Subway crime is down overall, but not assaults — leaving the vulnerable in New York City dependent on, and grateful for, vigilantes and Good Samaritans alike.
A recent video showing a man attempting to grab a 20-year-old woman off a Brooklyn subway platform — and her narrowly escaping thanks only to the intervention of bystanders — has renewed fears among local women.
A 2024 study from the mayor’s office found more than half of New Yorkers report having been harassed on the streets in the past six months.
Kelly Dillon had just gotten off work as a traffic reporter in Hudson Square around midnight one night last August when she was shoved to the ground by a stranger. Her elbow went through 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, but he was never 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, said.
Dillon, who lives in New Jersey, suffered a severe concussion and has since been diagnosed with PTSD. And she hasn’t returned to the city: “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 two decades and only recently felt fearful: “In all those years, I never felt unsafe, honest to God. And looking back, it was COVID. Things just went downhill.”
While subway crime actually dipped below pre-pandemic levels this year, subway assaults are up 68% compared to 2019.
An anonymous 33-year-old woman living on the Upper West Side told me she gets “harassed daily” to the point 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 said.
Last month at the 103rd Street 1 train station, a stranger grabbed her rear end. “I literally started screaming, and everybody just looked at me,” the fitness professional recalled. “Nobody really tried to help 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 said.
The mayoral report found that, although verbal harassment is more common, 53% of those who were harassed in the last six months experienced physical harassment. The most common forms were following (46%), touching (38%) and exposing genitals (32%).
Andrea Giordano first moved to New York City from Philadelphia three years ago and assumed there was safety in numbers. But now, she’s not so sure.
“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 told The Post.
She was physically attacked in April, while walking with friends to Jackdaw bar in the East Village on a Sunday afternoon.
She admits she was on her phone when a man grabbed her face and tried to yank her towards him. He stalked her for several blocks and lunged at her, but a group of her male friends crowded around to protect her.
Giordano, an executive assistant, has since decided to Uber more often. But the price of safety, she estimates, is an additional $100 a 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, meanwhile, has been harassed because she doesn’t use her devices while 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 said. “That leads to crazies engaging with me.”
She reports monthly subway harassment and occasional racial abuse, like one time when she was called a “c—nk” and told to “go back to China.” Most recently, at 11 a.m. at the Borough Hall stop, a man spat on her head.
The sad truth is, every woman in New York has a horror story of her own.
Between the Daniel Penny prosecution becoming a precautionary tale for bystanders and the anti-police movement focusing a microscope on cops’ every move, it’s true that safety in numbers feels more dubious than ever.
The recent viral video from the subway platform is a glimmer of hope.
But it still makes me wonder: If I were so unlucky to be in that position again, would I be lucky enough that strangers would do the same for me?
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