Let People Carry Huge Crap on the Subway

The past few months have brought some memorable instances of large object-toting aboard the New York City subway. There was the guy who wedged a sea-foam motorbike in the doorway of a train, giving nothing more than an unflappable shrug to the peeved would-be boarders. Another fellow just barely squeezed a leather love seat through a train’s doors at Utica Avenue station, and blissfully lounged for the rest of his ride. And then there’s the NYPD cop who parked his scooter on an A train in the thick of morning rush hour on a Thursday in July.

It’s kind of amazing that any of these things were possible. New York City subway stations are remarkably hostile to anything with wheels—i.e., anything that would make it easier to haul these big objects onto trains. That’s part of what makes these videos so fun to watch. That, plus schadenfreude: You’d hate to have these things taking up your own precious subway space, but you also can’t help but enjoy seeing other passengers react to these weird, massive objects riding along with them. Depending on how crowded the train is, it’s a spectrum that runs from tickled amusement to righteous anger.