Isaac Theil is being lauded for letting a man now identified as Garvey Dutes use his shoulder as a pillow on the subway in New York City.
Oscar Theil, also known as Isaac, is 65. He was on his way home to the Kensington neighborhood in Brooklyn on the Q train last week when a stranger began sleeping on his shoulder.
When another rider asked if Theil wanted help waking the stranger, Theil responded: “He had a long day so let him sleep.”
“We’ve all been there,” he added.
The rider took a quick picture of the scene and posted it on Reddit, sparking the sensation. It has gotten over 1.3 million likes and 172,000 shares on Facebook.
“Maybe the photo wouldn’t have become so popular if people weren’t seeing a Jewish man with a yarmulke and a black man in a hood, and because they might not necessarily correlate the two,” Theil told Tablet. “But there is only one reason that I didn’t move, and let him continue sleeping, and that has nothing to do with race. He was simply a human being who was exhausted, and I knew it and happened to be there and have a big shoulder to offer him.”
“I would love for people to use this as a lesson to just be good to each other,” Theil added.
Now Garvey Dutes, an actor and a model, said that he’s the man who was sleeping.
“This is me, I was not on drugs,” he said on Facebook. “I came from a long day,very tired and I nodded off on this random guy. I actually remember falling asleep, haha thank you and god bless to that man who let me sleep.”
He said that he’s reuniting with Theil for an update.
