Gothamist has bore witness to all sorts of crimes against decency on our beloved subway system. But today, we have come face to face with a new breed of horror: a man who puts wads of gum on the seat next to him so no one will sit there. Is this person the City's greatest villain? Or is he just the creatively cutthroat spirit of NYC personified?
Upper East Side resident Taylor Collins, 33, says he observed the man practicing his evil arts on a northbound 4/5 train around 10 p.m. on Friday. He and a few friends boarded the train at Bowling Green, which is when he came face to face with the gentleman in the photo above. Collins stood at first while the Gum Man decided to sit across from Collins' companions.
"As the train left the station, I started looking around to observe the late-night riffraff that is usually present on a Friday night train," Collins told us. "Not much. I figured I would sit. When I looked down, however, there was a new piece of gum on the bench. Odd. Maybe it was The Matrix changing something."
To his horror, he soon learned it was not a glitch in the Matrix, but rather a glitch in the empathetic region of this man's brain: "Then the gentleman pictured pulled a new wad of gum out of his mouth and placed it on the seat," Collins recalled.
The villainy ran deeper: "At each stop until 14th Street, people would board, almost sit, then be informed by the man that there was gum on the seat and that they should not sit. One woman was more assertive and produced a tissue, removed the gum and sat. The man exited the train at Grand Central."
This makes token suckers look like mere pole huggers. Are you more impressed with Gum Man's don't-give-a-shit moxie, or disgusted by his utter lack of humanity?
