If you’ve ever ridden a subway in New York City, you’ve probably noticed random little pools of liquid sludge that seem to form all over the place because of leaky ceilings and other fixtures. It’s not entirely uncommon to see sludge like this pretty much everywhere, but New Yorkers on the internet have affectionately dubbed this phenomenon “Subway Juice,” and it is nasty.
To see just how dirty it really is, a TikToker called “howdirtyis” decided to take a little swab of Subway Juice at a station and put it in a petri dish. His whole account is full of similar things, but we’ve focusing on the juice. Anyway, he takes a swab right off the ground at the West Fourth Street-Washington Square station in Greenwich Village, spreads it on thoroughly a petri dish and throws it in an incubator. This is not his first rodeo.
After a bit of time, he pulls out the dish to find all sorts of nasty cultures on it. It’s some really gross-looking stuff. We don’t know exactly what was found, but he said in a caption that it “smells terrible,” so it cannot be good. I should also point out that Tinashe’s “Nasty Girl” is playing in the background of the whole video to really tie the whole thing together.
Now, this isn’t a super scientific endeavor, since we don’t know what sort of bacteria showed up on the petri dish. We also don’t know what pure “Subway Juice” would look like on a dish, since this sample was collected off the ground. Lots of commenters agreed with this sentiment and are asking howdirtyis to do another experiment by catching the water in mid-air with the petri dish. It’s a more pure sample.
I’m going to check back with this guy to see if he does the catch test because I need to know what Subway Juice is. Regardless, I’ll definitely be taking my shoes off the second I get back to my apartment from now on because that is just heinous.