Exclusive | The good, bad and ugly: New Yorkers share their most memorable subway moments as rail system turns 120

The subway changed Rick McGuire’s life.

No, he didn’t meet his forever person on the uptown A train like fiancés Anastasia Gregory and Spencer Seabaugh, nor did he find “American Idol” fame after launching a crooning career on station platforms like singer Just Sam. 

Instead, the subway system, which celebrates its 120th anniversary Sunday, gave McGuire a career spotlighting the commuters, kooks, trendsetters and go-getters buzzing beneath the city’s surface. 

“The subway is like the eighth wonder of the world,” McGuire, 40, founder of virtual people-watching hub @SubwayCreatures, told The Post. 

His viral vids include everything from early sightings of Gotham’s legendary “Pizza Rat” to clips of Grammy winner Ed Sheeran belting out “Eyes Closed” with subway performer Mike Yung. 

“Down there,” said McGuire, a New Jerseyan-turned-Brooklynite, “you’re surrounded by some of the most fascinating humans.”

“People moving around New York City,” he added, “where they are free to be themselves.”

“One of the best things I’ve ever seen in the subway was, years ago, there was a person whose luggage wheel got stuck between the train and the platform,” he said. “The guy was panicking because the train wasn’t able to leave until that wheel was loosened.

“So everyone got off of the subway car and pushed the train until the wheel broke free. It was one of those really awesome New York moments when strangers work together — but not necessarily to be helpful,” he laughed. “They all just didn’t want to be late to wherever they were going.”

Here are more unforgettable subway memories New Yorkers shared with The Post.

Hide and squeak

Thomas Trube, 54, of University Place, was listening to music while waiting for the N-R trains at 34th Street when something rat-tled him.

“As I was looking around, I saw people pointing at me on the platform and screaming,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what they were pointing at, so I ignored it. Then I saw someone really screaming at me and they were pointing down and I saw this huge rat sitting on my shoe,” he said.

“Without missing a beat, I kicked my foot as the subway doors opened and the rat went flying into the train car. It was like a full horror film, people were screaming as the door closed — banging on the windows.

“I missed my train.”

Payday afoot

Queens native Jocelyn Alonzo, 21, didn’t imagine that her choice of footwear could earn her a few bucks while riding the 2 train.

“A guy approached me and he was like, ‘Can I take pictures of your socks?’ ” Alonzo said. “He was offering money. What did I do? I was like, yeah.”

While initially shocked by his proposal, she couldn’t deny herself the free cash, so she slipped her rainbow-colored socks out of her shoe and posed for the camera.

“Obviously, the guy definitely had a foot fetish, it was so weird,” she chuckled. “But I was like, hey, this is New York you know, it’s probably common to do this type of weird things.”

Fight club car

Bushwick resident Bryan Montanez, 28, loves the subway system and insists more good than bad happens.

However, he has seen “some crazy fights” — most notably on a recent J train excursion.

“I saw a man get woken up at 1 a.m.,” he recalled. “He completely beat [the man who woke him up] and then apologized to the rest of the train. He said ‘I’m sorry guys, I was just sleeping.’

“We went from Delancey to Marcy seeing 12 rounds of Mike Tyson.”

I got your back

East Village resident Nolan Myerson, 75, has seen subway brawls, too, but once joined a fight that had nothing to do with him — all because he didn’t want a stranger to ruin his life.

“Two gentlemen who got on the train together kept arguing and all of a sudden, they started fighting and swinging at each other,” Myerson said. 

The fight escalated when one missed his swing and hit his head on a pole, which led to excessive bleeding. But he still tried to hold his own and fight. 

“This big white guy jumped on his back and tried taking him down,” Myerson said. “I jumped on the white guy’s back and I did it because he’s yelling, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ I said, ‘You don’t want to do this. You’re going to ruin your life. Get off of him and get off of him now,’ and he did.”

The art express

For tattoo and painting artist Mira Miriah, 32, of downtown Manhattan, the subway is her canvas.

“I love seeing people’s outfits on the subway, the layers and jackets people wear for fall. I use them as inspiration for my paintings,” Miriah, known online as @girlknewyork, said.

She has stealthily made works of folks reading on the train, tending to their kids, some people doing graffiti and lots of Mets fans.

“I always include the Mets in my art, the Mets are the best,” Miriah said. “One is of three female Mets fans in the subway posed as the three of cups from a tarot deck.”

Love at first fight

Violinist Anisa Marcano, 22, commutes daily on the A-C-E line in Manhattan, but she got the shock of her life after a drugged-out New Yorker started attacking her.

“I was just sitting there and I said no fighting words, [but] then she gets up and she starts swinging on me. [Meanwhile] nobody on the train does anything,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘So no one’s going to help me.’ I literally screamed that on the train.”

Marcano said the nutjob followed her onto another train but eventually moved on to another victim. She recalled exiting the train in tears when she saw a bystander who witnessed the entire debacle approach her.

“This guy comes up to me after and he’s like, ‘I saw what happened on the train. You’re so brave. My name is this, by the way. Here’s my number if you need any help,’ ” she said.

Paying it forward

Anthony Darden, of the South Bronx, saw the rough side of things in the ’80s, recalling lots of violent robberies. He’s now proud to see that civility on the subway has returned in recent years.

“This one time on the 2 train around 149th Street, the entire car gave a homeless man money. He probably got off with more money than the people on the train had,” he said. “It was good to see that.”

A well-spent dollar

East Harlem resident Ivan Torren, 73, also recalled an act of generosity when he met a Hispanic woman who was struggling to carry 200 bottles she’d collected in exchange for money. 

“I said to her in Spanish, venti botella, 20 bottles for $1. I wanted to give her something and she started to cry. She took my hand and kissed it. She didn’t say a word.”

Although Torren’s gesture made a difference to that woman’s day, he ultimately “felt terrible.”

“I said, this woman is really suffering that much that a dollar meant so much,” Torren added.

A day to remember

For 60-year-old Nathaniel Heidenheimer of the Union Square area, taking the subway on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, is embedded in his memory forever.

He recalled a special F train line running on the Upper West Side around 4 p.m. to Smith Street into Gowanus.

“It was very, very, very slow … I remember in Brooklyn the air was very clear,” said Heidenheimer, who remembered interactions on the train with overly anxious New Yorkers, unsure of what had transpired.

“There was an energy that was nervous and very, very different. People who ordinarily would never talk to one another in their lives were thinking so ‘WTF’ that they were in a different mode of time and space.

“Everyone had been jarred out of their sense of normal.”

Party lines

Brooklynite Randy Carr, 72, said after all her years of living in New York, she’s never been part of a subway singalong party until September.

“I was on a train where a guy was playing the guitar and singing, now this happens all the time but this guy was really good, and he started taking [song] requests and the entire car was singing,” Carr said.

Although she couldn’t remember the songs played, she will never forget the energetic feeling spread among subway riders.

“The entire car was singing along at some point. It was really great,” she said.

Showtime!

Digital nomads Rachel Faulkner, 32, and Frank Ponce, 38 often travel in and out of NYC, but one L train trip last winter stood out.

“There was this group of older ladies who were having an absolute blast, the party was on the train for them,” Faulkner said.

“It was also my birthday and someone else’s birthday on the train too,” Ponce added. “They started singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ it was loud and everybody started joining in.”

Soon enough, no one onboard could resist the feel-good moment.

“It started out with two or three people and it became the entire car by the end,” he said. “We were on our way to a show, but the show was right there.”