Bzzz! What's making people's hair stand up at 41st and Seventh in Times Square?
Aug. 13, 2025, 11:50 a.m.
Con Ed says it didn't find anything unusual. The MTA says it has no info. And experts are curious but confused.
A shocking phenomenon in Times Square has captured New Yorkers' attention.
Steps away from the New Amsterdam Theatre’s back entrance at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue, something seems to be causing people’s hair to stick straight up, as if charged with static electricity.
"New Yorkers, what's going on?" asks @beccabassbone in a TikTok video posted late last month, where she points to a photo of a woman whose hair sticks out in all directions as she passes through the area.
Users flooded the video's comment section with their own photos and stories of times they'd observed the phenomenon at the very same spot. One said they saw it happen as far back as 2014. Some speculated as to what could be causing it, while others wondered whether it was dangerous.
A hair-raising discovery
Niles Sams, a resident of Englewood, New Jersey, works as a watchmaker at Rockefeller Center and told Gothamist he’s walked through the area every day for two-and-a-half years. He said he started noticing people’s hair sticking up at that spot early on, and decided to take a picture of it last May.
”That particular day, it was more or less like confirmation for me,” he said. “It’s like a certain grate or area on that block where if people walk by with long hair, immediately, like almost without fail — their hair automatically goes and is all frizzy.”
@beccabassbone20 #greenscreen #americaneagle #timessquarenyc #staticelectricity #crazyhair ♬ original sound - beccabassbone
Sams said he started avoiding the area shortly after noticing the pattern.
“When I walked by it, I could kind of feel some type of — I don't know what, how even to describe it, like a buzzing,” he said. “It’s at least notable for me 'cause I just don't like that feeling. So I intentionally try to avoid that side of the street.”
TikTok user Rebecca Nelson said she experienced a similar feeling this June while walking over the same subway ventilation grate on the street's north side.
“I felt a really sharp stinging feeling on my nose and I thought it was a bee, so I tried to swat it away and there wasn't anything there, so l kind of paused and that's when I realized that all my hair was standing up,” she told Gothamist in a message exchange. “I kept walking and when I stepped off the grate onto the concrete the stinging sensation went away and my hair started falling back into place.”
Nelson said she reported the incident to 311.
Gothamist recently visited the area twice to witness the phenomenon in person. The busy intersection is in one of the busiest parts of the city, with dozens of people crossing it every minute, including meandering tourists, Broadway showgoers and commuters on their way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
It didn’t happen to every single person — but it happened. Every now and again, a passerby’s hair would go straight up as they walked on the north side of the street, especially as they crossed the subway vents located there, just as Sams and Nelson described.
Officials have no answers — experts speculate
An MTA spokesperson said the agency was not aware of the phenomenon and said it had no further comment. City Hall did not return a request for comment.
But Con Edison was apparently curious. A spokesperson said the company sent crews to the location to investigate, but confirmed no stray voltage was detected in the area.
The mystery continues.
Gothamist searched for experts in the field and found the aptly named Electrostatic Answers, a Fairport-based company founded by engineer Kelly Robinson to solve static electricity problems in industrial manufacturing operations.
Robinson watched the video of the walkers’ hair sticking up. He said it’s unusual to see static electricity on an open street, and it would be hard to know why it’s happening there without a detailed investigation.
Science corner — What is static?
But Robinson did offer some broad strokes on how static electricity affects hair. Everything in the universe, as you might remember from middle school science class, is made up of atoms, which are in turn made up of protons, electrons and neutrons. Most of the time, there’s an equal number of electrons and protons, so the charge of those atoms is neutral. Static electricity happens when there’s an imbalance of positive and negative charges in an object, usually from two objects rubbing together — like when you walk across carpet on a cold winter day, or rub a balloon on your head and it sticks.
“ That rubber, when it rubs on human hair, the balloon accepts electrons. So you're putting negative charge on the balloon, and it turns out your hair gives up electrons so your hair becomes positively charged and the balloon becomes negatively charged,” Robinson said. “Those two opposite charges attract and stick to each other. So that's how balloons stick to your head.”
Right … so back to Times Square.
Dave Maiullo, a physics support specialist at Rutgers University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, said it’s unlikely people are becoming statically charged just from walking across pavement.
“ I doubt it — it doesn't make a lot of sense,” he said. “So there must be a cause of static charge environmentally somewhere localized right there. What's unusual though is that static charge usually doesn't really collect on humid days. It dissipates very quickly from the body when it's humid and wet out.”
Robinson agreed with Maiullo that a “charged up” object near the spot where people’s hair is raised is the most likely culprit — though it's difficult to know what that object is without special equipment. It could be a billboard, construction equipment or something else.
“ If there's a ventilation system that's right there where there's a lot of — maybe a belt rubbing over something else and that's expelling its air right onto the street right there that might be filled with enough static to actually cause something like this,” Maiullo said.
Robinson said the static electricity observed in the video is likely not hazardous to human health, but he expressed concern about the possibility of a static spark occurring near flammable liquid in the area.
“ If there happens to be a flammable liquid, if someone has a cigarette lighter or has spilled hand sanitizer that has alcohol on them so that there a flammable vapor present, these fields are easy enough to ignite a flammable vapor and cause a burn, a fire, cause a burn injury,” he said.
But both Maiullo and Robinson said it is extremely unlikely that the static itself would create a large enough spark to cause injury.
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