How Gross Is the Air of the NYC Subway, Really?

Today, in questions New Yorkers don't want asked, let alone answered: What is the microbial content of the air in the subway system? How much of that musty subway breath is made up of organic material like fungi, bacteria, and fragments of our own bodies?

Remarkably, a whole century of straphanging has passed without much research on the subject. "There are lots and lots of regulations and pieces of information on aerosol chemicals and aerosolized particles in our society," says Dr. Norm Pace, a professor of biology at the University of Colorado-Boulder and one of the authors of a new study. "There's no assessment of microbiological air quality."