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The New York City subway is "an insane asylum on wheels"
Hotair ^ | 07/24/2023 | Jazz Shaw

Posted on 07/24/2023 8:42:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

The subways of New York City have been in the news even more than usual over the past few years and not for the reasons the Mass Transit Authority might wish. The tunnels have become epicenters for crimes of all types, and we’re not just talking about people hopping over the turnstiles to avoid paying the fare. There have been shootings, stabbings, and people being pushed onto the tracks. Robberies are common. And if the random common criminals and gang bangers aren’t enough, there are still armies of homeless people (though somewhat fewer during the summer months when many go above ground) mixed in with drug addicts shooting up on the platforms. At the New York Post, Steve Cuozzo appears to throw his arms up in despair and declares that Gotham’s subway system is now “an insane asylum on wheels” and something must be done about it.

It’s time to drag the mentally ill off by force and move them to where they can’t harm anyone. If we don’t, the underground madhouse will soon reverse the recent increase in ridership — and kiss the city’s nascent recovery goodbye.

Oh, I forgot — laws don’t allow us to do that. Silly me!

I’ve ridden the subways for 50 years. I’ve never seen so many deranged individuals — schizophrenic, otherwise demented and/or drugged to the point of unpredictable potential violence.

As Steve points out, Mayor Eric Adams launched two ambitious plans to improve conditions in the subway last year. One would have cleared the homeless out of the tunnels, along with anyone who behaved in an “unsafe” manner. The other would have expanded the NYPD presence. So what happened to those plans?

They started moving the homeless out, but they quickly ran out of places to put them now that the shelters are all overflowing with illegal migrants. As for the police, they do what they can, but there simply wasn’t enough of a budget for the number of cops that would be required to really change things on the trains or in the tunnels. Both ideas were “quietly abandoned” without any official announcement.

The sad reality is that this situation simply may not be fixable. A variety of municipal and national movements altered the way we deal with the mentally ill. Mental hospitals are looked at with suspicion and locking people up to give them treatment without their consent is considered barbaric. Throwing people in jail for the types of “minor crimes” you primarily see on the subways has fallen out of fashion. And the scope of the problem expanded so rapidly that the city is overwhelmed. You allowed the clowns to start running the circus and now they vastly outnumber the ringmasters.

I consider myself to be rather fortunate in this regard. I began limiting my trips to New York City as much as possible more than a decade ago. And when I do have to travel there, I call an Uber to get around. I don’t think I’ve been down into the subways in New York for at least fifteen years. But I understand that not everyone is so lucky and many people simply can’t avoid it.

It’s the city’s responsibility to keep those subway riders safe and secure as much as possible. It’s the “as possible” part that is the most worrisome because I no longer know what if anything can possibly be done. But the fact that I don’t see a solution to readily address the problem doesn’t change that fact. I didn’t run for Mayor or a spot on the City Council. The people who did asked for this mess and it’s their job to address it.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: insane; mentallyill; newyork; nyc; subway
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1 posted on 07/24/2023 8:42:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

We have a friend in NYC that is asking about the Houston Chinatown. She wants to move.


2 posted on 07/24/2023 8:45:25 PM PDT by Fai Mao (Starve the beast and steal its food!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Don’t mind the maggots.


3 posted on 07/24/2023 8:46:03 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: SeekAndFind
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

If that be treason, make the most of it...Eric!

4 posted on 07/24/2023 8:46:42 PM PDT by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
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To: All

...and Kathy, and the azzpole you rode on!


5 posted on 07/24/2023 8:47:37 PM PDT by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
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To: Fai Mao

And to think my granddad rode them alone when he was only ten.


6 posted on 07/24/2023 9:02:06 PM PDT by SkyDancer (If At First You Don't Suceed, Well So Much For Skydiving ~)
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To: dfwgator

7 posted on 07/24/2023 9:04:08 PM PDT by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: SeekAndFind

Great headline. But truly sad story. Most of us remember when NYC was a delightful place to visit and to even walk around town at night.


8 posted on 07/24/2023 9:10:37 PM PDT by Veto! (FJB Sucks Rocks)
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To: gundog

Ukraine is Not Weak!


9 posted on 07/24/2023 9:29:16 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (The Truman Show)
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To: Big Red Badger

10 posted on 07/24/2023 9:35:15 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: SkyDancer

And to think my granddad rode them alone when he was only ten.

It’s true. I grew up in NY in the ‘50s and ‘60s. We kids rode the trains without parents a lot.


11 posted on 07/24/2023 9:44:04 PM PDT by rxh4n1
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To: SeekAndFind

Without the wheels the city is not an asylum?

In gridlocked traffic, wild eyed man approaches your car window.

On the way to your car in the parking garage or on street space at night, three teens watch you and start to approach.

Waiting for a bus a man loudly talks nonstop about his theory of the secret rulers behind everything.


Attacks by mentally ill plague New Yorkers
New York Post
Aug 17, 2021 — Surveillance video shows a 51-year-old man attacked by a hatchet-wielding maniac in the ATM vestibule of a Chase bank on Broadway....

Unhinged NYC man busted after random wooden plank....

New York Post
https://nypost.com › 2023/07/19 › unhinged-nyc-man...
5 days ago — An unhinged man went on a random, 10-minute whacking spree with a wooden plank in lower Manhattan Wednesday morning — smashing four victims ...


12 posted on 07/24/2023 10:01:15 PM PDT by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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>> “I’ve ridden the subways for 50 years. I’ve never seen so many deranged individuals — schizophrenic, otherwise demented and/or drugged to the point of unpredictable potential violence.”

Both the streets and subways have taken a serious downturn replete with mentally ill people and degenerates. Although the MSM frames the conditions as a matter of racism, both the good and bad are not racially bound. The issues cut across the color spectrum.


13 posted on 07/24/2023 10:08:01 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: rxh4n1; SkyDancer

My dad and his friends used to freely & legally carry their hunting rifles on the subways


14 posted on 07/24/2023 10:10:54 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: SeekAndFind; All

If everyone had a pistol, this crap would stop.


15 posted on 07/24/2023 10:55:50 PM PDT by Cobra64 (Common sense isn’t common anymore)
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To: SeekAndFind

Can someone play “Crazy Train”?


16 posted on 07/24/2023 11:09:06 PM PDT by Conservet (Look back to go forward.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Mayor Eric Adams fault.

[He’s a Commie Jim...]


17 posted on 07/25/2023 12:19:43 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Conservet
Ozzy Osbourne - “Crazy Train “
18 posted on 07/25/2023 1:49:09 AM PDT by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: Gene Eric

“My dad and his friends used to freely & legally carry their hunting rifles on the subways”

Taking subway to go hunting?
Subway in what city?
Open carry in NYC?
Where were they hunting?
About what year was that?


19 posted on 07/25/2023 3:33:25 AM PDT by KingLudd
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To: SeekAndFind

NYC now has RCV for a reason...


20 posted on 07/25/2023 4:10:35 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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