WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — A bride and groom exchanged vows this week amid gawking straphangers at the 168th Street subway station — but true love wasn't the reason for the subterranean nuptials.
Despite the presence of a priest and flower girls, the marriage was actually a piece of performance-protest aimed at drawing attention to the lack of manned token booths at subway stations.
The faux ceremony — also held at 181st Street station — were staged by the UP Theater Company at the Washington Heights stations as a demonstration against the removal of the staffed token booths by the MTA late last year.
A video of the short performance, "Blessed Event," shot by Uptown Current blogger Alex Castex-Porter, shows surprised straphangers as they enter and exit the station, stumbling upon the site of a wedding party on the outline of the former booth.
Organizer and performer Matt Higgins led the ceremony, marrying actors Stephanie Skyllas and Rik Walter, after asking passersby to snap photos and tweet the wedding.
But when Higgins asked if anyone had any objections, a commuter, played by UP Theater founder James Bosley, railed against the institution of marriage, sparking a melee amongst the actors while commuters watched on in horror.
At the end of the performance, Bosley screams out: “This would have never happened if there were still a token booth here,” delivering the moral of the story.
Commuter Josh Laird initially posted a congratulatory tweet to the couple on Twitter, writing "Only in New York! Congrats Stephanie and Rick," only to retract it moments later.
"Nevermind," he wrote. "It's fake. #subwaywedding"
Washington Heights resident and performance participant Elizabeth Lorris-Ritter said she was struck by the space left by the token booths when the MTA removed the stalls, thinking they left a “natural space” for live theater, and mentioned it to the troupe.
“When I saw the bare spots where the booths used to be, I thought they’d be a perfect location for a short play, with a captive audience built right in,” she said.
From there, UP Theater took the reins.
The theater company's mission is to "bring serious, professional theater to Northern Manhattan."
"We’re doing it to, in a fun way, raise awareness that these booths are gone and we feel that they were very important to the safety of the station,” Higgins said. “We just wanted to in a fun way raise awareness of that and bring it to people’s attention."
