A vandal pulled an emergency alarm at an Upper West Side subway station early Monday — creating havoc for morning commuters on at least five lines, police and transit officials said.
The miscreant, who has not been caught, pulled the alarm at 7:32 a.m. at the 96th Street/Central Park West station, police said — effectively shutting down power at the C train stop and nearby stations.
“Pretty rough rush hour this morning,” MTA Interim Transit President Sarah Feinberg conceded to authority board members at their June meeting on Wednesday.
The outage briefly shut down four subway lines — the A, B, C and D trains — and caused delays on all four lines as well “significant” residual crowding on the 7 line, Feinberg said.
“We’re pulling camera footage from 96th Street to see if we can determine how that all happened,” she told board members.
Straphangers were furious.
“I’m on a B at 145 and we’re being told that power has been lost from 59-110? How the literal f–k am I supposed to get downtown?” posted user @msrachelmariec.
When MTA responded from its official account, the user said she’d “already left and walked to the 1! No thanks to y’all!”
Police responded to the scene but the alleged perp had already fled, an NYPD spokesman said.
Interim President of MTA New York City Transit Sarah Feinberg acknowledged the “pretty rough rush hour” after the power was cut. Lev Radin/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesMTA officials described the ensuing subway chaos as “out of our control.”
“This is a trespassing incident, this is something that’s illegal and it’s dangerous for the individual that went into the system,” MTA chief safety officer Pat Warren said.
“Vandalism is not just a crime against the MTA — it’s a crime against the entire ridership of New York City.”
