Lawyer posts viral account of subway passengers joining to scrub swastika graffiti
A Facebook image posted by Wilson Elser associate Gregory Locke of New York subway riders scrubbing away anti-Semitic graffiti.
A lawyer’s Facebook post about passengers on a Manhattan subway train uniting to remove anti-Semitic graffiti has gotten lots of attention.
The post by Gregory Locke, an associate at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, had 735,000 reactions and more than 470,000 shares as of Tuesday morning. The New York Times and the Am Law Daily (sub. req.) are among the publications that interviewed him.
Locke, 27, posted this account of the Feb. 4 incident: “I got on the subway in Manhattan tonight and found a swastika on every advertisement and every window. The train was silent as everyone stared at each other, uncomfortable and unsure what to do.
“One guy got up and said, ‘Hand sanitizer gets rid of Sharpie. We need alcohol.’ He found some tissues and got to work.
“I’ve never seen so many people simultaneously reach into their bags and pockets looking for tissues and Purell. Within about two minutes, all the Nazi symbolism was gone.”
A New York police detective told the New York Times that there have been other recent reports of anti-Semitic graffiti, including on another train and on a recycling container. In another episode, a train commuter embellished a swastika to turn it into four boxes containing the letters “L-O-V-E.”
