Credit: Unsplash
Because you know exactly where those handles have been.
Subways are a very convenient means of transportation in large, metropolitan areas. They’re also gross. Even in the days before nobody wanted to stand next to each other, subways have been hotspots for mysterious stains and pungent odors. One cannot even begin to fathom how many people have touched those standing handles, and in a time where hygiene has become much more important, holding one of them starts to feel genuinely dangerous. This is why one New Yorker took it upon himself to create an intermediary between himself and the grossness.
Real estate broker Seth Kessler rides the New York subway all over the place to get to work on a regular basis. With everyone trying to stay apart and every surface a potential danger zone, the process has been grating on him a bit. “Riding the subway, I always do the subway shuffle, you always try to keep your balance, without touching anything, it’s hard,” Kessler said.
Luckily, Kessler’s father happens to own a plastic injection molding factory in Ohio, so with the help of his family, he brainstormed a method of staying upright on the subway without having to physically touch any of it. The end result was the Touch-No-More, a plastic hook with a comfortable grip that you can use to hook onto a subway handle without putting your fingers on it. The plastic used in the grip’s construction has a special additive that fights off germs, so you don’t even have to worry about them trickling down onto your hand.
The invention immediately caught the attention of riders. https://t.co/9keII1af05
— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) February 11, 2021
Kessler and his wife Rachel Zatcoff publicly tested their new invention out on the downtown 5 train, and almost instantly every other passenger asked what it was and where they could get one. Everyone on that train who requested one was given a free sample, and word quickly spread like wildfire. Kessler and Zatcoff have begun selling Touch-No-Mores online for $14.99, and have nearly reached 1,000 sales.
“Nobody likes to touch the subway poles in general, pre-covid but now that we’re in covid, it’s even more so,” Kessler said.
“We’ve had so many people tell us that they would have loved something like this, before the pandemic,” Zatcoff said.
