The man behind some viral pictures of subway riders scrubbing away swastikas is now sharing his story with NY1. Our Lori Chung has the story.
"It was a very uncomfortable silence, it was palpable"
That's how Gregory Locke describes the mood when he got on an uptown one train Saturday night to find the subway car covered in swastikas and messages like this.
"I sort of thought this is the world we live in now, people think this is ok to express this kind of ideology now," Locke said.
Passengers were surrounded by anti-Semitic graffiti until Locke says one man had an idea.
"He said 'We need alcohol, who has hand sanitizer?' and everybody just immediately started going through their bags and purses"
And after crowdsourcing those simple supplies, two of those straphangers started scrubbing.
"Within a matter of just a couple of minutes all of the graffiti was gone," Locke said.
He says he was so moved by the incident, he posted it on Facebook — sharing that one person on the train reacted to the swastikas by saying "I guess this is Trump's America." His post quickly went viral — bringing praise — and some backlash.
"I've gotten a lot of negative reaction a lot of people who think I staged it," Locke said.
Some accusing him of making political statement against the president. But Locke says, not so.
"I don't like Trump but that's not what I was doing with this," Locke said. "As downtrodden as seeing a swastika on the train gets you, it was uplifting to see everyone trying to do their best to help in any little way that they could"
Locke's Facebook post was shared hundreds of thousands of times, including a share by Chelsea Clinton and another by author J.K. Rowling. Meantime, the MTA says the incident is under investigation.