Michigan native Ava Manelis was riding the NYC subway on a summer day when she had a bizarre run-in during the evening rush hour.
Manelis brushed against a stranger who seemed agitated, and the encounter spiraled into a showdown of angry texts.
Crowded subways are nothing unusual in NYC on weekdays, especially during rush hour, when trains on busy Manhattan routes and at major stations fill up with passengers.
Michigan Woman Shared Her Bizarre Encounter
In a TikTok video, Manelis described how a woman reacted angrily when Manelis’s bottom brushed against her and she accidentally backed into the woman’s hand on the armrest.
It was around 5 p.m., and Manelis was heading to class. As the temperature climbed outside, the rush-hour crowds thickened by the minute.
She found a spot to stand near the seated rows and moved close to the partition while passengers pushed through the doors. As the train rumbled along the tracks, her body brushed against the woman, who looked visibly agitated.
“Like, where the seats match the people that are standing up because there’s nowhere for me to go. Like, we’re trying to let in as many people as possible, if you know how subways work. And she looks at me when I accidentally brush up on her, my b*** to her arm, like I just killed her firstborn son in front of her,” Manelis shared on TikTok.
Woman Found Fiery Text Messages on Passenger’s Phone
Moments after the two exchanged glances, Manelis peeked at the woman’s phone and was stunned to see her fellow passenger typing angry messages to a friend about the encounter.
“I was like, ‘Ma’am, like, we’re gonna be touching each other. Like, again, don’t take the subway if you don’t want to be touching people. Point blank. And then this is the kicker: I look down at her phone ’cause I was bored, and she’s texting her friend. She’s like, ‘This stupid girl keeps bumping into me,'” Manelis said.
“I literally wanted to be like, girl, you clearly are not from here. I mean, neither am I, but, like, at least I can take the heat,” Manelis added.
NYC Subway Statistics Changed From 2024 to 2025
A March 2026 report by the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC), titled Ridership Returns: Mapping Post-Congestion Pricing Ridership Trends, showed a sharp jump in NYC subway use from 2024 to 2025.
The subway logged roughly 1.299 billion rides in 2025, up from 1.21 billion in 2024. That marks an increase of about 93 million rides between the two years.
The 2025 total reached about 76.5% of the 1.698 billion rides recorded in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted travel worldwide. Still, ridership growth more than doubled, climbing from 3.7% in 2024 to 7.7% in 2025.
Leave a Reply