Sometimes, in the most inhospitable place, an oasis of peace emerges. Searching for war postcards, the calm of the violin appears. Susan Keser, a concert pianist with more than 35 years of experience in large international orchestras, performs a passage from Vivaldi's Spring. Leopoldo María Panero already wrote it in The Last Man, beauty flourishes in ugliness.
–Have you seen the soldiers?
–Not this morning.
Keser continues to offer his collective therapy. Almost no one stops at this rush hour. The New York subway is not exactly a spa. Even less on this multi-line interchange west of Manhattan's 42nd Street, under Times Square, known as the crossroads of the world.
People go about their business, which here, at the crossroads of the underground, generally consists of going as quickly as possible from one point of the metropolis to another. Even the homeless travel, although they wander without direction or haste.
Unlike the “divine mission” entrusted on celluloid to the Blues Brothers, this time the task is to find the military of the national guard that the governor (democrat) Kathy Hochul deployed a few days ago (a total of 1,000 units ), an extraordinary measure adopted after a series of violent cases, inside and outside the convoys, and guarantee more security for travelers.
The statistics offer a nuanced picture. The most serious crimes fell slightly in 2023 compared to the previous year. The data indicate that the level of violence last year was similar to the time before the pandemic, but the real percentage is higher, since the number of users has fallen to 70% (from six million a day to less than five). . “I earn less money because I play classical music and the rich have left the subway,” analyzes Keser.
Until mid-March there was an increase of 13.2% in crimes compared to the same period in 2023 and 6.6% lower than in 2022.
The possibility of a traveler becoming a victim is remote. The 570 serious crimes in 2023, the highest number in decades, occurred on more than 1 billion trips. And, despite the data, surveys indicate that a significant number of passengers, although not the majority, feel unsafe. They cite the danger of erratic behavior by other users. Hochul replies that the statistics, “if you are a mother with a child in the middle of a fight, are a dead letter.”
This anxiety is undoubtedly influenced by the extreme right-wing media's efforts to magnify the incidents. The same issue goes into a loop.
“This national guard thing is an exaggeration,” says Robert Paaswell, professor emeritus of civil engineering at CUNY (City University of New York) and renowned transportation expert. “After the attacks of September 11, 2001, many military patrols were seen and citizens understood it. There was an external threat, but that external danger does not exist now, it comes from within and this is the new dilemma of the growing homeless population and the proliferation of patients with psychiatric problems. There are better ways to deal with them than sending the armed forces,” he says.
Jeffrey Fagan, a public safety expert at Columbia University Law School, agrees with that. “Mental health and homelessness crises are treated like a criminal crisis. There are crimes in the subway, but not in an epidemic dimension,” he said in statements to the BBC.
Legacy of 9/11, the national guard has maintained its patrols in Grand Central, Penn Station and Port Authory Bus Terminal, where the subway and regional trains converge.
Hochul's plan focuses on the military, without the rifle to appease complaints, helping the police in searching bags and backpacks. He had his “fiery blessing” a few days later.
It happened on the A line, in Brooklyn, and illustrates the things that occur under the skin of the Big Apple, but that rather reflect what is happening on the surface – mental health crisis, increase in firearms – situations that are compressed into steel tubes packed with humanity.
Based on the videos of witnesses, in a fairly full car on an express route, a man identified as Dajuan Robinson, 36, harasses a stranger, who responds by Younece Obuad, 32, without meaning to. He endures the racial insults undaunted while the others present act as if it were raining. Another “crazy” and that's it.
Until Obuad gets fed up and starts fighting with the stalker. A few blows and an unidentified woman (it is known that she entered the station with Obuad) attacks Robinson, who receives a knife impact on his back.
–Did you stab me?
The video captures Robinson's genuine surprise as he watches a red stain appear on his shirt. A spectator enters the scene and separates them. Everything indicates that the conflict is over.
Suddenly, absolute panic. Most of the passengers crowd to one side. In the other, Robinson brandishes a gun. Fade to black. When the image returns, when the train stops at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, the person wounded by a bullet in the head is Robinson.
It is not known how the weapon was taken from him, but the Prosecutor's Office exonerated Obuad for acting in legitimate self-defense. The other, if he survives, will be indicted.
John Chell, chief of patrols for the NYPD, made an eloquent post on X: “Our transit system is not a war zone.” For him, the blame and what should be attacked are the judges and judicial reform, for “being too lenient with repeat offenders.”
This “repressive” language connects with that New York that mobilized en masse in 2020 due to the death, at the hands of the Minnesota police, of the black citizen George Floyd. The motto was “Defund the police”, which was equivalent to cutting funding for the uniformed officers.
It is this same city (472 stations and thousands of cars) where the military comes into action, with some 4,500 local agents monitoring key transportation, the city's arteries, including 1,000 that Mayor Eric Adams sent in February.
In an election year, the governor also recognizes that her order aims to torpedo the narrative established by Republicans “that we are soft on crime due to the defunding of the police. No".
Professor Paaswell does not believe it is a show of force, but of fear. “If travelers see the military, they will really think that this place is unsafe and they will change their habits, they will leave the subway,” he highlights.
A report from Friday indicates that New Yorkers confess to having lost quality of life. Almost half say they want to leave.
In the basement, the violinist Keser certifies the mutation. Only one dollar is visible in the bag for people to deposit their tip. “I have to withdraw the money because lately it has been stolen from me,” she laments. And she, however, feels safe, even though she never works in the afternoon or at night. “I don't care about the military, but it's sad and I understand that it bothers people because they experience more unrest and interference in their lives.”
Finally, after stopping at several stations and noticing the trend of sneaking in – “the fear of authority has been lost,” a woman adds – there are the military, at the Columbus Circle hub (West 59th Street). There are four of them and they share a bag check table with two police officers. A young white woman with a baby in the stroller congratulates herself for the measure: “I feel much better.”
Ten minutes pass before a backpack is searched. The one required is called Jul and is white. “It doesn't bother me, but I don't think this idea is good, I don't think this improves anything, on the contrary. “This is one of the safest cities in the world,” he insists. Sabrina, an African American, says that perhaps it will help “the police, instead of looking at their cell phones and passing by people, get to work.”
Carl, also African American, is the second to open his backpack. “He is an invasion. I go to work and they stop me, when they jump over the turnstiles without anyone telling them anything,” he complains.
As on the surface, and despite the prohibitions in force underground, here it smells like a joint.
