Brawl over spaghetti in NYC subway ignites debate
The city’s subway riders can handle panhandlers, rats and tuneless street musicians. But eating spaghetti in a crowded subway car? Well, that’s just going too far.
An Internet video that shows New Yorkers brawling over a passenger’s right to nosh noodles on the subway has ignited a debate about what people should and shouldn’t do in the nation’s largest mass transit system.
The video, posted online anonymously, picks up mid-argument, as a woman twirls onto her fork spaghetti from a takeout container and a passenger across the aisle chides her.
“What kind of animals eat on the train like that?” says the woman across the aisle.
The diner snaps back with an epithet, and the exchange quickly degenerates into a fistfight.
“Chill out!” shouts a man as he tries to pull apart the two combatants.
The video has touched a nerve in a stressed-out city where the commutes are difficult and no perceived slight goes undocumented, thanks to cellphone video cameras.