This week's Riverdale Review and Bronx Press

Here are the stories in this week's issue (November 29 - December 5) of the Riverdale Review:

Selfhelp, a nonprofit organization, wants to redevelop
this service station at 6469 Broadway

* Housing, commercial space planned for gas station > A North Riverdale gas station will be completely razed to make way for a new multi-story, mixed-use development comprised of senior housing and commercial space. The Riverdale Review can reveal that nonprofit organization Selfhelp Community Services Inc. has submitted plans to redevelop the Prime has station site located at 6469 Broadway. Filings submitted to the New York Stat Department of Environmental Conservation show the group has proposed a building with up to 95 units of senior housing on the 17,424-square-foot site. Under the plan, the project will boast up to 28 parking spaces and up to 12,000 square feet of "community facility space."

* RKA high school records slight dip on latest progress report card > Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy's high school earned a B on this year's school progress report--a drop of one letter grade. The annual evaluation, released by the Department of Education on Monday afternoon, reveals H.S 141 racked up to 69.2 points out of a possible 100--down from its score of 73.9 in 2011. The local high school has registered an A grade for the past three consecutive years. But RKA principal Lori O'Mara said the high school was on the way up and insisted there were glimmers of hope. She also noted the school missed out on an A grade by just 0.8 points.

* City to apply popular tax break on next property bills > Local co-op and condo owners will continue to reap the benefits of an expired $430 million property tax break even though Albany lawmakers have yet to renew the scheme officially. City officials have confirmed they will retroactively apply the popular Cooperative and Condominium Tax Abatement in the next round of tax bills in the hope that an accord is struck.

Police remove the body of Eric Martinez from the tracks

* Man struck and killed by train > A man jumped to his death on Thanksgiving morning by leaping in front of a moving No. 1 train, authorities said. Police said Eric Martinez, 26 of Manhattan, was struck by a southbound No. 1 train at the 231st Street station in Kingsbridge early last Thursday. Commanding officer of the 50th Precinct Captain Kevin Burke said the man's lifeless body was discovered around 6:30 a.m., roughly two cars length south of the platform. "We suspect he was struck by an earlier train," he said.

* Riverdale building on HHP remains without gas following leak > More than 50 residents of 3616 Henry Hudson Parkway have been without gas service after a fire started on the fifth floor of their apartment building last week. According to Con Edison, building staff at the Algiers reported a possible gas leak on the south side of the complex on November 20 at 8:33 p.m.

* Mayor proposes $4.5 million NYPL funding cut > Weekend library service may be slashed, up to 50 full-time employees could be laid off and fewer library books may be purchased if new mid-year budget cuts transpire. Under a revised budget released by Mayor Michael Bloomberg earlier this month, the New York Public Library could see their funding axed by $4.5 million in fiscal year 2013.

* Congregation Tehillah rabbi feted in two-day tribute > Song of praise is one translation of the Hebrew word 'tehillah,' and when Riverdale's Congregation Tehillah honored Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn this month, they sang a song of praise that started Friday evening and continued until late the following night. Shriner-Cahn has been Tehillah's spiritual leader for several years. But members felt it was time for an official installation, a way to offer gratitude and tributes. Two Shabbat services and a Saturday night concert event were dedicated to the celebration.

* Verizon breaking ground here for FiOS > Verizon has begun installing an underground conduit system for cabling that will bring the much-anticipated FiOS to Riverdale by spring. The initial stage of work, evidenced by a long ditch in the road on West 239th Street near Blackstone Avenue, should be done by the end of the week, according to Verizon spokesman John J. Bonomo. But additional work will continue through January.

* Bronx woman dies on vacation > A local woman died while on vacation after she was denied seats on three separate New York-bound flights because of her size. Vilma Soltesz, who was 425 pounds with only one leg, was vacationing in Hungary with her husband Janos--on a trip they take almost every year. The couple, who live at Van Cortlandt Park South, planned to fly back to New York on October 15 so Soltesz could continue her medical treatment.

* Local resident oozes zeal for ice hockey > Many locals are excited about transforming the Kingsbridge Armory into a nine-rink national ice center, but no one is more enthusiastic than Jim Breidenbach. A Riverdale resident for 53 years, Breidenbach believes that the ice rink facility could be "just what the doctor ordered" for the community and for hockey enthusiasts like him.

Also, in the Bronx Press:

* Black Friday horror after teen found strangled in Hunts Point > A popular teenager was strangled and left for dead in the hallway of a Hunts Point building just hours after she celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with relatives. Police were called to 632 Barretto Street at just after 8 a.m. on Friday, November 23. Family members said Destiny Sanchez was semiconscious when found by her brother in the hallway of the three-family home.

* Carrion lags in Quinnipiac poll > Former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion has a lot of work to do if he wants to be elected the next mayor of New York. In a new Quinnipiac poll released last week, only 11 percent of voters said they would vote for Carrion compared to 62 percent who would vote for the opposing Democratic candidate. Though he may be the only Hispanic in the race, the poll reported that only 12 percent of Hispanic voters would choose him.

MTA releases first-ever Late Night Map

Although the map won't be accessible to everyone--the MTA is releasing it first in a collectible series--here is a Late Night Map, perfect for when you have to find your way back to the Bronx from Brooklyn.

You can download a PDF of the map at the MTA website.

The map shows the scheduled overnight service of the subway system, when three subway lines don’t run, three lines become shuttle trains, six express trains run as locals, and a night-only shuttle appears. The map has a gray background color to prevent confusion with the normal subway map.

The New York City Subway is the only large subway or metro system in the world to maintain service to all its stations around the clock. The overnight service shown in the night map runs generally from midnight to 6 a.m., although certain lines’ overnight service patterns depicted in the map may begin or end slightly earlier or later than these times.

The MTA has printed 25,000 copies of the map in tandem with its normal press run of a million copies of the standard subway and railroad map. The night map is available free of charge while supplies last at the New York Transit Museum, at Boerum Place & Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn, and at the Transit Museum Annex in Grand Central Terminal.

The night map, developed in-house by the MTA, is the same size as the standard map and similarly folds into a handy pocket-sized document. In addition to the folded version, 300 pristine, unfolded press sheets of the night map are available for purchase at the Transit Museum Annex for $20 each.

“The standard subway map depicts morning to evening weekday service,” said MTA Chairman Joseph J. Lhota. “This companion night map will, for the first time, depict service for a particular portion of the day. This is the latest effort we’ve taken to improve the availability of information and detail we provide to our customers.”

The following details the major differences in service shown on the night map, as compared with the standard subway map:

·         Three subway lines (the B, C and Z) and the 42^nd Street Shuttle do not operate overnight and are not shown on the map.

·         Five subway lines offer shorter service than usual:

o   The 3 terminates at Times Square.

o   The 5 runs as a shuttle in the Bronx between E. 180 St and Dyre Av

o   The M runs as a shuttle between Myrtle Av, Brooklyn, and Metropolitan Av, Queens.

o   The Q terminates at 57 St/7 Av in Midtown Manhattan.

o   The R runs as a shuttle in Brooklyn between 36 St and 95 St.

·         Six lines make additional stops they don’t make during the daytime.

o   The 2 makes all local stops in Manhattan.

o   The 4 makes all local stops in Manhattan and Brooklyn and is extended to New Lots Av, Brooklyn.

o   The A makes all local stops in Manhattan and Brooklyn; it runs to Far Rockaway but not Lefferts Blvd or Rockaway Park, which are served by shuttle trains.

o   The D runs local via Fourth Av in Brooklyn.

o   The E runs local via Queens Blvd.

o   The N runs local via the Financial District.

·         There is no skip/stop service on the J, which terminates at Chambers St on weekend overnight periods

·         Six subway lines (the 1, 6, 7, F, G, and L) and Franklin Avenue Shuttle run their normal routes as local trains. (There is no 6 or 7 express service.)

The 'Lost Subways' of the Bronx

The Bronx has two 'lost subways.'

The MTA had plans for much greater subway lines, but ultimately ran out of money to complete some of them. Included in that are two in the Bronx. The first was the extension of the D Train, which would have continued beyond Norwood all the way to Eastchester, ending at Boston Road and Baychester Avenue. The second was more complicated, having the 2nd Ave. Subway split into two, with one line running all the way to Throgs Neck and another cutting right up the middle of the borough within the right-of-way of the Metro North to Wakefield.

Check out the map at WNYC to see the two Bronx lines and all the other lost routes. Here is a screenshot of the Bronx, where you can see the two extended lines, in orange and light blue.

Poor 1 Train, still left all alone in the west.

MTA Service for Thanksgiving Weekend

If you manage to get through the possible school bus strike next week, expect to be rewarded with increased MTA service for Black Friday and the weekend.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) services will operate on special schedules on Wednesday, Nov. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 27, in honor of the Thanksgiving weekend.

New York City Subways and Buses

MTA buses and subways will operate on a Sunday schedule on Thanksgiving Day. On Black Friday, service will operate on a weekday schedule with some exceptions.  The closest subway stations to the start of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade are the 1 at 79th Street and the B, C, at 81st Street. Selected north and southbound A and D trains will operate as locals and extra trains will be made available as needed. There will be additional service on the 42nd Street S shuttle as well as increased early morning service on the 1 line. A number of bus routes will be impacted by the parade.

Long Island Rail Road 

The LIRR will operate additional trains on Wednesday, Nov. 23, and on Thanksgiving. Off-peak fares will be in effect for the entire four-day holiday weekend. On Black Friday, Nov. 25, traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year, the LIRR will run a full weekday train schedule even though off-peak fares will be in effect all day. 

Metro-North Railroad 

MTA Metro-North Railroad will operate extra trains on Wednesday, Nov. 23, departing Grand Central beginning at 1 p.m. On Thanksgiving Day, Metro-North will operate a holiday schedule with extra AM inbound service for those going to see the Macy’s Parade, and extra late morning and early afternoon outbound service. And for the first time this year, Metro-North is providing train service to a popular annual five-mile road race in Southport, Conn., on Thanksgiving morning.

On Black Friday, Metro-North will operate a Saturday schedule with a lot of extra service during the AM and PM peaks. Metro-North is also operating weekend Shoppers’ Specials service on the New Haven Line and Hudson Line from Nov. 19 to Dec. 17.

West of the Hudson River, bus service has replaced Port Jervis Line trains between Suffern and Harriman. Shoppers’ traffic jams around the Woodbury Common outlet center mean Metro-North is allowing more time in the Port Jervis Line bus schedule to ensure that buses make their train connections in Ramsey/Route 17.

Off-peak fares will be in effect for the entire four-day holiday weekend.

Staten Island Railway 

Staten Island customers looking to get a head start on their holiday weekend will be able to catch earlier afternoon express train service on Wednesday, Nov. 23, with extra SIR trains added earlier in the afternoon beginning at 2:31 p.m. from the St. George Ferry Terminal. There will be one express train and one local train awaiting every boat until 7:50 p.m.

On Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24, SIR will operate a Sunday schedule, while on Friday, Nov. 25, trains will run on a regular weekday schedule.

MTA Bridges and Tunnels

To ease travel for its customers this Thanksgiving, routine maintenance and temporary construction work at all MTA Bridges and Tunnels crossings will be suspended beginning Noon on Wednesday, Nov. 23, until early Monday morning, Nov. 28.

Two miserable Bronx subway stations slated for fix-up

A story from this week's Bronx Press.

By Brendan McHugh 

Two of the city’s worst subways are getting a makeover.

After months of advocacy by the borough president and two Bronxites on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, the 149th St./Grand Concourse and 138th St./3rd Ave. subway stations will undergo major renovations next year.

“It is time for the Bronx to receive its fair share from the MTA, and the agency's commitment to making these much-needed repairs is a major first step towards that goal," said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

The 149th St./Grand Concourse station will get a new paint job, reconstructed platform edges, special grouting to prevent leaks and ventilation repairs. Repairs to the 138th St./3rd Ave. station include the east mezzanine passageway and an interior stairway. The work should be completed by early 2013. 

Jump below for the full story.

MTA unveils The Weekender

OK, here's something new I'm trying out. Instead of uploading these documents as pictures, I wanted to try Docstoc to show you MTA's new pet project, The Weekender. Press the 'expand' button to get a better view of the document.

Launching today, this new feature of MTA.info is intended to transform the way riders navigate the subway system on weekends. It will take over the front page of MTA.info each weekend beginning this afternoon, making it easy for subway riders to visualize exactly how weekend work will affect subway service.

What appears to be the best feature of The Weekender is that it allows you to view only one line at a time, so you won't get confused with all the irrelevant information about Queens and Brooklyn. Stations impacted by service diversions are highlighted by blinking icons. Users click to choose one of three ways to view the map:

• Service by Line: Click on a subway line symbol to get a line diagram showing an overview of the line’s service changes, as well as text summaries of the changes. 
• Service by Borough: Click on a borough for text-based information about any service changes impacting a borough. 
• Service by Station: Select a station for details on any service changes impacting that station, or click on the map to zoom to a detailed area.

Supplementing the base diagram, The Weekender provides for the first time an electronic venue for the popular Neighborhood Maps that are posted inside subway stations. These maps show the precise locations of subway station entrances within the street grid, along with locations of popular area destinations.

Weekender images

 

Jump below for some quotes from MTA officials, as well as where the design's inspiration came from.

Cuomo declares state of emergency in preparation for Irene

This is the fifth hurricane named Irene since 1971, and only 1999's Irene caused considerable damage to the US ($800 million to Florida, so...yeah).

Gov. Cuomo has declared a state of emergency to prepare for the potential storm (But like I said in an earlier post: Just head to Riverdale, where Mother Nature probably has a house in Fieldston, to find shelter).

Meanwhile, the MTA--always looking to save money--released a statement relating to their service and maintenance plan for the weekend:

The MTA is actively preparing for the impact of Hurricane Irene, coordinating with the Governor's Office, Mayor's Office and regional OEMs consistent with our Hurricane Plan. We are making arrangements to bring in extra personnel over the weekend, preparing our facilities and infrastructure by clearing drains, securing work sites against possible high winds, checking and fueling equipment, stocking supplies, and establishing plans to move equipment and supplies away from low-lying areas as needed. Because of the severity of the wind and rain associated with a hurricane, there may be partial or full shut down of our services to ensure the safety of our customers and employees. The good news, however, is the above ground train stations will finally be cleaned. We haven't cleaned some of the No. 1 train stations all summer, so this is a welcome relief for us. We are also prepared to implement evacuation plans if the Mayor and Governor decide that is necessary. We urge our customers to check mta.info frequently and to consider the impacts of this storm when making travel plans through the weekend.

OK, so two of those sentences I made up. But is it that far fetched to believe?

MTA Chairman Jay Walder resigns [UPDATE]

Jay H. Walder today informed Governor Cuomo of his intention to resign his position as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority effective as of the close of business on October 21st, 2011. Walder will be joining the MTR Corporation in Hong Kong as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. The MTR is a publicly-traded company that operates rail services in Asia and Europe, and is involved in a wide range of business activities, including consulting and property development.

“I want to thank Governors Cuomo and former Governor Paterson for the honor of serving the people of New York State,” Walder said.  “The MTA’s transportation system is the foundation of the metropolitan region and we are fortunate to have thousands of dedicated men and women who work so hard to provide these critically important transportation services to millions of people each and every day.  I believe that we have accomplished quite a lot in a short period, with the support of two Governors, the Mayor, a hard-working Board and many others.”

Here's the reaction from City Councilman James Vacca, the chairman of the transportation committee:

“This resignation comes at a crucial time. A year after the worst service cuts in the MTA’s history and yet another fare and toll increase, the most serious challenges for straphangers may still lie ahead. While Chairman Walder deserves credit for taking on many structural issues that previous MTA leaders had delayed for a tomorrow that never came, the MTA continues to face a $250 million operating gap and a capital budget that runs out January 1. It’s getting harder and harder to do more with less, and the MTA needs someone at the helm not only who understands the role mass transit plays in the lives of everyday New Yorkers but who is prepared to get to work on day one.”

And a statement from Kate Slevin, Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director:

"MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder has been an effective, innovative leader. He helped restore the agency's credibility and changed the way it does business, finding billions of dollars in savings during his tenure. But his departure comes at an inopportune time. New York's regional transit system faces a capital funding gap that could be as large as $9 billion, and which needs to be addressed in the coming months. Straphangers are at risk. Governor Cuomo must quickly fill this vacancy with an effective leader who has a deep understanding of the transit system."

We'll post more reactions as they come in. [UPDATE] Check below for posts from Gov. Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg and more.

Heat shuts down subway clocks

Here's a story from Gothamist about the subway's countdown clocks, and how the heat is causing a few of them to shut down. If you notice the list, you'll see that all of them are along trains that Bronxites typically use.

Spring Street (6) Intervale (2)
Park Place (2,3)
191st Street (1)
145th Street-Lenox (3)
Clark Street (2,3)
Utica Ave (4)
Gun Hill Road (2, 5)
86th Street/Lex (4)
79th Street (1)
77th Street/Lex (6)
59th Street-Columbus Circle
145th Street (1)

Here's what the MTA told Gothamist:

“In certain subway stations, when we experience several days of hot weather, temperatures can exceed 120 degrees in the communications rooms that hold the equipment that drive the countdown clocks. We are constantly monitoring temperatures and working to install cooling systems in impacted communications rooms. We know our customers have come to rely on the “next train arrival” information and we apologize for the inconvenience and ask for their patience as we work to resolve this issue."

So I suppose as the heat continues, and gets worse tomorrow, we can expect more clocks to shut down.