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Scent of Human Feces Haunts Herald Square Subway


By

John Del Signore

Published Mar 11, 2011

Modified Mar 11, 2011


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By

John Del Signore

Published Mar 11, 2011

Modified Mar 11, 2011


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Fox 5 is making a big stink about a nasty situation in the Herald Square subway station, where it appears that someone did a #2 and didn't flush... because there was no toilet available where the bowel movement occured. Apparently, it's been two weeks since the human waste first debuted on the landing of a stairwell, and although the MTA put up a yellow caution sign, it seems that no one bothered to clean up fecal remnants. Baby steps? Area man Paul Arking is sick of walking through the stench gauntlet during his daily commute, and this video shows he's not the only one.

Riders Complain of Human Waste in Herald Square Station: MyFoxNY.com

"I've seen all sorts of things but this has to be by far the worst I've ever seen," says Arking, who apparently missed the rat crawling over a man's face in the subway, or the guy orally pleasuring a woman on an uptown 5 train. He's written letters to the MTA Chairman, President, and VP of subways, but nobody seems to give a shit about the matter. "This is our tax dollars not being spent properly, we pay good money, but service gets worse, squatters get worse, and panhandling gets worse," says Arking.

In a statement, MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz says, "A mobile wash team was assigned to 34th St./Herald Square last night to perform high-pressure cleaning and we have reached out to the NYPD Transit Bureau and alerted them to this issue. Counter to Fox 5 claims, there were no feces at that location, but the pungent odor emanating from the area appears to stem from the homeless population there."

Tagged

excrement

Feces

herald square

manhattan

MTA

poop

subway

subway station


John Del Signore

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Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations


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