It's "Eerie, Creepy": A Station Cleaner On The Empty Subway Stations

James Ramsay

Published Mar 20, 2020

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Shenilya Fuller sweeps up at the Jay Street-Metro Tech station mezzanine in Brooklyn in 2019

Gretchen Robinette / Gothamist

James Ramsay

Published Mar 20, 2020

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MTA station cleaner Shenilya Fuller is still going to work right now, doing her normal duties: sweeping the platform, replacing the trash bags, and wiping down turnstiles. But nothing else feels normal.

"It is an eerie, creepy feeling being in stations right now, I’m gonna be honest with you," she said. "It’s very slow, it’s very quiet, it’s something I’ve never seen in my whole time being employed by [NYC] Transit.”

The MTA reported a 60% drop in subway ridership earlier this week. After Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday ordered non-essential businesses to further limit the number of employees who leave their homes for work, the trains could see even fewer riders. (On Friday, he ordered 100% of non-essential workforce to stay at home.)

"It feels very uneasy,” Fuller said. “[There’s] nobody. You might get people coming through during rush hour, and then you don’t know who has the virus, who’s been coughing, who’s not washing their hands. So you’re looking at everyone with a side-eye. Even with customers with questions, they want to be close to you when they’re asking a question, and you’re thinking, please don’t get that close to me. I don’t know who you’ve been around. And you still have the homeless people, they’re still in the station, they have nowhere to go."

While there's a separate crew of workers who come in to deliberately sterilize the station, Fuller does have upgraded protective gear, including latex gloves and N95 respirator masks.

"Me personally, I change my mask two to three times a day. You don't want to wear it when you touch it with your hands," she said, adding that she is concerned about supplies running out. (One train conductor told the New York Post that transit workers had been told to find their own masks, and other workers told WNYC there aren’t enough cleaning supplies.)

In the event that she feels ill or suspects she's been exposed to someone with the virus, she said she and other employees were given a special number to call within NYC Transit's HR department. She has also been instructed not to come to work if she's feeling sick.

TWU Local 100, the union representing transit workers, demanded this week that the MTA arrange COVID-19 testing for workers who are “presumptively positive,” plus tests for any of their coworkers who may have been exposed to the virus.

On Thursday, the MTA announced that 23 workers have tested positive for the coronavirus, including 19 NYC Transit employees. MTA Chair Pat Foye said in a statement that those who tested positive are “in quarantine or receiving appropriate care,” and that the agency was in the process of identifying employees who had come into contact with those who have the virus.

“Symptomatic transit workers should not have to wait days upon days for test results or be denied testing for any reason,” Tony Utano, TWU Local 100’s president, said in a statement on Thursday evening. “We have always been essential to the economy of New York City and to the day-to-day lives of millions of riders. It’s become strikingly clear during this crisis that we also are vitally important to the health and wellbeing of those riders – not only now, but after we pull through this crisis.”

Gretchen Robinette / Gothamist

As of Thursday evening, Fuller said she was “feeling great health wise,” and had only heard about this increase in cases from social media and other co-workers.

While she continues going in for her normal shifts, though, things at home have already shifted dramatically. Her six-year-old daughter is no longer going to school in-person, and her husband, who’s an Operations Support employee for NYC Transit, is working from home. Fuller said that while she looks forward to getting back after each shift, she's anxious about coming into her house.

"As soon as I get in the house, I have a bag right by the door, so all of my work clothes are going directly into the bag," she said. "I have Lysol spray right at the door, I’m spraying everything. Then I’m straight into the bathroom scrubbing my hands, scrubbing my face. I tell my daughter, 'Don’t touch mommy until I'm scrubbed up.'"

But for all the fear and uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, she also sees the subway system as a vital means for getting the city through this.

"What gives me hope is me going to work every day," she said. "If they ever say that we’re shutting NYC Transit down, to me, that’s like...not the end. But man, that was our hope. Once that’s not there, New York City comes to a standstill."

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COVID-19

coronavirus

subway