If you look at the bench you can see aside from the ghoulish “handles” it is perfectly shaped for laying down on. It looks as if who ever made it wanted to rub in the fact that people are not allowed to lay on it.
Nah, I'm almost positive that those handles were welded on after the fact. A lot of these types of obstacles get tacked onto existing architecture to make "unauthorized" use of that architecture harder or impossible - the fact that they usually make it hard or impossible for other segments of the population to use them NORMALLY (like obese people or disabled people who might need more space to get up and down for whatever reason) is only an afterthought at best.