On a subway platform earlier this month, I witnessed quiet heroism. It’s far more common than non-New Yorkers realize.
The man in the red shirt fell onto the subway tracks directly in front of me. I had noticed him seconds earlier, wobbly, with a cane. He looked elderly, then I realized he could have been younger than my 60 years, but with harder circumstances bearing down upon his countenance.
His cane caught, ironically, on the nubby rubber yellow “safety strip” at the platform edge. He faltered, then fell sideways onto the trackbed. He was moaning in pain, his clothing torn. Blood trickled down his pants.
I screamed “POLICE” at the top of my lungs. Because it was midday people were spread sparsely across the platform at Herald Square. A woman ran towards the end of the tunnel where a train might momentarily arrive, her cellphone flashlight on and ready to wave at any oncoming F or M. She yelled out that subway operators know to look for waving flashlights as a sign to stop the train. Not knowing this, others and I followed suit. The rescue plan, at least the one in my head, was simple: help her stop an oncoming train and wait for professionals to arrive to rescue the man.
But before I knew it, two burly men — everyday straphangers with weathered work boots — swiftly jumped onto the tracks with an unassuming gallantry. “C’mon, get his shoulders,” one said to the other. They gently lifted the man and brought him to the platform edge, where another person and I helped pull him to safety. The two of us then moved quickly to bring up the good samaritans, a white man and a black man. The first ascended, one hand in mine, the other carrying the injured man’s cane. The second waited with a patient anxiety, his eyes fixed in the direction of oncoming trains. As we brought him up, he turned to me and said, “My heart is racing like a hummingbird,” to which I could only respond, “Of course it is, you just saved a man on live subway tracks.”
Paramedics arrived and tended to the injured man. Blood washed over his scarred and pockmarked legs, his veins an intricate spiderweb. He seemed to be yet another person New York had lost to the street, and almost lost for good that day. The paramedics cared for him gently and took him away. A downtown F train pulled into the station minutes later as we all, a bit stunned, went about our days while his blood disappeared beneath.
As the train doors shut, I felt guilty that it hadn’t occurred to me to jump onto the tracks. The police had arrived within minutes of my shout and could have brought the man out safely before any trains had arrived. For all I knew, they may have already radioed dispatch to stop all oncoming traffic.
But the two samaritans were there first and acted instantaneously, with little thought for themselves. Their heroism will never be a glaring New York Post headline. There will be no ticker tape parade for these two brave men. They were just there and did what they felt was right.
I have found time and again, contrary to our reputation in the wider world, New Yorkers look out for each other, like when my spouse lost her purse on the subway and it was returned, fully intact, at the next station, or when I had a bad Christmastime bike accident on Lexington Avenue in response to which tourists gawked while locals helped. I have heard versions of such stories of civic selflessness from many longtime New Yorkers, and yet this beautiful hallmark of who we are as a shared citizenry — in contrast to the stereotype of us as hardened urbanites who ignore each other’s plight — never seems to travel across our bridges and tunnels.
A particular purveyor of this urban callousness stereotype is Taylor Sheridan, the creator of “Yellowstone,” its spin offs and “Land Man.” To wit, the premier of his latest hagiographic paean to Montana, “The Madison,” begins with the daughter of the protagonist being mugged and shoved to the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight while onlookers ignore the blood on her Bottegas and scurry away. (Confession: I will watch anything with Michelle Pfeiffer in it.)
As someone who has driven across this beautiful nation multiple times and is overwhelmed by the glory of Montana, I don’t understand the need to trash the city in order to deify the country. It is a response, perhaps, to the sense that we city folk do the opposite when we look down on our rural brethren. We should all work harder to break through the stereotypes of our deeply divided era. What Sheridan should consider is the nexus between Madison, Montana, the breathtaking county after which the show is named, and Madison Avenue. He should understand that the people of both places are pioneers and rangers of sorts, insisting upon the hard but often fulfilling path of their intensely rural or urban lives. I have friends from both walks of life who equally state that they could exist no other way, maybe because both places have exhilarating characteristics that make people feel alive, a quality that perhaps mountains and skyscrapers both instill.
Rural America, however, isn’t perfect, and neither are we. There is much to concern us about the state of our city. We have been losing population. While crime is down, the subways do not feel as safe as they should, in part because of rare but horrific crimes, in part because of the kind of quotidian, lower-level disorder that rarely makes the news. The recent Saturday morning machete incident at Grand Central is a stark reminder about our mental health crisis and its impacts on everyday New Yorkers. And of course, tragedies like this man tumbling to the tracks might have been avoided if we had the more modern two-door platform system used on London’s new Elizabeth Line, not to mention more affordable housing, more shelters and more mental health support.
Yet beyond these problems that we in the political cognoscenti ceaselessly debate, this story for me was a reminder of the pain and the promise of a Gotham forged by everyday people, people who instinctively jump on live tracks. It is a social compact few outside our borders will ever understand, yet we eight million know. New York’s nameless knights — the chivalrous men who saved this soul, the woman with the flashlight, the first responders, the conductors, or even the bicycle delivery men who peeled me off the pavement that frigid December day — are the individuals who in the end make this place work despite our inability to deliver a better city, a better society, on their behalf.
Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect, urbanist and author based in New York City. He is a Vital City contributing writer. His latest book is “The Architecture of Urbanity” (2024). He is also the author of “A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America” (2013).