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New Yorkers hunt for man dubbed ‘The L Train Nazi’ who was caught drawing hate slogans on the subway
(New York Jewish Week) — While waiting for the L train at Union Square one Sunday earlier this month, a commuter named Liz spotted something — or rather someone — whose doings had bedeviled her and a few other New Yorkers for more than a year: A white man, wearing a leather jacket and a black hoodie, scrawling a neo-Nazi slogan in black marker on a support beam.
Liz snapped the man’s photo but he quickly ran away. Since then, she and other activists in the city have been searching for the man, whom they have dubbed “The L Train Nazi.” His graffiti of choice appears to be the number “1488,” a neo-Nazi code recognized as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.
“I actually saw someone doodling on the support column,” Liz told the New York Jewish Week. “Sure enough, he was writing ‘1488.’ I was like, ‘get some pictures.’ He looked at me and tried to ignore it [me] and act like nothing happened.”
Liz, like some other activists who spoke to the New York Jewish Week for this article, declined to give her full name or divulge many details about herself, for fear of being harmed by the same white supremacists she has spent the past few years trying to expose. As an anti-far-right activist, Liz said she has attended multiple far-right and neo-Nazi events in cities across the northeast. At these events, she said she has physically confronted rally-goers and has been arrested two times.
BREAKING: ‘L Train Nazi’ Caught in the Act
For years, people have been reporting typographically similar ‘1488’ tags (a Nazi slogan: https://t.co/mlPBKKSDWW) in the subway, most often along the L line.
As a result, the tagger was dubbed ‘the L train Nazi.’ pic.twitter.com/ssNnYaTzDC
— Talia Jane (@taliaotg) February 8, 2023
The recent encounter on the L train platform, Liz said, didn’t escalate into violence. “He didn’t want to get an assault charge, and I didn’t want to get an assault charge,” she said. “He stormed off and I forwarded the pictures.”
The number 1488, in neo-Nazi speak, stands for two separate things: The 14 stands for a 14-word white supremacist creed — “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” — and 88 stands for “Heil Hitler,” as “h” is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
Beginning in November 2021, other Twitter users had taken photos of similar graffiti at subway stations on the L and M lines in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. This isn’t the first time hate symbols have plagued the L train: two trains were removed from the line in 2019 after MTA officials discovered anti-Nazi stickers (which nonetheless partially displayed swastikas) on the train.
Talia Jane, a Brooklyn-based freelance reporter of Jewish descent, collated some of the photos into a Twitter thread following Liz’s interactions. The tweets have been shared 1,300 times in the week since she posted them. The photos of the suspected “L Train Nazi” have been viewed nearly 800,000 times.
“People began to notice similar tags of a similar marker and similar handwriting style,” Jane told the New York Jewish Week. “It became assumed that there was one person behind these recurring tags.”
When asked by this reporter about the graffiti, the New York Police Department said “there is nothing on file” about these markings.
MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults told the New York Jewish Week in an emailed statement that “there is no place for acts of hate of any kind, including anti-Semitic vandalism, in the subway system.”
“When observed, offensive materials are rapidly removed,” Shults said. “The MTA continues to be at the forefront of public service campaigns that promote respect and tolerance for all riders.”
Efforts to find the person behind the graffiti have been coalescing offline as well. Elsa Waithe, 34, a comedian from East New York, first spotted the “1488” graffiti in November 2021 at the L train Livonia stop. Waithe covered it with a sticker, but kept seeing similar graffiti nearby. Now, Waithe is putting up flyers at stations across the L line that say “#SubwayNazi” and display the man’s face.
“Be on the lookout,” the flyer reads. “This man was recently caught writing Nazi tags in NYC subways.”
“I personally plan to put these posters up every weekend, at least for a month or two, just so he knows that people know him now,” Waithe told the New York Jewish Week. “My friend asked me what I was doing. I said, ‘Essentially, Nazi-hunting.’”
Waithe said they made it their “mission” to always cover up the “1488” tags with a sticker, but noticed that others began posting pictures of the tag at stations approaching Manhattan — including Myrtle-Wycoff, Grand Street and eventually Union Square.
Just left the Livonia L trains station and it looks like the same asshole from before has left another 1488 on the stairs. I’ll return after work to cover it up but if someone can get to it before me that would be nice. It’s on the Manhattan bound side. pic.twitter.com/bCpWBJTxnE
— Harriet Thugman (@elsajustelsa) November 15, 2021
“He was putting them in very obvious places,” Waithe said. “Livonia is right next to public housing. This is a Black neighborhood. It pissed me off that someone would threaten the community. That’s what this is, a threat.”
Waithe feels that coded numbers such as 1488 and 1352, a racist anti-Black slogan, allow the perpetrator to hide Nazi messaging in plain sight.
“If he had put a swastika, we all know what that is,” Waithe said. “This is just a coded swastika. It’s the same exact thing, it’s just not as widely known, so he can put it and be discreet, or say it means something else. There is some plausible deniability.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, New York State ranked seventh nationally in the number of white supremacist propaganda incidents in 2021.
“No one wants a Nazi in their neighborhood,” Waithe said. “We all ride this train, we all live in this city. Is there a network [of activists]? No. It’s just concerned citizens.”
Sophie Ellman-Golan, spokesperson for the Jewish progressive group Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, commended the efforts of the people who are keeping “tabs on the subway Nazi.”
“This particular Nazi has spent years trying to make Jews, Black people and all marginalized groups feel uncomfortable and unwelcome on the subway,” Ellman-Golan told the New York Jewish Week. “But it’s Nazis who should feel uncomfortable and unwelcome — on the subway and in our city and state.”
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Trump Says Gas Prices May Remain High Through November Midterm Election
U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters while Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on, as they attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the price of oil and gasoline may remain high through November’s midterm elections, a rare acknowledgement of the potential political fallout from his decision to attack Iran six weeks ago.
“It could be, or the same, or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same,” Trump, who is in Miami for the weekend, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” when asked whether the cost of oil and gas would be lower by the fall.
The average price for regular gas at US service stations has exceeded $4 per gallon for most of April, according to data from GasBuddy. Trump’s comments on Sunday came after weeks of asserting that the spike in prices is a short-term phenomenon, though his top advisers are cognizant of the war’s economic impacts, officials have said.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump announced on social media that the US Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz and intercept any ship that paid a crossing fee to Iran, after marathon talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan over the weekend did not yield a peace deal.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Any US blockade is likely to add more uncertainty to the eventual resolution of the conflict, which is currently subject to a tenuous two-week ceasefire. The new tactic is in response to Iran’s own closure of the strait’s critical shipping lanes, which has caused global oil prices to skyrocket about 50%.
UNPOPULAR WAR HITS TRUMP’S APPROVAL
The war began on February 28, when the US launched a joint bombing campaign with Israel against Iran. The scope quickly expanded as Iran and its allies attacked nearby countries, while Israel targeted Hezbollah with massive strikes in Lebanon.
The war has buffeted global financial markets and caused thousands of civilian deaths, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
Trump’s political standing at home has suffered, with polls showing the war is unpopular among most Americans, who are frustrated by rising gasoline prices.
The president’s approval rating has hit the lowest levels of his second term in office, raising concern among Republicans that his party is poised to lose control of Congress in the midterm elections. A Democratic majority in either chamber could launch investigations into the Trump administration while blocking much of his legislative agenda.
US Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned the strategy behind Trump’s planned blockade.
“I don’t understand how blockading the strait is going to somehow push the Iranians into opening it,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
In a separate appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Warner said the blockade would not undermine Iranian control of the waterway.
“The Iranians have hundreds of speedboats where they can still mine the strait or put bombs against tankers in closing the strait,” he said. “How is that going to ever bring down gas prices?”
Although Trump has repeatedly said that the war would be over soon, Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday that achieving US aims in Iran “could take a long time.”
“It’s going to be a long-term project,” said Johnson, who was not asked about Trump’s proposed blockade. “I never thought this would be easy.”
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Israel’s Ben-Gvir Visits Flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir walks inside the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS
Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Sunday, saying he was seeking greater access for Jewish worshipers and drawing condemnation from Jordan and the Palestinians.
The compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City is one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East. Known to Jews as Temple Mount, it is the most sacred site in Judaism and is Islam’s third-holiest site.
Under a delicate, decades-old arrangement with Muslim authorities, it is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and Jews can visit but may not pray there.
Suggestions that Israel would alter the rules have sparked outrage among Muslims and ignited violence in the past.
“Today, I feel like the owner here,” National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said in a video filmed at the site and distributed by his office. “There is still more to do, more to improve. I keep pushing the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to do more and more — we must keep rising higher and higher.”
A statement from the Jordanian foreign ministry said it considered Ben-Gvir’s visit to be a violation of the status quo agreement at the site and “a desecration of its sanctity, a condemnable escalation and an unacceptable provocation.”
The office of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said such actions could further destabilize the region.
Ben-Gvir’s spokesman said the minister was seeking greater access and prayer permits for Jewish visitors. He also said that Ben-Gvir had prayed at the site.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Previous such visits and statements by Ben-Gvir have prompted Netanyahu announcements saying that there is no change in Israel’s policy of keeping the status quo.
Muslim, Christian and Jewish sites, including Al-Aqsa had been largely closed to the public during the Iran war. There was no immediate sign of unrest on Sunday after Ben-Gvir’s visit.
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Netanyahu Visits Troops Fighting Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Aug. 10, 2025. Photo: ABIR SULTAN/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon on Sunday as military operations against Hezbollah-linked targets continue.
Netanyahu toured forward positions alongside Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, Eyal Zamir, and Northern Command Commander Rafi Milo, meeting troops and receiving operational briefings from commanders on the ground.
Speaking to soldiers, Netanyahu praised their performance and said operations in the Lebanese security zone were ongoing.
“The war continues, including within the security zone in Lebanon,” he said, adding that Israeli forces were working to prevent infiltration attempts and neutralize threats such as anti-tank fire and missiles.
He described the northern campaign as part of a broader regional struggle involving Iran and its allies, saying Israel’s adversaries were now “fighting for their survival” following sustained Israeli military pressure.