The MTA is investigating after subway riders were trapped for an hour Monday night on the F train. NY1's Jose Martinez filed the following report.
In a season of outages and outrage, what happened on an F train stands out.
"We were told that there was train traffic ahead of us. Five minutes, there was train traffic ahead of us. Another five minutes, train traffic ahead of us," said subway rider Georgia Frances King. "After a while, we probably worked out that it wasn't going to start moving again pretty quickly."
The Brooklyn-bound train lost power after leaving West Fourth Street in Manhattan Monday evening. With the air conditioning out, the crowded cars became unbearably hot, and riders became desperate.
"We started trying to open the windows, we worked out how to wedge open the doors. So I got my umbrella and we stuck it between the doors," King said. "Every time another train came by, there was this whoosh of air, which was everything that I could have ever wanted."
One rider wrote "I will survive" on a steamed-up window.
"People were taking their clothes off," said subway rider Michael Sciaraffo. "I actually saw a woman in the darkness with people covering her with jackets so she could disrobe, almost as if she were at the beach."
It all played out on social media, as riders vented.
"When your 20min commute turns into an hour stuck between stations on a crowded train with no AC but plenty of B.O.," one wrote.
The meltdown follows months of misery that have seen a soaring number of delays cripple the aging system.
With so many well-publicized problems in the subway of late, some riders and advocates have taken to calling the miserable commute the new normal.
And with summer near, riders worry what will happen in the blazing heat. Many want answers from the state-run MTA and the governor.
"I think there's no way for Governor Cuomo to avoid this problem. Because people are getting increasingly desperate and increasingly angry," said John Raskin of Riders Alliance.
"We need to ask Governor Cuomo, 'Where are you? And what are you going to finally do about this?'" Sciaraffo said. "The people of this city have had enough."
The MTA says its six-point plan of short-term solutions will cut the number and length of delays. Cuomo launched a so-called "Genius" competition that would reward workable fixes.
For straphangers, help can't come soon enough, which is what the riders on that F train felt when it pulled into Broadway-Lafayette.
"Everyone starts clapping and cheering, and everyone else on the platform was just looking at us like, 'Where have you guys been?'" King said.
Just trying to get someplace, without much luck.