When Leon Neyfakh moved to New York in 2007, he felt perfectly safe. “A lot of people my age have this experience of their parents or other folks who remember the old New York being like, ‘Are you sure that you want to live there? Is it safe to go out at night?’” the 38-year-old, blue-shirted and bespectacled, says via Zoom from Brooklyn. “What are you talking about? You can be on the subway at 3am in New York City now and you’re not afraid.”
But, Neyfakh acknowledges, that picture has become more complicated since the coronavirus pandemic with a perception of danger returning to the city in general and the subway in particular. In May, when military veteran Daniel Penny put fellow train rider Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold, he claimed that he had acted in defence of himself and other passengers.
