Subway Station Needed $17K Deep Clean After Occupy City Hall: MTA

NEW YORK CITY — Occupy City Hall protesters and campers didn't get their envisioned $1 billion police budget cut, but they did take a $17,000 bite from the MTA.

That five-figure price tag is how much it cost a 31-person crew to "deep clean" a City Hall subway after police rousted the weeks-old encampment on Wednesday, MTA officials said Thursday.

Protesters and campers, many of whom were homeless, left the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall 4-5-6 station covered with graffiti and debris, according to photos provided by MTA.

Sarah Feinberg, interim president of New York City Transit, took a swipe at the would-be graffiti artists.

"Ideally our crews are using their cleaning expertise to disinfect the station and trains for COVID-19 prevention but this unfortunate situation required a herculean cleaning effort and our team stepped, as they always do," she said in a statement.

Graffiti in New York City, especially near the seat of city government, amid protests over police brutality increasingly became a hot political potato.

Mayor Bill de Blasio faced days of questions about protest-related graffiti on the city's David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building that stayed up for days and weeks. He claimed it required a more intensive washing than was obvious.

Not so, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday. Just get detergent, a power washer and a brush, he said.

Cuomo said leaving graffiti up makes it seem New York City is starting to decay — and a potential invitation, or excuse, for President Donald Trump to follow through on threats to send federal troops to the city.

"I'm telling the mayor the cleaning up of the city is important," Cuomo said.

Occupy City Hall protesters and others formed an encampment in City Hall Park for weeks. Over time, the graffiti grew on the subway station.

NYPD officers busted up the encampment, estimated to be about 40 to 5o people, early Wednesday. Afterward, MTA officials found some campers had used the subway station as a toilet, with human excrement and waste clogging grates, the New York Post reported.

MTA crews pressure washed the station free of graffiti and debris and deep cleaned the station's stairs and entrances, according to a release. They also had to repair and replace broken "station elements," such as a green subway entrance dome, the release states.

In all, it cost $17,000, took 452 person-hours, a 31-person cleaning crew and four supervisors, according to the MTA.