THE SUBWAY IS SCARY AGAIN. TO SOME PEOPLE. SOMETIMES.

The mass shooting on the N train underscored questions about safety that have dogged New Yorkers since the onset of the pandemic.

- Reeves Wiedeman

ON THE third Saturday night in April, four days after the first mass shooting on the New York City subway in nearly 40 years, the West 4th Street station felt mostly like it always has. Half a dozen NYU students walked in from Sixth Avenue carrying cans of Four Loko and blasting music from a speaker. A stocky bro punched a digital billboard that already had a spiderweb crack obscuring an MTA public-service announcement encouraging passengers to say something if they see something. Guitar Dennis, who busks there most weekend nights, riffed on “Another One Bites the Dust” but was drowned out by a trash train that barreled past, disappointing everyone who’d hoped it was their ride home.

Elsewhere, a man who didn’t seem to have his wits about him staggered dangerously close to the track. Another had his pants fully unzipped; he wasn’t wearing any underwear. In the uptown exit to Waverly Place, a small group of men talked wildly to each other—“If you fire a gun, you don’t want to shoot above the waist”—as passengers squeezed past them, pretending not to hear as they made their way through the turnstiles. It was a familiar mix of revelry and threat.