YM Metropolitan Diary, 110th and CPW

At the subway on 110 and CPW last week there was an MTA employee bent over a turnstile, wiping down one of two turnstiles in the small station, a bottle of Windex in her free hand.

Upon seeing this as I entered the station, I might have stutter stepped and tilted my head slightly at the sight, I don't recall. But I swiped my card through the available turnstiles and walked past. I made it about three steps at which point I definitely did stutter step, tilted my head slightly, paused, (maybe even raised an eyebrow) and turned around to query the woman.

"Um, hi. How often do you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Wipe down the turnstiles? I've never seen that before. I've see them clean the station before but I've never seen someone wipe down the turnstiles with Windex."

"Oh, we do it about every other day."

"Really? You wipe down the turnstiles every other day? In this station?"

"Yup."

She seemed bemused by the questioning, but took a moment from wiping down the turnstile to answer my questions with a smile on her face. I told her that it seemed so odd to me, I was confused, I had never witnessed this before. She kept smiling politely at me, and continued to finish wiping down the turnstile. Thanking her, I turned around to stand on the platform. An elderly couple waiting for the train had over heard the conversation, and seemed as perplexed as I. One offered that she neither had ever seen anyone ever wipe down the turnstiles, adding for effect, "and I've lived here since I was a girl and I don't recall ever seeing that. But I'm going to notice it now, when I walk through I'm going to look to see if it's clean."

I do it every time now, and I can't really tell.

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