NY passengers band together, scrub swastikas off subway car

Subway passengers in New York City on Saturday night banded together to erase anti-Semitic messages daubed in a train car.

Gregory Lochte boarded the train at a Manhattan station Saturday night to find swastikas graffitied across its windows and advertisements.

After a brief moment of uncomfortable silence during which passengers exchanged uneasy looks, according to Lochte’s account, one man rose up from his seat and pointed out that “hand sanitizer gets rid of Sharpie. We need alcohol.”

In a Facebook post published later that evening, Lochte shared how touched he was by the number of passengers who immediately searched their bags for tissues and sanitizer.

After two minutes of work by Lochte and his fellow riders, the graffiti was removed.

At the end of his post, Lochte recorded his response to one of the train’s passengers who attributed the graffiti to “Trump’s America.”

“No sir, it’s not,” Lochte replied. “Not tonight and not ever. Not as long as stubborn New Yorkers have anything to say about it.”