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On Thursday, one entrance of the subway stop at 23rd Street—Baruch College became the first to be outfitted with a new type of electronic gate intended to curb fare evasion. Late in the afternoon, a half-dozen MTA customer service agents buzzed around both sides of the bulky, electronic turnstiles, jumping into action whenever the OMNY tablets glowed red, or a traveler looked confused.
"Everything's okay," one agent named Tarafdar said. "We don't see any trouble yet." But then Geoff, a lanky commuter headed uptown, missed his train, despite agents' attempts to assist.
"It didn't really work very well," Geoff told Hell Gate, after the OMNY reader had refused his phone tap multiple times, and the 6 train he had wanted to board had pulled away. "There's no fucking way these things are worth the money they must cost."