Metro-North riders fed up with man who sprawls out on train
All abhor the sleeper car.
A guy who treats an early-morning Metro-North car like his own living room day after day has drawn the disgust of his fellow commuters, who are sick and tired of him taking up four seats and putting his dirty shoes up on the cushions.
“He takes up all four seats with his dirty feet up all over the seats,” said a rider who methodically took photos of the pro sleeper from the same angle every weekday morning for nearly a month.
“One day someone tried to sit where his feet were, and he didn’t even move.”
The passengers are also tired of Metro-North conductors not doing anything about the man lounging across so many seats and treating them like his own personal ottoman.
“They always walk right past him and let him sleep like that,” he said.
The rider who took the photos sent them to the MTA.
“I messaged Metro-North several times, and they kept replying, but then I realized they were sending generic responses and no one was going to do anything about it,” said the commuter, who gets on the same car of the 5:36 a.m. from White Plains and encounters the sprawled-out sleeper every time they make the 35-minute commute into Grand Central Station.
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” most of the responses read. “The issue has been reported.”
The impolite rider is Steve S., a 41-year-old electrician who claims he has to get comfortable on the train because he has a 90-minute commute that starts at about 4:30 a.m. every day. So he goes to bed around 10 p.m., wakes up to start his commute, then catches more zzz’s on the train.
“I’m on the train for 90 minutes and I’m bored, so I sleep,” said Steve, who stands about 6 feet tall and was wearing a gray hoodie, jeans and black sneakers as he snuggled into the seat one morning last week. He declined to say where he gets on the train.
MTA officials said they couldn’t interview every conductor on that route to confirm that none of them had ever told Steve to take his feet off the seat.
“Metro-North asks customers to refrain from putting feet on seats and to be thoughtful of their fellow customers,” said spokeswoman Nancy Gamerman.
Others riders on the train say they’re fed up with Steve.
“Show a little compassion for people who are tired and getting up at the crack of dawn in the morning,” said Brendon Walsh, a 21-year-old New York University student from Chappaqua.