Every day this week, there’s been a colossal scrum at the top of the stairs heading down to the subways beneath Grand Central, as a busted escalator has forced more people onto the up staircase.

Adding insult to injury, I spied a black and yellow MTA service flyer in the broken escalator today. Escalator will be fixed by October 31, it reads. Halloween’s over, folks.

So it was a general state of anxiety approaching the subways this morning, compounded by a guy further jamming up the turnstile area by repeated failing to properly run his Metrocard through the reader.

“Try it the other way!” shouted his female companion from the other side of the turnstile. Is there another way?

But the agita was assuaged (awesome alliteration, eh?) by the sounds of flamenco-infused rock and roll filling the subway area. A long-haired Latino named Geovanni Suquillo, aided by a small amplifier, was noodling through the solo in “Sultans of Swing”–fittingly enough, a song about virtuosos playing in underground dives–on his acoustic guitar.

It was worth slowing down for, if only for a minute.