on trains, an MTA spokesperson said, there have been 357 reports this year of digital platform screens being vandalized.
The MTA has spent $350,000 to replace subway car windows, the spokesperson said, while replacing 235 of the shattered screens cost the agency $1.8 million.
Assertions by the hyper-politicized US Dep’t of Justice that NYC is now an “anarchist jurisdiction” have largely been laughed off by residents who see little evidence of that, but clearly there are some cranky people out there who are not enjoying restrictions, friends dying and jobs drying up.
Sorry to hear that more property is being damaged by some cranky people. And sorry to see that the US Dept. of Justice isn’t the only one that seems to be hyper-politicized.