When it's steamy outside, it's usually even more unbearable underground in the subway—but record ridership and increasing delays are making this summer heat wave even more brutal than usual for straphangers. NY1's Jose Martinez joined the suffering masses underground and filed this report.
No straphanger wants to watch an train leave them behind due to crowding, but with the city gripped by a heat wave, the overcrowding is even more unwelcome on packed platforms—like 59th Street on the Lexington Avenue line.
"I had to let two trains go by. That's how crowded it is. And on top of that, everybody just rushed to the train. It's just miserable down here. It's really miserable," one rider says.
Chug some water. Use a magazine as a fan. Towel the sweat off. Everyone is grasping for ways to beat the heat and humidity down here.
"The worst place is underground—the worst," one rider says.
How bad is it? We took some random readings:
- Broadway/Lafayette—97.3 degrees
- West Fourth Street—100.4 degrees
- East Broadway—102 degrees
Subway riders know to expect tropical conditions this time of year, but the hot times are even worse this summer, because subway delays are up more than 7 percent from last year, thanks largely to surging ridership.
More delays mean more time on unbearable platforms.
“Unmanageable. Unexplainable,” one rider says.
That makes bottled water a necessity, while candy bars are on ice to keep from melting.
"It's so hot. We have to work. Very difficult downstairs right now,"
It's nasty enough that this is the last day John O'Campo will play his accordion at the 68th Street station on the Lex until football season.
"After September, I come back. It's too hot," says O'Campo.
If there's a saving grace, it's that hope is always just down the tracks.
A welcome sight on any day of the year, the arrival of the next train is expecially welcome during periods of extreme temperatures, because subway cars are air-conditioned—well, almost all of them—unlike those sweaty platforms.