Someone’s been clowning around on the subway.
One night last month at around 10 p.m., Andrew Tworischuk, 29, had just wrapped up a long day at work and hopped on the northbound N train at Union Square when he noticed a middle-aged man clad in jeans, sneakers and a beige jacket pull out a yellow rubber balloon.
“He started blowing into it and made a balloon monkey,” Tworischuk, a digital-content creator for Major League Baseball who lives in Astoria, tells The Post. “He didn’t say a word during the whole ride, and he got off at 34th Street.” The man left the monkey behind, tied to a subway pole for all to enjoy.
In the past two months, more than 15 people have posted pictures on Instagram and Twitter of similar-looking balloon animals on the N and 6 trains, but the identity of their creator is a mystery.
Amanda Scacalossi, 17, a high-school student living in Harlem, snapped a photo of the elusive artist on the afternoon of March 31 on the downtown N train. He boarded at the 116th Street stop, quietly made 10 balloons of various shapes, and hung them on the poles.
“It was funny and kinda cute,” Scacalossi tells The Post. “It was sweet to see someone do something nice for other people.” After looking at Scacalossi’s photo, Tworischuk confirms that it was the same man he saw.
Lauryn Paiva, a copywriter from Astoria, admits that she wasn’t immediately charmed when she saw the blowhard on a Q train around Union Square.
“At first it was really weird seeing a random guy making balloons,” says Paiva, 27. “But I was going home after a long day at work and he really brightened my day.”
“I wouldn’t expect to see this anywhere else,” enthuses John Becker, 30, a Brooklynite who works in technology and saw a few balloons on the northbound 6 train at Union Square a few weeks ago. “It was definitely an ‘Only in NYC’ moment.”
The MTA didn’t return request for comment about what’s been blowing on, but New Yorkers hope the whimsy continues.
“[The balloons] brought a smile to everyone’s faces in that car,” says Tworischuk, which is something all us straphangers need.”
This girl is seriously crazy for balloons