Who says Subway is healthy?

One hundred years ago this morning just after midnight, Edward Gallagher was inside his subway cashier’s kiosk at the Worth Street station waiting to accept nickels from any night owls looking to train uptown. He had just started his shift and completed his first task; Counting the money from the previous shift and putting it into a bag for the subway collection man who would come around 2:00am to pick it up.

Moments later a masked man appeared at his window and pushed the nozzle of a pistol through the grate and ordered him to open the door of his booth. Three other masked men stood behind the first. Gallagher opened the door to the cage and the first of the bandits ran in at him. The clerk put his hands up to defend himself and felt the butt of a pistol come down on his head. Then he felt no more…twenty minutes later he woke up in a pool of his own blood and called the dispatchers office to report the crime. After a minute of explaining Gallagher knew he was about to go unconscious again and told the dispatcher to send the down town man over - the “down town man” was the clerk selling fairs for the down town train. His kiosk was across the tracks and down around a curve. He didn’t see anything. – he then passed out again.

The down town man and some custodians showed up and brought Gallagher around with some cold water to the face. He told them what happened and passed out again. The bag of money and anything Gallagher had collecting during his shift was gone. The clerk was taken to the hospital with a broken nose and five scalp wounds. He apparently took a beating after the first blow.

The bandits, obviously aware that Gallagher had a bag of money at the beginning of each shift and also knew nobody would see the robbery, got away. Gallagher was fired for not putting up a better fight. Ok, not really.