New BART hero identified: It’s Refrigerator Man!

Sometimes, people are the worst, but thank goodness there are also real-life heroes who will stand up against bad behavior. And we see this all the time, particularly on public transit. From rider Mariah Bear on Facebook:

Crowded BART train, I tune in and realize that a woman in hijab a few rows away is asking the guy next to her, basically, to stop manspreading. She’s saying, calmly but with increasing intensity, “Please, that’s my side of the seat. Please let me have my seat.”

 

I’m about to extricate myself from my window seat and offer to swap when she gets up in disgust and goes to stand. A guy gets up to offer her his seat. She starts to say, “Oh no, you don’t have to…,” He just smiles.

 

Dude is built like a refrigerator. She takes his seat and he just *whump* plops down next to, practically in the lap of, Mr. Manspreader.

I give him a thumbs up and a big smile.

A new hero is born! All together now: Refrigerator Man! Refrigerator Man!

Thanks to readers Cynthia P. and Mary M. for the tip.

Seen other everyday heroes who deserve our collective applause? Tag us @munidiaries on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com is always open!

 

Found: The Muni suggestion box is open

The letter box on Muni buses isn’t just for religious flyers. Rider Terry F. recently spotted a hand written note in the box on his bus, and it turned out to be a polite reminder to Muni repair:

To Muni Repair,

There are 6 yellow tiles missing (broken) at the platform at the first stop at Caltrain stop outbound. Keep up the good work with picking up the trash.

 

Miss Lisette S.

In the age of tweeting your Muni complaints, I can really appreciate a letter writer. Thanks, Terry, for passing this along.

Other repair requests to Muni:
Poop-cleaning neighbors still need help
BART riders weigh in on escalator repair date
Lost and found: this Muni driver has your ID

Have you seen other noteworthy letters or missives of any other form? Tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com is always open!

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This Muni Metro left us googly eyed

…and also a little scared and a touch like Cookie Monster.

Not one week after we receive an important dispatch on the Muni Scream lights—party on, pareidolia—we receive word, from rider Matt, that the application of googly eyes for delight-inducing purposes is alive and well.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen googly eyes on Muni Metro and we certainly hope it’s not the last. If you’ve yet to be convinced of the delight factor, googly eyes actually represent a totally an important art movement.

h/t to rider Matt—thanks, Matt!

Spotted googly eyes in the wild? Gone googly-eyed over something you saw in the wild? Both are fair game here at Muni Diaries, and we’d love if you shared on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox, muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com, never has eyes bigger than its stomach, so don’t fret and feed the beast.

Do you know about the Muni “scream” light?

Somewhere (on a Metro), not-so-secretly, a Muni fixture is feeling exactly the same way as you. Muni rider Diana Tran on Twitter pointed out this light fixture below the door bars, which looks like a face screaming in disbelief (or annoyance or pain?). And now we can’t unsee it.

Here it is:

Closer:

Ack! Arg!

Thanks to rider @mwichary for the tip. Pareidolia for the win.

Got other oft-overlooked observations for your fellow riders? Tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox, muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com, is always open!

What’s the back story to this BART station graffiti wall?

How many San Francisco graffiti artists can you spot in this photo. Reader and keen urban observer Cole Brennan (Belle_Cunningham on Instagram) spotted this wall of graffiti signatures, on which the cleaning crew and artists seemed to have reached an accord:

Most graffiti gets cleaned off of the Muni system pretty regularly. Not so with the back of this map, which puts a neatly partitioned blank wall on the landing of the long stairs up from Bart. The graffiti artists and the cleaning crew seem to have some sort of detente worked out for this wall. I spend way too long trying to read it all, searching for new tags and regulars. That Rveng is classic, and you can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting something Zamar has tagged, but this is the first I’ve seen of Croak. Visiting artist? New tagger? Oldtimer just switching it up?

I’m no graffiti artist, and I won’t pretend to love all of it. Certainly, some tags demonstrate nothing but dull, amateur hubris. The good tags have a confidence that I admire, though.

Here’s an interview with Zamar, who created the mischievous squid seen all around town.

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