He really is sorry for the unavoidable delay.
Charlie Pellett, a Bloomberg Radio news anchor and reporter who is the voice behind the "Stand Clear of the Closing Doors" announcement, may send you into conniptions every time you hear his voice inside your subway train, but in real life, he seems impossible to get mad at.
"I'm a friendly guy, I mean it in the nicest way: I'm sorry if you're stuck on the train. I literally share your pain, because I'm probably on that same train, wondering, 'am I going to get to work on time?'" Pellett says in a video posted by The New Yorker of their interview with the man who can be heard over the MTA's subway speakers hundreds of times a day.
In the video, Pellett states that Bloomberg coworkers who traveled to London in the 90s were so enamored of the London Tube announcements that they hoped to bring the same pleasant clarity to their own system with the unveiling the R142A subway cars.
"Somebody knew somebody at Bloomberg, somebody knew somebody at the Transit Authority," Pellett said in another interview, explaining how he got the gig. "Everyone has their 15 minutes of fame. I've had 11 years. By New York standards, that's pretty impressive."
While there's no mention of the MTA's tests with shortening Pellett's famous phrase in the video, the radio man is still chuffed to be a part of the subway system.
"It's an absolute honor to be the voice of the greatest subway system in the world, bar none," he said.
