Wall Street IRT Station...nothing glamorous here

When they built the IRT Subway line (the first) back in 1904, it was a ride really for the masses..
Nothing glamorous about this place at all. In Paris they would remedy that...

Did you know at one time ( I believe around World War I) they used to employ people as "pushers" who would stand on crowded platforms and help push more and more people into packed subway trains?

Let me see if I can find out something about those subway crowds of yesteryear...well, it seems they still have them in Tokyo...

If you are going to ride the subways in NYC, you should be aware of certain risks.

The following is about Safety Considerations ( from Wikipedia)

Passenger safety

Yellow platform edges, yellow staircase steps and yellow railings, painted for safety

Crime

The subway carries up to 1.5 billion passengers a year. Crime rates have shown variations over time, with a drop starting in the '90s and continuing today.^[126][127]
In order to fight crime, various approaches have been used.^[128] A new initiative by the MTA to prevent crime is to ban people who commit one in the subway system from entering it for a certain length of time.^[129] In the '60s, for example, mayor Robert Wagner ordered an increase in the Transit Police force from 1,219 to 3,100 officers. During the hours at which crimes most frequently occurred (between 8:00pm and 4:00 am), the officers went on patrol in all stations and trains. In response, crime rates decreased, as extensively reported by the press.^[130]

In July 1985 however, the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City published a study showing riders abandoning the subway, fearing the frequent robberies and generally bad circumstances.^[131]
To counter these developments, policy that was rooted in the late 1980s and early 1990s was implemented.^[132][133] In line with this Fixing Broken Windows philosophy, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) began a five-year program to eradicate graffiti from subway trains in 1984.^[134]

In 1989 the Metropolitan Transportation Authority asked the transit police (then located within the NYCTA) to focus on minor offenses such as fare evasion. In the early nineties, the NYCTA adopted similar policing methods for Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal.
In 1993, Mayor Rudy Giuliani took office and with Police Commissioner Howard Safir the strategy was more widely deployed in New York under the rubrics of "zero tolerance" and "quality of life". Crime rates in the subway and city dropped,^[135] prompting New York Magazine to declare "The End of Crime as We Know It" on the cover of its August 14, 1995 edition.
Giuliani's campaign credited the success to the zero tolerance policy.^[136] The extent to which his policies deserve the credit is disputed.^[137]

New York City Police Department Commissioner William J. Bratton and author of Fixing Broken Windows, George L. Kelling, however, stated the police played an "important, even central, role" in the declining crime rates.^[138] The trend continued and Giuliani's successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, stated in a November 2004 press release that "Today, the subway system is safer than it has been at any time since we started tabulating subway crime statistics nearly 40 years ago."^[139]

Suicides

A portion of subway-related deaths in New York consists of suicides committed by jumping in front of an oncoming train.
Between 1990 and 2003, 343 subway-related suicides have been registered out of a citywide total of 7,394 (4.6%) and subway-related suicides increased by 30%, despite a decline in overall suicide numbers.^[140]

Several planned stations in the New York City Subway may possibly feature platform screen doors. This includes the 7 line extension,^[141] and Second Avenue Subway.^[142] Although these doors are designed to improve airflow in stations, they also prevent people from falling or jumping onto the tracks.^[143]

Photography

After the September 11 attacks in New York, the MTA was extremely wary of anyone taking photographs or recording video inside the system and proposed banning all photography and recording in a meeting around June 2004.^[144] However, due to strong response from both the public and from civil rights groups, the rule of conduct was dropped. In November 2004, the MTA again put this rule up for approval, but was again denied,^[145] though many police officers and transit workers still confront or harass people taking photographs or video.^[146]

On April 3, 2009, the NYPD issued a directive to officers stating that it is legal to take pictures within the subway system so long as it is not accompanied with suspicious activity.^[147]

Currently, the MTA Rules of Conduct,^[55] Restricted Areas and Activities section states that anyone may take pictures or record video, provided that they do not violate MTA regulations:

Section 1050.9 Restricted areas and activities.

Photography, filming or video recording in any facility or conveyance is permitted except that ancillary equipment such as lights, reflectors or tripods may not be used. Members of the press holding valid identification issued by the New York City Police Department are hereby authorized to use necessary ancillary equipment. All photographic activity must be conducted in accordance with the provisions of this Part.^[148]

Terrorism prevention and foiled plot

See also: New York City Transit Police

On July 22, 2005, in response to bombings in London, the New York City Transit Police introduced a new policy of randomly searching passengers' bags as they approached turnstiles. The NYPD claimed that no form of racial profiling would be conducted when these searches actually took place. The NYPD has come under fire from some groups that claim purely random searches without any form of threat assessment would be ineffectual. "This NYPD bag search policy is unprecedented, unlawful and ineffective," said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the NYCLU. "It is essential that police be aggressive in maintaining security in public transportation. But our very real concerns about terrorism do not justify the NYPD subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicionless searches in a way that does not identify any person seeking to engage in terrorist activity and is unlikely to have any meaningful deterrent effect on terrorist activity."^[149] The searches were upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in MacWade v. Kelly.
On April 11, 2008, MTA received a Ferrara Fire Apparatus Hazardous Materials Response Truck, which went into service three days later. It will be used in the case of a chemical or bioterrorist attack.^[150]
Najibullah Zazi and alleged co-conspirators were arrested in September 2009 and pled guilty to being part of an al-Qaeda plan to engage in suicide bombings on the New York City subway system during rush hour that month.^{[151][152][153][154][155][156][157][158]}