Second Avenue Subway Project [Archive] - Page 2

Transic

December 7th, 2006, 02:32 PM

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/MTA_gives_11M_to_Parks_Dept_to_start_Second_Avenue _Subway_/5974.html

MTA gives $11M to Parks Dept. to start Second Avenue Subway

by patrick arden / metro new york
DEC 4, 2006

East Harlem — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will pay $11 million to the Parks Dept. for the use of a playground at 96th Street to serve as a staging area for construction of the Second Avenue Subway.

“We couldn’t build a new playground, because there isn’t any real estate available in a neighborhood like that,” said Joshua Laird, chief of planning for the Parks Dept. “So we’re fixing up other parks in the area that are going to receive more use.”

Yet the three parks getting the money — Thomas Jefferson, Marcus Garvey and Harlem River Park — are between 16 to 31 blocks away from the Marx Brothers Playground at 96th and Second.

“Why should these funds be diverted from East Harlem to another part of town?” asked Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates.

“These parks need the money — Marcus Garvey needs tens of millions of dollars,” Croft said. “But Rupert Park is only a couple of blocks away from the impacted area, and it needs capital improvements, too. The problem is there’s no formal process, or public input, for dealing with mitigation funds, so these decisions are made ad hoc.”

Mitigation agreements allow for the private use of public land, but, Croft complained, without a “transparent” protocol, the outcomes are “arbitrary.”

Take East River Park, where Con Edison construction has long delayed the planned renovation of the waterfront promenade.

Though no mitigation payment was made to the Parks Dept., the utility removed an old oil line and relocated feeders that allowed repairs to proceed. The disrupted parkland will be restored once construction is complete.

“I know that Con Edison feels strongly that when it’s doing its job of providing electric service to the citizens of New York it shouldn’t have to pay mitigation on top of that,” said Laird.

“If they’re using parkland for a commercial purpose, they should be paying mitigation,” Croft replied. “This is parkland that hasn’t been available to the public for many years. The project should have gone through state alienation legislation.”

The deal for the MTA to use Marx Brothers Playground was signed a year ago, said Laird, but it was negotiated in 2004, when the state alienated the park for a period of eight years.

But the public knew nothing of the agreement until Croft learned about it recently. Community representatives “were not at the table during negotiations,” Laird acknowledged.

“The MTA was trying to get the approvals necessary,” he said. “They had the lead in terms of taking responsibility for negotiating with the community.”

MTA?pays for playground ‘associates’

Laird noted six playgrounds will also get associates funded by the MTA for the duration of the project. “The associates are attendants, essentially someone who’s there as an overseer,” said Laird. “We thought children who normally play at the 96th Street playground were going to be displaced to other, nearby playgrounds, creating more of a burden.”

TonyO

December 14th, 2006, 12:39 PM

NY Post

PA EYES $2B 'GIFT' TO MTA
By JEREMY OLSHAN

December 14, 2006 -- The Port Authority may give the MTA $2 billion to use for either the Second Avenue Subway or the East Side Access connection linking Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal, officials said yesterday.

The gift - part of the authority's 10-year, $26 billion capital plan expected to be approved today - would match the $2 billion the agency is spending on a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, officials said.

That project will double the rail capacity of NJ Transit coming into Penn Station.

krulltime

December 14th, 2006, 02:49 PM

^ That is sweet!

Deimos

December 14th, 2006, 06:14 PM

forgive me for being a conspiracy theorist/paranoid nyer/whatever.... what does the PA get out of this? Why are they being so generous?

BPC

December 15th, 2006, 12:25 AM

Tit-fot-tat. NY and NJ both have vetoes over all PA expenditures. That means if NJ gets a dollar, NY gets a dollar. NJ now desperately needs $2B for its new Hudson River train tunnel, so in order to get it approved PA has to find some worthy receipient of an equal-sized gift on the NY side. The 2nd Avenue subway is by far the most meritorious choice.

antinimby

December 15th, 2006, 01:02 AM

I get a feeling the MTA will somehow make those 2 billion bucks go a lot less further than it should.

Transic

December 19th, 2006, 01:30 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/nyregion/19transit.html?ref=nyregion

Long Planned, Transit Projects Get U.S. Help

By WILLIAM NEUMAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=WILLIAM NEUMAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=WILLIAM NEUMAN&inline=nyt-per)
Published: December 19, 2006

After decades of planning and dreaming by officials, two major expansions of the city’s mass transit system took important steps forward yesterday, with the federal government promising to pay billions of dollars for a Long Island Rail Road connection to Grand Central Terminal and for a Second Avenue subway.

Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said final approval had been granted to allow $2.6 billion in federal funds to be spent on construction of the Long Island Rail Road link, which will give commuters on the railroad a direct ride to the east side of Manhattan. Speaking at a news conference in the main hall of Grand Central, she said it was the most money the federal government had ever committed to a mass transit project.

She said her department had also approved $693 million for the new subway on Second Avenue. In both cases, the federal money is only a portion of the total costs.

Work in Queens on the Long Island Rail Road project has already begun, and the Second Avenue work is to begin next year. Both projects are to be finished in 2013, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said.

The Long Island Rail Road project, known as East Side Access, will create a new spur from the railroad’s main line at Sunnyside that will terminate at Grand Central. In the future passengers will be able to choose between trains that go either to Grand Central or to Pennsylvania Station.

The project involves digging new tunnels in Manhattan and Queens that would connect to an existing rail tunnel under the East River, at 63rd Street. In Queens the tunnels would link up with the Long Island Rail Road tracks. Beneath Manhattan, the tunnels would head across town, turn south at Park Avenue and end about 150 feet below Grand Central, at a vast new underground concourse carved out of the rock.

Currently, the only Manhattan stop for the Long Island Rail Road is at Pennsylvania Station, on the West Side, though the railroad estimates that about half the 106,000 riders who arrive at Penn Station each morning are actually headed to the East Side. The new terminal would cut those riders’ daily commute by a total of about 40 minutes, officials said.

Officials say the East Side Access will also increase service and ease crowding on the Long Island Rail Road. By lowering the railroad’s use of tracks at Pennsylvania Station, it would reduce backups for other Long Island riders and also for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_jersey_transit/index.html?inline=nyt-org) commuters who use the station.

Planning for an East Side stop dates back at least to the mid-1960s. The 63rd Street tunnel under the East River was completed in the mid-1970s, but by then the city’s fiscal crisis had interrupted expansion plans. The double-decker tunnel has an upper set of tracks for subway trains — the F train currently uses them. A lower set of tracks in the tunnel were intended for the Long Island Rail Road but have never been used.

Plans for a subway line on Second Avenue go back even further. The transportation authority plans to build the subway in stages, with the first section running from 96th Street to 63rd Street, where it will connect with the existing tracks for the N, R and W lines.

Gaining federal funding of this magnitude is a lengthy process, often accompanied at incremental stages by announcements by eager public officials. But in the case of the Long Island rail project, yesterday’s event, at which Ms. Peters and Gov. George E. Pataki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/george_e_pataki/index.html?inline=nyt-per) signed a ceremonial letter of agreement, was the final approval.

Known as a full funding grant agreement, it reflects a commitment by the federal government to pay a specific amount, in installments, over the life of the project.

In contrast, the Second Avenue subway project is said to be some months short of such a binding commitment. In saying that her department had approved $693 million for the subway, Ms. Peters meant that she would ask Congress to appropriate that amount as a kind of down payment, so that work can begin.

Ultimately, the federal government expects to invest a total of $1.3 billion in the subway project. James S. Simpson, the administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, said his agency was confident that final approval for the full amount would come through.

The Long Island rail connector has a total budget of $6.3 billion. A majority of the $3.7 billion not supplied by the federal government will be raised through the sale of bonds by the authority and the state.

The Second Avenue project has an estimated cost of $3.8 billion. There, too, most of the $2.5 billion not covered by federal funds will be raised through borrowing.

Yesterday’s event drew a gaggle of politicians and transportation officials.

Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the transportation authority, called it “an event that started in 1968,” a reference to the early days of planning for the Long Island Rail Road connection.

Fahzee

December 20th, 2006, 12:31 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/nyregion/19transit.html?ref=nyregion

Long Planned, Transit Projects Get U.S. Help

The Second Avenue project has an estimated cost of $3.8 billion. There, too, most of the $2.5 billion not covered by federal funds will be raised through borrowing.

that 3.8 Billion for only the stretch to 96th St, correct?

Deimos

December 20th, 2006, 02:49 PM

yep.... $16+ Billion for the whole line.

Eugenious

December 20th, 2006, 04:10 PM

yep.... $16+ Billion for the whole line.

You could build a whole new city in India or China for that kind of money, just incredible.

Some things that cost 16 billion;

- Annual NASA budget
- 10 year Russian Space Program funding
- Give everyone in NYC $2000 bucks
- Amount spend on worldwide internet advertising this year
- Amount spent in ALL of IRAQ since the start of Iraq occuptaion in the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) by US
- Australia's whole air defense budget for 100 new F35 Joint Strike Fighters to replace all its f18's and f111 bombers
-the amount Pfizer expects from operations in cash in 2006
- Harrahs Casino price
- Total amount Goldman Sachs is giving out in Bonuses in 2006
- Amount the whole organic food industry is worth in US
- The amount Russia spent on its military in 2005

MrSpice

December 20th, 2006, 04:24 PM

You could build a whole new city in India or China for that kind of money, just incredible.

Some things that cost 16 billion;

- Annual NASA budget
- 10 year Russian Space Program funding
- Give everyone in NYC $2000 bucks
- Amount spend on worldwide internet advertising this year
- Amount spent in ALL of IRAQ since the start of Iraq occuptaion in the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) by US
- Australia's whole air defense budget for 100 new F35 Joint Strike Fighters to replace all its f18's and f111 bombers
-the amount Pfizer expects from operations in cash in 2006
- Harrahs Casino price
- Total amount Goldman Sachs is giving out in Bonuses in 2006
- Amount the whole organic food industry is worth in US
- The amount Russia spent on its military in 2005

One of the main reasons for such a steep cost is unionized work force, extensive legal/litigation fees and the cost of doing business here.

TimmyG

December 20th, 2006, 04:32 PM

yep.... $16+ Billion for the whole line.
This will make the cost of the Big Dig look like a bargain. I think the cost will easily top $20 billion by the time it is complete. I still think it's needed, and it might be worth even this high price. I'm glad it's getting closer to being built.

Fahzee

December 20th, 2006, 04:40 PM

I guess the property value on 2nd ave is pretty high also.

MidtownGuy

December 20th, 2006, 05:03 PM

One of the main reasons for such a steep cost is unionized work force

Union bashing is so tired. :rolleyes:

MikeW

December 20th, 2006, 06:41 PM

But not necessarily false. There are plenty of people in NYC who'd be be happy as a clam work for half what the union guys get paid. If they did the job non-union, they could probably save a couple of billion. But that wouldn't be politically correct now, would it?

Union bashing is so tired. :rolleyes:

lofter1

December 20th, 2006, 07:57 PM

There are plenty of people in NYC who'd be be happy as a clam work for half what the union guys get paid. If they did the job non-union, they could probably save a couple of billion.

But non-union work probably means no health insurance -- and if the non-union workers are earning the amount that you speak of then who covers the medical costs?

If you're uninsured then, more likely than not, the public.

In the long run it isn't really responsible to put off those costs to taxpayers in the future.

EtherealMist

December 22nd, 2006, 06:44 PM

And you have to factor in the quality of work...

lofter1

December 22nd, 2006, 10:12 PM

Most of the McSam Hotel developments use non-union workers -- which might have something to do with what is reported in this article from the Downtown Express (http://downtownexpress.com/de_189/hotelsbullishnear.html):

One property that exemplifies both the promise and the pitfalls of the Downtown hotel boom is 130 Duane St., a 45-room boutique hotel at the corner of Church and Duane Sts. The site is owned by Hersha Hospitality, a firm that works with chains like Hilton and Marriott, and was developed by prolific hotelier Sam Chang, who has also been involved with 320 Pearl St., 6 York St. and six other Downtown sites. The Duane Street Hotel, on paper, is an ideal match for its location in trendy Tribeca, just north of the W.T.C. It will offer upscale, loft-like accommodations and cater to corporate travelers, charging an average rate of $350 per night.

However, the property has been under construction for six years and is not scheduled to open until the first week of March 2007 ...

TonyO

January 25th, 2007, 10:14 AM

NY1

Exclusive: Ground Breaking For 2nd Avenue Subway Line Weeks Away

January 24, 2007

One of the most anticipated projects in city history is about to get off the ground. As NY1 Transit reporter Bobby Cuza explained in this exclusive report, the MTA has selected contractors to dig the Second Avenue subway, and ground breaking is now just weeks away.

Plans for a Second Avenue subway line have been around so long, the tunnel segments were actually built in the 70s, before funding problems forced the project back on the shelf. Now, tunneling work is about to start again.

In a few weeks, say MTA officials, they will award a $333 million contract to build what they call Phase One.

"This is real now, and it is happening,” said Mysore Nagaraja of the MTA Capital Construction Corporation. “And we are excited about it."

The line that will eventually be known as the T will be simply an extension of the Q train, at first, running from 63rd Street to 96th Street.

A consortium of three American companies submitted the winning bid for construction work: Skanska USA Civil, Schiavone Construction, and J.F. Shea Construction. They will be formally awarded the contract after a two-to-four-week vetting process.

Then construction work will begin between 96th and 92nd Streets, where a tunnel boring machine will begin drilling the new tunnels.

"We are going to be taking two to three lanes for construction,” said Nagaraja. “And we have to relocate all the utilities there first. And once the utilities are relocated, then we have to make this hole, which is about 60 or 70 feet deep. That is when the machine can be dropped in there and [we can] start assembling the machine."

Residents of the Upper East Side can expect to see construction activity not much more than a month from now.

"They've got to put up trailers, and they've got to start work,” added Nagaraja. “And I'm assuming sometime early March we'll see some construction."

Eventually, the Second Avenue subway will run all the way from 125th Street in East Harlem down to Hanover Square in the Financial District. But that's many, many years away. Phase One of the project alone is expected to take until the year 2013 to complete.

-Bobby Cuza

kliq6

January 25th, 2007, 11:50 AM

this sounds promising, will make UES life better

Eugenious

January 25th, 2007, 11:32 PM

this sounds promising, will make UES life better

LOL....

its going to be at least 10-15 yrs until you see the whole line completed if ever

antinimby

January 25th, 2007, 11:35 PM

15 years is still to optimistic.

By the time the line gets all the way down to Hanover Square (if it even gets there), subways might be unnecessary as some other mode of transportation will probably be in use by then. :D

ablarc

January 25th, 2007, 11:43 PM

Madrid Metro's president, Mr Manuel Melis, told IRJ in Madrid that construction had gone according to plan, though he admitted that the timescale could have been even shorter than originally planned. He said: "We completed everything on time and within budget In fact, we could have finished six months earlier because we were too conservative in our planning. Tunnel construction on the bored sections, using three boring machines, went faster than we expected. In retrospect, we could have saved time by using the same tunnelling method on the southern section, which was constructed using the cut-and-cover method."

Melis is a strong proponent of a cheap and efficient construction process, and he has put his philosophy into practice in Madrid, where the entire cost of the 1999-2003 metro development programme amounted to [euro]3.16 billion. These projects, incorporating Metrosur and the Line 10 extension, included planning, civil works, electrical and mechanical installations, interchanges, maintenance facilities, and rolling stock at an average cost of [euro]42 million/km.

Previous projects have been undertaken successfully on the same basis, as Melis explained last year in an article on project management (IRJ Rail Outlook 2002 p16). He said on that occasion: "I believe that rail transport projects are simple engineering projects, easy to design and build, and, with the appropriate staff and management techniques, they can easily be completed on time and within budget I refer particularly to those Madrid Metro projects where completion dates have not only been met, but have been beaten by several years in comparison with similar projects elsewhere."

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQQ/is_5_43/ai_102286983/pg_1

Fahzee

March 5th, 2007, 12:26 PM

NY POST
By JEREMY OLSHAN Transit Reporter

March 5, 2007 -- The second groundbreaking of the Second Avenue subway is only weeks away, MTA officials say.
"It's been in the planning for the last 60 years, but it's going to happen in the next few weeks," said Mysore Nagaraja, head of MTA Capital Construction.
The first groundbreaking on the project, in the works since 1929, occurred at the corner of East 103rd Street nearly 35 years ago.
The MTA completed several sections of the tunnels, but by 1975, the city's fiscal crisis derailed the project.
All the while, the need for the project has never been in question - the East Side's Lexington Avenue line has long been crammed beyond capacity.
The new subway, which extends the Q line and creates a T line, will be completed in four phases.
Phase One will run from 96th Street down to 63rd Street, where it will connect to the Q line.
This segment, which includes stops at 86th and 72nd streets, will cost $3.8 billion and is scheduled to be completed in 2013. It will be used by an estimated 191,000 riders daily.
The MTA is about to accept the low bid for the tunneling of the first phase, and expects to sign a full funding grant agreement with the federal government shortly.
Phase Two will run from 125th Street through the vacant 1970s tunnels before connecting to 96th Street. Phase Three will run down to Houston Street, and the last leg will go all the way to Hanover Square in lower Manhattan.
Before the tunneling can start, the gas, water, sewer, electric and communications lines that run under the street will have to be either supported or moved out of the way, Nagaraja said. This should take roughly eight months.
The tunneling should take just over a year, Nagaraja said. All the while, the MTA will be monitoring the vibrations so as not to disturb those above ground.
The MTA has already spent $266 million on the design and planning of the new subway.
Longtime residents and officials on the Upper East Side say the MTA has answered many of the concerns about the construction project.
"This is a case of be careful what you wish for. We've wanted this subway for so long, but now we have to deal with some of the consequences of getting it," said David Liston, chairman of Community Board 8.

Eugenious

March 5th, 2007, 12:45 PM

NY POST
By JEREMY OLSHAN Transit Reporter

March 5, 2007 -
"It's been in the planning for the last 60 years, but it's going to happen in the next few weeks," said Mysore Nagaraja, head of MTA Capital Construction.

Every time they start talking like this I have a bad feeling in my stomach. Why can't they just shut up and start the job, how many times can you give these interviews and say the same thing? yes we know that this has been planning for 60 yrs and if you dont start work soon it'll be 70 yrs soon. Just shut up and dig the tunnel.

"This is a case of be careful what you wish for. We've wanted this subway for so long, but now we have to deal with some of the consequences of getting it," said David Liston, chairman of Community Board 8.

What a dumb #$$%, these people are such imbeciles I mean they are the ones who will benefit from this the most yet they are afraid of minor inconveniences! Unbelievable.

mkeit

March 5th, 2007, 02:32 PM

A six-block long hole is not a " minor inconvenience". Tunnelling is very noisy and the shaft operations will go on 24 hours a day, at least 6 days a week.

Eugenious

March 5th, 2007, 04:46 PM

A six-block long hole is not a " minor inconvenience". Tunnelling is very noisy and the shaft operations will go on 24 hours a day, at least 6 days a week.

So buy earplugs. Every neighborhood in Manhattan has noisy construction sites, it's something you have to deal with when living in a big city.

Fahzee

March 5th, 2007, 05:11 PM

^^^ agreed. Afterall - this is Horizontal construction, not vertical

the actual drilling is only supposed to take a year - which means that there really wont be more than a month of actual drilling on any one block

And sure, people who live above or near the new subway entrances will experience a long construction period, but it my guess is that the noise and vibrations shouldn't be much of an issue once the actual drill passes by.

nycla3

March 5th, 2007, 05:25 PM

Every time they start talking like this I have a bad feeling in my stomach. Why can't they just shut up and start the job, how many times can you give these interviews and say the same thing? yes we know that this has been planning for 60 yrs and if you dont start work soon it'll be 70 yrs soon. Just shut up and dig the tunnel.

Guess they're still hunting down the original attendees of the first groundbreaking to invite them to this one.:p

http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/subwaycommencement.html

Wonder if they'll play the Star Spangled Banner at the close....

Dynamicdezzy

March 12th, 2007, 10:57 AM

MTA to sign 2nd Ave line contract
By Chuck Bennett, amNewYork Staff Writer
cbennett@am-ny.com

March 12, 2007

It's almost "T" time.

On March 29, the MTA is finally expected to sign a contract for construction of the long-awaited Second Avenue Subway, amNewYork has learned. The new line will be known as the T line.

Elliot "Lee" Sander, the MTA's new executive director, and Chairman Peter Kalikow will approve the $333 million contract for the first phase of the project that critics thought would never happen.

"All of the sudden it turned from doubtful to inevitable and nobody quite knows when it happened," Kalikow said at the last MTA board meeting.

Almost immediately after the contract is signed, construction trailers will start to line parts of Second Avenue in the East 90s, MTA officials said.

The groundbreaking ceremony, along with actual digging, is scheduled for late April or early May. The exact location has not been determined.

"I think it will be a significant event because of the history of the project," Sander said of the groundbreaking.

"It will be a real groundbreaking, we have the funding, we have the contract. We are looking forward to getting it going, it will be an historic moment for New York."

First proposed more than 80 years ago, the Second Avenue Subway was dubbed "the most famous project never built." It will be the city's first new subway line in 60 years.

This first phase will be a joint-venture among Skanska USA Civil, Schiavone Construction and J.F. Shea Construction, whose bid of $333 million was almost $20 million less than the MTA predicted.

Work on this part of the T line, which is expected to finish in 2013, will connect East 96th Street to East 63rd Street. Three new subway stations will be built during that time. By 2020, the line should run from 125th Street to Hanover Square in the Financial District.

A top Republican fundraiser for years, Kalikow and his behind-the-scenes negotiations were crucial in winning federal and state funding for the project.

An estimated 202,000 people are expected to use the T line on its first day of operation, the MTA predicted.

"We're very excited," said Charles Carrier, a spokesman for the Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), one of the project's leading advocates. "It will ensure we have a modern transportation infrastructure."

The project already went through two groundbreaking ceremonies. The first was in 1925 but work stopped in the face of the Great Depression and World War II. In 1972, Mayor John Lindsay held his own groundbreaking at 102nd Street. More of the tunnel was dug, but then work had to be abandoned during the city's fiscal crisis.

The third groundbreaking ceremony will be the charm, MTA officials said. Details are still being finalized, but one possibility is bringing dignitaries and a ceremonial pickax to one of the unfinished tunnels from the 1970s.

These days subway service on the East Side, where riders feel like sardines, is at capacity.

"The Lexington Avenue line is very overburdened," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), who represents the East Side. "It has 1.3 million riders a day, that's more than San Francisco, Boston and Chicago's [transit lines] combined."

Yorkville residents, however, better brace themselves for major construction disruptions.

Two lanes of traffic on Second Avenue between 96th Street and 92rd Street will be closed to vehicles while workers relocate utility pipes and cables, according to Mysore Nagaraja, president of MTA Capital Construction.

Then six to eight months later at 93rd Street, workers will dig a massive hole to lower a tunnel boring machine 70 feet down. All the while, trucks will be delivering supplies such as steel, timber and cement while hauling away tons and tons of dirt and rock.

Aboveground work is authorized between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. while tunneling will continue 24-7 below ground.

"We're making sure the impact is minimized, unfortunately I can't hide the construction," Nagaraja said.

Timetable of the T
2007-13: Phase 1: Three new stations, 96th, 86th and 72nd streets, with connection to Q station at 63rd Street
2014-18: Phase 2: 125th Street to 96th Street
2015-18: Phase 3: 63rd Street to Houston Street
2017-20: Phase 4: Houston Street to Hanover Square

ZippyTheChimp

March 24th, 2007, 07:47 AM

March 24, 2007

A Museum-Quality Car for a Subway Yet Unbuilt

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/24/nyregion/24subway.xlarge1.jpg
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
The last of 10 prototype cars from 1949 for the Second Avenue subway. It was clad in stainless steel, had porthole windows, and cost $100,000.

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Expectations are high for construction of the Second Avenue subway, and the futuristic new subway cars that will run on it. Made from gleaming stainless steel, the cars have a range of modern innovations: round porthole windows that would look at home on a rocket ship; high-tech air purification systems that use ultraviolet lamps to kill germs; illuminated route maps on the wall; and — incredible as it seems — public address systems that make clear, intelligible announcements.

Sound pretty good?

It did in 1949, too, when 10 prototype cars were delivered to the New York Board of Transportation. The board planned to run the cars on a new subway line it was just then preparing to build under Second Avenue.

Of course, the Second Avenue subway was never built, and no additional cars of the same futuristic design, known as the R11, were ever ordered.

The cars cost about $100,000 each, and together the 10 prototypes became known as the “million dollar train.” They were not built to be compatible with other cars, though, so they could not be added to most other trains. Without a line to belong to, they remained an oddity. Orphans, they kicked around the subway system, running on a few scattered lines (the Canarsie line, the Franklin Avenue shuttle) until they were retired in 1976.

Nine of the cars were scrapped.

But one of them, Car 8013, sits on display in the New York Transit Museum today in Downtown Brooklyn, an artifact of a future that never arrived.

Until now. Maybe.

This week, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the eventual successor of the transportation board, signed a $337 million contract with a company that will, if expectations become reality, dig the tunnels from 96th Street to 63rd Street for the first leg of the long-awaited Second Avenue line.

“It’s a longstanding municipal dream,” said Charles Sachs, the senior curator of the Transit Museum. “It’s been planned for at least 75 years. It’s always been a heady idea for enhancing the public transportation network in Manhattan.”

Heady but unlucky.

Plans for the Second Avenue line, first prepared in the 1920s, were revived in the 1940s, when the R11 cars were built. In 1951, voters approved a measure allowing the city to borrow $500 million for rapid transit projects, which was primarily intended for construction of the new line.

Years of fiscal difficulties and political wrangling followed, but no tunnels were ever dug. “They had very high hopes,” Mr. Sachs said of the planners who ordered the R11 cars in the expectation that they would have a line to run on. The cars themselves seem to have reflected that same optimism.

“It was a radically new design for subway cars,” Mr. Sachs said.

When a scale model of the R11 was exhibited, an August 1948 article in The New York Times called it “New York’s subway car of tomorrow.”

With its sleek stainless steel shell, the R11 car was a stark departure from the painted and riveted steel cars that preceded it. It was not until some 15 years later, in the mid-1960s, that a full line of stainless steel cars came into use, Mr. Sachs said.

A description posted at the museum says that because polio was a concern in the 1940s, officials were looking for a way to curb the spread of germs in the subway. Earlier subway cars had conventional fans mounted on the ceiling. The designers of the R11 developed a forced air system that brought in air from the outside, ran it through “electrostatic dust filters” and under ultraviolet lamps intended to kill germs, before blowing it through ceiling vents into the cars.

Another newfangled feature: fluorescent lights. The description accompanying the car said, however, that the lights were considered less than reliable and were hard to replace when they burned out.

Today only the exterior of the car looks as it did when it was new. To make maintenance easier, the cars were gutted in 1964 and renovated and rebuilt inside, with parts that were standard to other cars.

A black and white photograph that Mr. Sachs retrieved from the museum archives shows one of the cars in the days before it was gutted. The advertisements along the top of the car are for Schlitz beer, Life cigarettes, and a 1949 movie starring Loretta Young called “Come to the Stable.” A poster invites riders to “meet Miss Subways, Elaine Levine.”

Signs in the car indicate it was running from Brighton Beach in Brooklyn to Times Square. The rectangular windows on the sides of the car open with a crank. On the doors, above the porthole windows, is the admonition: “Please Keep Hands Off the Doors.” The seats are striped and upholstered in a faux wicker plastic.

On the outside, Car 8013 is almost as shiny as the day it arrived, a metallic symbol of its own bright promise.

But on the inside, the car conveys something more like dreary disappointment. The walls are two shades of a grayish, greenish blue. The fiberglass seats are hard and gray. The only sound is the buzz of the fluorescent tubes.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/24/nyregion/24subway.large3.jpg
The exterior of Car 8013 remains as gleaming and futuristic as ever, sitting in the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/24/nyregion/24subway.large2.jpg
A photograph of the R11 car before renovation, with faux wicker upholstery and ads for Life cigarettes and a Loretta Young movie.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

lofter1

March 24th, 2007, 12:21 PM

OMG ^^^ Cushioned Seats!!!

Highly unlikely that we'll ever see their likes again, but danged if that wouldn't be nice ...

nycla3

March 24th, 2007, 05:21 PM

Went to the Transit Museum today for the first time and highly recommend it. Easy to get to and very well presented and organized. The subway cars are fabulous.

http://www.mta.info/mta/museum/

Ed007Toronto

March 24th, 2007, 11:29 PM

Love the fact that its in an abandoned subway station.

spatulashack

March 29th, 2007, 05:36 PM

NY1:

Second Avenue Subway Groundbreaking Set For April 12th
March 28, 2007

It has been talked about for decades, and now – for the first time since the 1970s – actual digging is set to begin on the Second Avenue subway. NY1’s Bobby Cuza filed the following report.

"The reality is the Second Avenue subway is about to begin," said MTA Executive Director Elliot “Lee” Sander.

You could be forgiven for being skeptical of that claim. After all, work on the Second Avenue Subway has started twice before. Now, the date's been set for the third and hopefully final groundbreaking ceremony on the project early next month.

"We will be doing it in the Second Avenue subway tunnel; that part of it that has been constructed,” said Sander. “It is in pristine condition."

At Wednesday's MTA board meeting, Sander announced that the groundbreaking will take place April 12, just two weeks from now.

Then work will begin along Second Avenue from 96th Street down to 92nd Street. Utilities will have to be relocated. Two lanes of traffic will be lost, and a playground on the corner of 96th and 2nd will be closed, to be used as a staging area.

Eventually crews will lower into the ground an enormous piece of machinery known as a tunnel boring machine, which will then start slowly drilling its way south, deep below Second Avenue.

And while the MTA will have to tear down five buildings and use parts of many others for station entrances, vent facilities and other infrastructure, officials say the drilling itself will be almost imperceptible above ground.

"The environmental impacts on the residents of Second Avenue will be kept to a minimum," said Sander.

The line that will eventually be known as the T will be simply an extension of the Q train at first, running from 63rd Street to 96th Street. That portion, costing $3.9 billion, is expected to open in 2013.

- Bobby Cuza

I can't believe the lack of posts in this thread lately. We talked about it for years and years when we didn't think it would get built and now that it is confirmed and shovels are practically in the ground, there is silence. What gives? This is the biggest engineering project for New York in decades.

MikeW

March 29th, 2007, 05:52 PM

You'll soon start seeing lots of posts from people bitching about the construction. I'll probably be one of them.

Eugenious

March 30th, 2007, 12:59 PM

NY1:
I can't believe the lack of posts in this thread lately. We talked about it for years and years when we didn't think it would get built and now that it is confirmed and shovels are practically in the ground, there is silence. What gives? This is the biggest engineering project for New York in decades.

Boby Cuza can shove it, that schmuck...

Why don't you take some pictures of the digging and the area? maybe then we'll have something to talk about...

clubBR

April 5th, 2007, 01:34 AM

2nd Ave. Subway Platforms May Get Glass Walls and Sliding Doors
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/04/05/nyregion/05doors-600.jpg Librado Romero/The New York Times

Transit officials are considering a system for the subway line employing a double set of sliding doors, much like those on the AirTrain at Kennedy Airport.

By WILLIAM NEUMAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=WILLIAM%20NEUMAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=WILLIAM%20NEUMAN&inline=nyt-per)
Published: April 5, 2007

The Second Avenue subway, as it is envisioned by planners at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, will have many modern features that set it apart, including roomier, brightly lighted stations with wider platforms that are cooled in the summertime and are fully accessible to the handicapped.

But as the authority prepares for a groundbreaking ceremony next week, planners are considering one innovation that would make the Second Avenue subway radically different from every other line in the city: mechanical doors on the edge of the platforms that would open to allow passengers to move on and off the trains.

The doors, set into a wall of glass or metal, would create a floor-to-ceiling barrier, sealing off the track and tunnel area from the platforms and altering forever the daily experience of waiting passengers. Gone would be the rush of air and thunder, gone the visceral thrill as many tons of steel hurtle by at high speed, just inches away, all replaced by the hygienic interface of technology.

Several subway systems in Europe and Asia use the doors, known as platform edge doors or platform screen doors.

They are also used in this country in many airport shuttle train systems, including the AirTrain at Kennedy International Airport.

Ernest Tollerson, the transportation authority’s policy director, said Tuesday that the authority was studying the feasibility of incorporating the platform edge doors into designs for the Second Avenue subway.

The doors, he said, could allow substantial energy savings in the station cooling systems, which would use cold water to chill air blown into the stations and reduce temperatures by about 10 degrees. With open platforms, the hot air from the tunnels would mix with the cooled air in the stations. With doors on the platform edge, the heat from the tunnels would be at least partly blocked and the cooling system could operate more efficiently.

“They have a lot of advantages in B.T.U. savings and things like that,” Mr. Tollerson said. “They improve the station environment. It’s a design element worth looking at.”

He described the initiative as part of a larger effort to consider the environmental impact of the authority’s operations.

“There is an interest in thinking about and figuring out — if we’re going to live in a carbon-constrained world and we’re going to think about the ecological footprint of a global city and a global region — where does the M.T.A. fit in all that and what should the M.T.A. be thinking about and doing,” Mr. Tollerson said.

Engineers working on the new line’s design had previously considered the platform doors, but the concept was rejected because of concerns about its cost and the way it would affect subway operations. It was opposed by Lawrence G. Reuter, who was president of New York City Transit (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_york_city_transit/index.html?inline=nyt-org) from 1996 until February 2007.

Last month, however, planners at the authority asked the engineering firms that have been designing the subway line to take another look at incorporating platform doors.

Mr. Tollerson said the review was not related to Mr. Reuter’s departure. He said the idea came out of discussions he had with Mysore L. Nagaraja, the authority’s president of capital construction.

Mr. Nagaraja said that besides the potential energy savings, there were safety benefits as well.

With the door system in place, people could not fall or jump in front of trains. He also said the doors could reduce track fires, because people could not throw trash onto the tracks.

The doors would be likely to add to the cost of building the new subway line, which has a budget of $3.8 billion. Mr. Nagaraja said engineers would estimate those costs, and the degree to which they would be offset by savings in cooling expenses.

Mr. Nagaraja said that in earlier discussions of the platform edge doors, transit officials had expressed concerns about long-term maintenance requirements.

One concern is that most if not all train systems that use platform edge doors also incorporate a system of computerized train operation in which trains stop at exactly the same spot every time, and are always lined up properly with the platform doors. The authority has been working to develop a computerized system for New York subways, but it is still a long-term goal. With the current system, the doors would have to be designed to operate with trains controlled by human drivers.

The first phase of the new subway line is to include four stations, from 96th Street to 63rd Street, and is scheduled to be finished in 2013.

Mr. Reuter, the former transit agency president, said that in the 1980s and again in the 1990s, the possibility of retrofitting the entire subway system with platform edge doors was discussed at the authority. Both times, he said, the idea was discarded, largely because of difficulties in integrating the doors with the existing system. When the idea arose again in planning for the Second Avenue subway, Mr. Reuter said, he opposed it.

“I definitely discouraged it because it’s a cost item and it’s a maintenance item,” said Mr. Reuter, who now works in Miami as a senior vice president of Parsons Brinckerhoff, an engineering firm. “It’s only going to apply in a few stations. What good is it going to do if you can’t adapt it to the rest of the system? I didn’t see any benefit, plus it’s going to cost extra money to maintain them.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Ninjahedge

April 5th, 2007, 10:36 AM

Great idea$......

MikeW

April 5th, 2007, 06:04 PM

... until they start breaking, they don't get around to fixing then so quickly, and everyone is piling throught the three on the entire platform that actually work. Maybe they shouldn't be creating maintenance nightmares.

ZippyTheChimp

April 9th, 2007, 01:49 AM

April 9, 2007

Is That Finally the Sound of a 2nd Ave. Subway?

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

The neckties are wide and the sideburns long, the pickaxes gleam in the sunlight. The governor thanks the president for providing money. The mayor jokes that “whatever is said about this project in the years to come, certainly no one can say that the city acted rashly or without due deliberation.”

The governor swings his pickax, but the pavement is too hard. A jackhammer is brought in to loosen things up. Now the governor and the mayor lay to with gusto.

The Second Avenue subway is born.

Or so it seemed at the time.

The sideburns were long and the neckties wide because it was 1972. The president was Nixon. The governor was Rockefeller. The mayor was Lindsay. And nearly 35 years later, no trains have ever run under Second Avenue.

But the line has had at least three groundbreakings.

On Thursday it will get another one.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer and a host of dignitaries will descend through a sidewalk hatch at Second Avenue and 102nd Street, a block south of the spot where Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and Mayor John V. Lindsay held a groundbreaking in October 1972. They will go into a never-used section of a three-decade old subway tunnel, stretching from 105th Street to 99th Street. The governor will give a speech, hoist a pickax and take a few cracks at the concrete wall, symbolically beginning the construction where it left off in the 1970s.

“There used to be a saying in New York, ‘I should live so long,’ ” said William J. Ronan, the first chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who presided over the groundbreaking in 1972.

“Well I sure hope they’ll do it this time because time is moving on,” Dr. Ronan, 94, who lives in Florida, said. “And of course it’s going to cost a fortune, more than back when we were going to do it. It was expensive enough then.”

Several factors actually suggest that this time the outcome may be different. The financing for the $3.8 billion project appears more certain than in the past, including an anticipated federal commitment to cover about a third of the cost.

And the plan is more measured. The goal is to build a first section of the subway with stops along Second Avenue at 96th, 86th and 72nd Streets and at 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue. It is intended to operate as an extension of the Q line and is expected to open in 2013. Once further financing is secured, later phases of construction will extend the line north to 125th Street and south to Lower Manhattan.

It was September 1929 when the city formally announced plans to build the Second Avenue subway, running the length of the East Side and into the Bronx. The cost of digging the Manhattan portion of the tunnel was estimated at $99 million, although there would be additional expenses, including the cost of real estate and equipment.

The Second Avenue plans were part of an ambitious expansion to add a 100-mile network with an overall estimated cost of about $800 million. But within a few years, during the Great Depression, planning for the new line came to a halt.

The plans were revived during World War II. In 1951, voters approved a measure that allowed the city to raise $500 million for transit improvements, with the expectation that most of it would go to build the new line. But the money was used to fix up the existing system. No work was performed on Second Avenue.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority took over the city’s subway system in 1968. Dr. Ronan began championing an ambitious range of projects, including the Second Avenue subway, from Whitehall Street to 138th Street in the Bronx. In 1968 the subway line bore a remarkably modest price tag of $335 million, but by the time of the groundbreaking in 1972, it had risen to $1 billion.

That ceremony was preserved in an 8 millimeter film shot by Robert A. Olmsted, who was a top planner at the transportation authority.

In the film, the sun is shining brightly, although some of the men are wearing coats and fedoras. There is a holiday air, and the mayor and the governor are all smiles. The two have been feuding for years, but on this day, they manage to keep their pickaxes aimed at the street.

“We were optimistic,” recalled Mr. Olmsted, who is 82. “It looked like we were going to get something done.”

Dr. Ronan recalled feeling that, “at long last, we’re going to have the Second Avenue subway.”

“It was a great day when they got to the groundbreaking,” he said. “Everybody was congratulating everybody. It got good play. It should have.”

Sidney J. Frigand, who was a spokesman at the authority in 1972, said he was more skeptical, especially about how the project would be financed. “There were a lot of flaws that had to be ironed out, and I sensed that it wouldn’t proceed as rapidly as we hoped,” he said.

Last week, a reporter described the film to Mr. Frigand, including the portion where the governor’s pickax failed to make the desired impact and the jackhammer had to be called in. “That’s the perils of groundbreaking,” Mr. Frigand, 81, said.

In October 1973, a year after that ceremony, another groundbreaking was held for the start of work on the downtown section, at Canal Street. Mayor Lindsay had gone bareheaded the previous year but now, according to a report in The New York Times, he wore a hard hat and talked ominously about “brinksmanship,” suggesting the city could not afford to keep building the subway without a large infusion of federal money. The cost had reached $1.3 billion.

This time, the pavement had been broken up in advance. After the speeches, The Times reported, the mayor attacked the loosened paving blocks with his pick.

In July 1974, Mayor Abraham D. Beame attended a groundbreaking at Second Avenue and Second Street. He went at the pavement with a jackhammer. The plan was to build the subway piecemeal, contracting out short, disconnected sections.

A year later the city was near bankruptcy; Mayor Beame called a halt to further construction. The stretch of tunnel he broke ground on was never built, although three other sections were finished and sealed. They included the two that Mayor Lindsay inaugurated, from 99th Street to 105th Street and Canal Street to Chatham Square, and a section from 110th Street to 120th Street.

Edward I. Koch was a congressman in 1972, and he appears in the film of the groundbreaking, although he said last week that he did not remember the event.

“I have no recollection of that day,” said Mr. Koch, who became mayor in 1978. “I do have a recollection that the Second Avenue subway — the first shovel went into the ground when God created the earth.”

Timeline

1920s: Mayor John F. Hylan and other city officials call for a new subway line on the East Side of Manhattan.

August, 1929: The city prepares plans for a Second Avenue subway line extending the length of the East Side and into the Bronx.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20070408_SUBWAY_DOCS/19290916_subway_doc.pdf

1930s: Amid the Great Depression, the project is shelved because of financial constraints.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20070408_SUBWAY_DOCS/19350515_subway_doc.pdf

1949: With plans revived, the city receives its order of 10 stainless steel subway cars, which cost $100,000 each. The New York Times describes the prototype as "the car of tomorrow."

Sept, 1951: The Board of Estimate approves a $500 million spending plan for construction of the Second Avenue subway line.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20070408_SUBWAY_DOCS/19510914_subway_doc.pdf

Sept, 1952: "Staggering" city debt causes plans to be postponed, first for three months, then indefinitely by 1953.

March, 1957: The $500 million pledged for the Second Avenue subway is spent on general system upkeep. The new line remains unbuilt.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20070408_SUBWAY_DOCS/19570309_subway_doc.pdf

1968: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority takes over the city's subway system and begins moving ahead with plans for the Second Avenue line.

October, 1972: Wielding a pickax, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller leads a groundbreaking ceremony with Mayor John V. Lindsay, and work begins on the first part of the line, from 99th Street to 105th Street.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20070408_SUBWAY_DOCS/19721028_subway_doc.pdf

March, 1973: Construction begins from 110th Street to 120th Street.

October, 1973: Mayor Lindsay breaks ground for the line's downtown section.

July, 1974: Mayor Abraham D. Beame breaks ground for a fourth segment on the Lower East Side

November, 1974: Pinched for funds, the M.T.A. announces that completion would be delayed until 1986.

December, 1974: Mayor Beame calls for the tunnel segments to be sealed once work is completed.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20070408_SUBWAY_DOCS/19741214_subway_doc.pdf

September, 1975: Mayor Beame halts work on the fourth tunnel before it gets past the preliminary stage.

April, 2007: The M.T.A. is set to break ground for an initial phase, from 63rd Street to 96th Street.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

antinimby

April 9th, 2007, 05:33 PM

Railroaded from their homes?

BY TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, April 8th 2007 (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/04/08/2007-04-08_railroaded_from_their_homes-3.html), 12:56 PM

The walk from Giorgio Costa's upper East Side apartment to the nearest subway is unpleasant at best - and things don't improve when the 61-year-old boards the overcrowded trains on the Lexington Ave. line.

When the first segment of the Second Ave. subway finally opens in 2013, Costa's walk will be eliminated - but not because the new subway will stop near his home. Costa's building must be demolished to make way for the East Side line.

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/04/08/amd_giorgiocosta.jpg
Giorgio Costa is among nearly 400 people
whose homes will be demolished to make
room for the new subway.

Costa is among nearly 400 people whose homes will be razed to make room for the new subway.

The first to be rousted will be the occupants of 60 apartments in four buildings slated to be taken over by the MTA early next year.

"I'm sick," said Costa, a retired waiter and cook who moved into the tidy studio apartment when he arrived in the city from Italy in 1972. "After all these years, they're gonna kick me out? This is my home. This is it."

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority informed Costa and his neighbors of the plan in 2004. They were greatly concerned but the panic was tempered by the knowledge that politicians and transit types had been promising to create the new subway line for decades without success.

The reality has finally sunk in.

Costa pays $605 a month in rent - far below the market rate in the neighborhood, where an influx of young professionals has driven rents beyond what most retirees can afford.

MTA officials said Costa's five-story building on the corner of E. 69th St. and Second Ave. must be demolished to make room for station exits and equipment.

Thirty buildings will be knocked down for the $17 billion project, the MTA said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/04/08/click_secmap.gif

Transit officials pledged to follow federal law, which requires them to find displaced tenants new homes of similar quality and provide subsidies of $5,250 over 42 months.

"I can't afford to pay $2,000 rent," Costa said. "Hopefully they can come up with something. They have the money, right?"

The MTA board acknowledged the difficulty of finding comparable homes with similar rent last week and approved a plan to start leasing rent-stabilized apartments in the area to hold for the displaced tenants.

But real estate experts doubt the plan will work, noting that owners often bring the value of vacated rent-stabilized apartments up to market value by making minor renovations.

"It may be disingenuous for the MTA to say we're going to find apartments for comparable rents unless they're able to pull some strings with friendly landlords," said Dennis Feldman, a vice president with the Corcoran Group.

Restaurant manager Christopher Choquet, 34, thinks the MTA's plan is a long shot and plans to move from his doomed building to Brooklyn.

He figures it's the only way he can maintain having a reasonable $1,200 monthly rent. Choquet's concern was for his older neighbors. "You can't just displace somebody without doing something for them," he said.

© Copyright 2007 NYDailyNews.com

antinimby

April 9th, 2007, 06:05 PM

Razing those buildings will yield a pretty large open area at those corners (E. 69 St. and E. 72 St)--much larger than necessary to accomodate a subway station entrance, I would think.

I've seen plenty of other subway entrances next to small walkups (some are even incorporated within a building) and they didn't need to raze them back then when they were first built.

So why is it necessary now and will those open areas at some point in the future be allowed to host new development?

pianoman11686

April 9th, 2007, 06:07 PM

Not sure, but I'd guess part of the explanation lies in trying to make all these new stations wheelchair accessible...

ramvid01

April 9th, 2007, 06:11 PM

Air ventilation buildings is my guess.

Ed007Toronto

April 12th, 2007, 06:54 PM

So did they groundbreak today?

clubBR

April 12th, 2007, 08:29 PM

They broke the ground yet again today

ablarc

April 12th, 2007, 08:36 PM

Not sure, but I'd guess part of the explanation lies in trying to make all these new stations wheelchair accessible...
Most, not part.

CMANDALA

April 12th, 2007, 10:06 PM

Village Voice cartoon

antinimby

April 12th, 2007, 11:07 PM

First Look: Second Avenue Subway Stations

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/20070412mta_lg.jpg
Image: MTA Capital Construction

4/12/2007 (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/04/first_look_second_avenue_subwa.html)

We reported earlier on today's groundbreaking for the Second Avenue Subway, and we told you that "stations on the line will have natural light and column-free corridors (and, according to renderings, odd shards of Daniel Libeskind–esque glass)." Here now, renderings of those stations. Libeskinn-esque, indeed. —Alec Appelbaum

Copyright © 2007, New York Magazine Holdings LLC

antinimby

April 12th, 2007, 11:10 PM

As usual in this no innovation, design-challenged city, we get dorky looking stations that will age badly.

Deimos

April 12th, 2007, 11:25 PM

Ok, so where on 2nd avenue is there enough space to have the station portrayed in the top left picture?

macreator

April 12th, 2007, 11:26 PM

I think they look awful -- I agree that they will not age well. I'd prefer more traditional looking, classy and simple glass canopies. The skylights to the station are quite nice though.

ManhattanKnight

April 13th, 2007, 01:39 AM

Most, not part.

Actually, in the station renderings shown in post #324, it's the escalators, not the elevator included for wc access, that take up most of the space at the sidewalk level.

clubBR

April 13th, 2007, 01:49 AM

What are the boundaries of the 2nd Ave track (from north to south)?

NoyokA

April 13th, 2007, 03:27 AM

I think these stations look great, edgy and innovative. Light and modern. I don't know what the problem is, they certainly don't look cheap either.

ZippyTheChimp

April 13th, 2007, 08:45 AM

It was detailed in the project documents.

Three basic design types were considered:
Within existing buildings
In plazas
Sidewalk

Since all stations will have escalators and elevators, the typical sidewalk model was rejected as too small. There was mention of the possibility of sidewalk bumpouts into parking lanes to increase space, but for the most part, type 1 and 2 will be used.

Fahzee

April 13th, 2007, 11:15 AM

Ok, so where on 2nd avenue is there enough space to have the station portrayed in the top left picture?

Duh - in the giant piazza by 86th street - haven't you ever seen it?:)

NIMBYkiller

April 13th, 2007, 04:00 PM

Ugh, more glass egs

Fahzee

April 23rd, 2007, 01:11 PM

From NY1

April 23, 2007

Drivers on the Upper East Side can expect major headaches as construction begins on the long-awaited Second Avenue Subway.

Crews are set to start excavating sections of Second Avenue between 91st and 96th Street today, and concrete barriers and fences are set to be installed tomorrow.

Drivers can expect major traffic disruptions and parking restrictions in the area for the next 18 months.

Beginning tomorrow, two left lanes will be closed from 93rd to 98th Streets. There will also be no stopping or standing from 91st to 98th Street.

The first section of the 2nd Avenue subway will run from 63rd Street to 96th Street and will serve as an extension of the Q train.

The first phase will cost about $3.9 billion and is expected to be finished by 2013.

MikeW

April 23rd, 2007, 02:34 PM

My garage is on 94th and 2nd. This is going to be fun.

Ed007Toronto

April 25th, 2007, 07:29 PM

So it begins...

http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/index.html

Construction of the Second Avenue Subway is underway!

The first construction contract involves the construction of new tunnels between 92nd and 63rd Streets, the excavation of the launch box for the tunnel boring (TBM) machine at just south of 92nd to 95th Streets, and access shafts at 69th and 72nd Streets. These shafts will be excavated toward the end of contract One and be used for the subsequent construction of the 72nd Street station. Contract One is expected take 40 months to complete.

Traffic Advisory:
Traffic lanes in the vicinity of 2nd Avenue and 96th Street are closed to prepare the site for the start of construction
West Side of Second Avenue: No Standing 7AM – 10AM & 4PM – 7PM Loading & Unloading 10AM – 4AM Monday – Friday
East Side of Second Avenue: No Standing Any Time

ZippyTheChimp

May 13th, 2007, 09:23 AM

May 13, 2007

Caught in the Headlights

The residents of one building standing in the way of the Second Avenue subway are ambivalent about being uprooted to make way for the long-awaited project.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/13/nyregion/13sec_600.jpg
Liz O. Baylen for The New York Times
In the apartment house at Second Avenue and East 72nd Street, feelings of hope,
doubt and denial.

By GREGORY BEYER

AS the Upper East Side braces for the commotion and transformation that will undoubtedly mark the first phase of construction of the Second Avenue subway, a very few of the neighborhood’s residents face a more dramatic change. To make room for subway stations and other components of the system, some buildings and the people who live in them will have to go.

Among the condemned is a brown, five-story building on the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Second Avenue. The building, whose official address is 253-259 East 72nd Street, was built in 1881 and according to the landlord currently houses some 30 tenants.

A disharmony of attitudes resides there, too. Hope flourishes in one apartment while doubt lingers down the hall. Denial lives upstairs. Tenants are fluent in a language of uncertainty, and yet there are hints that they consider the matter settled, as if the wrecking ball had already had its way. When speaking of their building, their apartments and their lives within them, they tend to slip into the past tense.

To elucidate the intricacies of eminent domain and real estate issues, as well as the project’s status and timeline, representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have attended meetings of the local community board.

Under federal law, the authority must pay reasonable moving expenses for residential tenants and offer at least one comparable replacement dwelling in the same neighborhood, if possible, or if not, nearby or in a similar neighborhood where housing costs are within the tenants’ means. If comparable dwellings are not available, the agency will provide other assistance. In addition to the moving expenses and help with relocation, displaced renters are eligible for up to $5,250, and tenants must be given 90 days’ notice before they are required to leave. (Regulations covering commercial tenants are slightly different.)

None of this will happen, however, until after a public hearing, currently scheduled for September, at which time tenants will be formally advised of their situation. Some outward-looking residents consider their own temporary inconvenience against the lasting benefits of a Second Avenue subway and muster praise for the much-heralded project. Others feel themselves forsaken — dispensable extras in a metropolitan adaptation of the old kicked-out-of-Paradise story. Perhaps, this latter faction hopes, the government will abort the project in a last-minute flush of humanism or at least have the decency to run out of money.

The Second Avenue subway has long taunted New York with suggestions of itself, leaving the city stranded on the platform, peering down the dark tunnel, checking its watch. However, a groundbreaking ceremony last month has, according to officials, irrevocably nudged the legend toward its vast subterranean denouement. There is a New York-bound Second Avenue subway train approaching. This is the story, in glimpses, of one building, the one on East 72nd Street, that will make way for it.

Sally Ardrey

Second-floor one-bedroom

It is the third day of spring, and the windows in Sally Ardrey’s corner apartment are open. Outside, the intersection is alive with engines and dissident horns, tuned to the changing of the traffic lights and borne in on the year’s first drafts of warm air.

“You look up from the desk or the phone, and you have the feeling of the traffic and the life of the city in the room,” she says. Sixteen years in the one-bedroom apartment (after five years in a studio upstairs) have left her no less enamored of its charms. She recently installed a new black and white tile floor in her kitchen: a symbolic gesture of affection toward her longtime home, like a fine last meal served to a condemned prisoner.

“I thought maybe by putting in something smart and happy, I could slow down the process,” she says.

Sifting through a green folder containing articles she has collected about the subway over the years, Ms. Ardrey, 69, stops at a New York Times article from January, just three months before the groundbreaking, bearing the headline, “Rising Costs Put M.T.A. Projects at Risk of Delay.”

“That gave you hope,” she says. “We all thought: ‘Isn’t that wonderful? Maybe they’ll run out of money.’ ”

Ms. Ardrey has attended community board meetings and spoken to transit authority representatives who are present to answer questions. Keeping informed, she says, is important, but it comes with a price.

“Psychologically, it’s not so great,” she says. “It’s as if you have to have a very serious life-threatening operation and you have to keep going and talking about it.”

Aaron Lohr

Third-floor studio

As with many tenants, Aaron Lohr’s fondness for his current apartment leaves him skeptical that another will compare. His apartment looks out over East 72nd Street and the Telegraphe Cafe, where Mr. Lohr, a 31-year-old actor, stops in each morning for a cup of coffee.

“For some of these older people who have been here forever,” he says, “I would imagine it’s a lot more difficult to just up and leave.”

His own attitude, however, is casual, drawing confidence from his youth and proclaimed flexibility. “I really haven’t thought about it. I’ll just wait until I’m notified.”

Since this is his third apartment in three years of living in the city, the thought of relocating doesn’t faze him. For Mr. Lohr, formerly of Los Angeles, and other more adaptable tenants of the building, the looming eviction hovers in the realm of inconvenience, not tragedy, though even inconvenience, he says, is less than desirable.

“It would be nice to have a Second Avenue subway,” he says. “But when it affects you, your tune kind of changes.”

Susan Wegemer

Fourth-floor one-bedroom

Susan Wegemer, a 44-year-old account executive at a medical company, who has lived in the building for eight years, expects that rising rents on the Upper East Side and a shrinking pool of rent-stabilized apartments will drive her from the neighborhood. This saddens her, because she claims to know all the doormen.

“Day to day, I try not to think about it; I figure I’ll deal with it when I get an eviction letter,” Ms. Wegemer says. “It’s looming, and you just don’t know when it’s going to come down on you on all sides.”

She notes that the transportation authority has promised to send relocation consultants to help residents locate comparable apartments. She draws quotation marks in the air around the word “comparable.”

Certain aspects beyond square footage and monthly rent, she says, are unlikely to translate from this building to the next. Little quirks, once irritating, have in time become endearing. The apartment’s rooms, Ms. Wegemer says, are all wired on the same electrical circuit. “If you have to use the toaster,” she says, “you can only have one light on.”

In preparation for her eventual eviction, she is about to tackle her spring cleaning. Standing on the gray shag rug in her living room, she squints thoughtfully at her possessions, measuring not only their utility and sentimental value but also their bulk. Reality is setting in: These things will have to be boxed and wrapped, lifted and carried, loaded into trucks and lugged upstairs.

“I don’t want to move stuff that I don’t absolutely love. That filing cabinet,” she says, glaring at it across the room. “I hate that filing cabinet.”

She voices a nervous concern for at least one of her neighbors. “The guy beneath me moved in about six months ago,” she says. “I don’t know if he got the memo.”

Jenner Smith

Third-floor one-bedroom

The neighbor Ms. Wegemer refers to is Jenner Smith, a 23-year-old investment banker who arrived last August after graduating from Gettysburg College. He was unaware of the building’s likely fate when he moved in, but it does not bother him, since he considers the apartment more stopover than destination.

“I’m not investing in this place,” he says, gesturing toward the bare white walls. “It’s pretty barebones.” He has no great attachment to the apartment or the neighborhood, and given the congestion on the Lexington Avenue line, he supports the building of the new subway. “I could move anywhere, and it wouldn’t really make a difference,” he says. “It was a great place to start out.”

Maria Moraitis

Fifth-floor one-bedroom

The apartment in which Maria Moraitis has lived for 20 years once belonged to the sculptor Alexander Calder, she says. She hopes this distinction might persuade the city that the building is a cultural landmark that should be spared the wrecker’s ball.

Beyond this hope, though, she has not given much thought to the possibility of eviction or what might come after.

“I don’t have any plans, and I haven’t heard anything official,” says Ms. Moraitis, a 46-year-old librarian at New York University. What information she does get comes mostly from neighbors who attend meetings and relay information in the stairwells. She has been encouraged by rumors of delays. “They might consider sparing our building,” she says.

Kate Armenta

Second-floor one-bedroom

“I’m totally not involved and non-privy to the whole thing,” Kate Armenta says. “I’m clueless.” Ms. Armenta, a 27-year-old editor at Vogue, has not attended community board meetings and describes herself as someone who doesn’t like to “raise a lot of ruckus.”

As is the case with many of the younger tenants, Ms. Armenta’s short-term designs on her apartment, where she has lived for four years, are attended by a shrugging nonchalance. What she knows she has learned from neighbors who have attended meetings, but these secondhand accounts lack the authority and finality of official reports.

Sarah and Andrew Smith

Fourth-floor one-bedroom

Sarah and Andrew Smith are among the few tenants who believe that they stand to gain from the intrusion of the Second Avenue subway. Far from viewing themselves as victims, they suspect that their decision to move into the building from Queens in 2003 was not so much a prologue to disaster as a stroke of luck.

“We’re kind of happy about the lump sum we’re going to get when they kick us out,” Ms. Smith says.

Mr. Smith, a 30-year-old chef, and Ms. Smith, 31, who works in health care public relations, may use the money to put a down payment on their next apartment, most likely in Brooklyn, though choice of borough is the extent of their post-subway planning. Meanwhile, they try to stay informed, which is not always easy.

“It’s pretty much how bureaucracy functions,” Mrs. Smith says. “It’s noncommittal and moderately informative.”

She admits she may have been lulled into a false sense of comfort, which will end with sudden impact and little warning. And in fact, beyond reading the newspapers and attending the occasional meeting, there’s not much she can do but wait. “It’s hard work to keep up with that kind of stuff,” she says. After a long day at work, thinking about her eventual eviction doesn’t rank high among ways she wants to pass her leisure hours.

Margaret Cormier

Third-floor one-bedroom

“I would have that fixed,” says Margaret Cormier, gesturing toward the front door of her apartment, whose edges are discolored and marred by peeling paint. “But why bother?”

Ms. Cormier, an 81-year-old former nurse at nearby Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has lived in the building for 44 years. “This is a great neighborhood,” she says. “I’ve seen all the changes. When I first came here, it was Czech, German and Hungarian. I remember the Czech men playing cards on the corner.”

The prospect of eviction leaves only a small dent in her cheerful demeanor, but she is afraid rising rents will leave her unable to afford a new apartment on her beloved Upper East Side. “If they don’t put me in this neighborhood,” she says, “I’ll have to leave the city.”

Her disappointment is not for herself alone. Among her chief concerns is that a Second Avenue subway will forever alter the mood and flow of the neighborhood: she envisions clusters of cheap shops and restaurants springing up to lure the swarming subway riders. She points to the 72nd Street stop on the red line across town as an existing example. “It’s going to mess up the whole area,” she says. “And then when it’s done, it will be tacky.”

Pam Berg

Falk Surgical Supplies

A tall man in jeans and a leather jacket strides into Falk Drug and Surgical Supplies, one of three businesses on the building’s ground floor, and calls out, “Pam!”

Pam Berg, a member of the family that owns and operates the business, greets him with a familiar smile. The pharmacy, which caters to the needs of the ailing and the elderly, and which Ms. Berg’s father, Arnie, bought from the Falk family more than 30 years ago, is a place where matters of business are to be preceded by friendly chatter and inquiries into the health and happiness of husbands, wives and kids. And sometimes, less pleasant topics. “What do you think of the Second Avenue subway kicking us out, Pete?” Ms. Berg asks.

Pete, who has dropped in to buy his ailing dog an oxygen mask, offers a response that is loud, negative and unprintable.

The store works with local doctors, hospitals and physical therapists, and it serves customers who in many cases are unable to travel long distances. This makes the prospects of uprooting and relocating particularly worrisome. “What would we do?” she asks. “Our community is here; our customers are here.”

This day the store is bustling with elderly customers. One woman asks for Ms. Berg’s advice on wrist bandages while another returns a wheelchair. In one aisle, a woman is trying out a cane much too long for her. With each careful step, her right shoulder juts upward. Another Berg family employee gently tells the woman to stop walking, and fishes through a barrel of canes to find one that is a better fit.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

luciedove

June 9th, 2007, 07:20 PM

Friday, June 08, 2007

Adrian Benepe
Commissioner
City of New York
Parks and Recreation

Dear Commissioner Benepe:

The New York Bird Club sent out an invitation to a meeting at NY Blood Center, 310 E. 67th St , Thursday, June 7, to protest tree removal by the Department of Parks in order to allegedly facilitate construction of the 2nd Ave Subway. The Bird Club complained:
"Due to the construction of the 2nd Ave subway, there already have been removed at least 40 trees along 2nd Ave. The next place to remove trees is by the park at 2nd Ave between 91-90th Streets. There are magnificent very large and lush sycamore and other trees on this block, perhaps that have been there for 100 years or so. They are marked to be removed sometime in the very near future. These trees are homes to squirrels and birds who already do not have enough greenery to survive, and the trees also provide beauty, shade and clean-air for people.

"Please tell everyone to come and support these trees who are alive and do not wish to be chopped down."

There was a representative from the Parks Department at the meeting answering questions. I asked him if in view of the fact that the 2nd Ave Subway is far from fully funded, could not tree removal be halted until funding for construction is assured. Before he could reply, in fact before I was finished, a lady whose name I do not know intervened to say my question was irrelevant and that the 2nd Ave Subway was fully funded.
I understand that the lady was connected with Community Board 8. This is a body that does not hold me in the highest regard because beginning in the 70s, as a columnist for a local newspaper Our Town and political candidate I have often been less then complementary of the Community Boards. I wrote, for example, that their budgets increased 3000% during the fiscal crisis of the 70s and 80s. I am also known as an advocate of light rail in preference to subways, which is a no-no at Community Board 8 and also the Republican and Democratic political clubs on the Eastside.

I did not bring evidence to the meeting to back up my contention about the lack of funding, and the gentleman from the Parks Department did not intervene in the back-and-forth sharp exchange between me and not only the lady who had initiated the dispute but also what appeared to be two or three others from the Community Board. Therefore, I am submitting my evidence to you now. It is a direct quote from PlaNYC:
"We may have broken the ground for the Second Avenue Subway-but there is still a significant funding gap for the first of four phases. While the entire project is designed to travel from Harlem to Lower Manhattan, we are still nearly a billion dollars short of the funds needed to build just from 96th Street to 63rd Street.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/report_transportation (http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/report_transportation.pdf).pdf (http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/report_transportation.pdf)
I would like to add that there is a growing wariness among legislators and civic activists in the outer boroughs regarding the 2nd Ave Subway. They have begun to realize that Eastside Republicans and Democrats are seeking to corral virtually all available transportation funding from city, state and federal sources. In light of the fact that Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island elected officials and their constituents have serious transportation needs of their own and face severe protests from outer borough commuters who may wonder why they must pay subway and bus fares up to $3 per ride to help fund a project that will not provide relief for the crowded Lexington Avenue until 2014. Under these circumstances, it is questionable that sufficient non-Manhattan representatives will vote in Congress, the State Legislature and City Council to provide necessary funding for the 2nd Ave Subway.

I am aware that there is considerable discomfort on the Lexington Avenue subway. In the mayoral election of 2001 (where I was a candidate), I heard City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, who was also running, propose as a solution constructing Metro-North stations on the Eastside. Peter Vallone's idea was meritorious. To avoid residential dislocation, Metro North stations could be placed in the center of Park Avenue at 96, 86, 77th and 59th St , similar to those on the Westside on Broadway at 116th St and 72nd St . This would, however, draw considerable protest from The Lexington Democratic Club and the Metropolitan Republicans Club as many of their contributors live on Park Avenue and might be reluctant to experience even minimal inconvenience.

However, opening up 10 Metro-North stations in the Bronx to Metro Card users (a 50% fare saving) and scheduling train stops at Bronx stations every four or five minutes instead of the current 18 minutes would divert a substantial amount of commuters with consequent considerable relaxation of pressure on the overcrowded Lexington Avenue line. Street level boarding, nonpolluting state of art Light rail on 2nd Ave would also be welcomed by Eastside riders and residents because it would involve, unlike the 2nd Ave Subway, negligible destruction of affordable housing or loss of jobs in restaurants and stores along 2nd Ave. (See appended New York Sun blog).

I believe the case is overwhelming for the Department of Parks to cease destroying trees along 2nd Ave at least until there is assurance that the 2nd Ave Subway is fully funded. Even then I hope the Department will find ways to prevent or at least minimize further loss of valuable trees, which are not only a refuge for birds and squirrels but also help improve the environment. Even the MTA grudgingly admits 2nd Ave Subway construction poses a threat to regional air quality (see below).

Respectfully yours,
George N. Spitz
www.georgespitz.com (http://www.georgespitz.com/)

PlaNYC Should Not Prefer 6 miles of Subway to 60 miles of Light Rail Without Further StudyReader comment on: The Planner Behind Bloomberg's PlaNYC (http://www.nysun.com/article/55342)

Submitted by George N. Spitz, May 29, 2007 05:10
Rohit Aggarwala, the technocrat who crafted Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC, allegedly "shares a passion for high-speed trains." But there is apparently no place in PlaNYC for state of art street level boarding nonpolluting "high speed" light rail, the generally accepted 21st-century solution for municipal transportation problems. Instead, New York City is spending virtually all available transit funding on the 2nd Ave Subway. Even the MTA grudgingly admits that
"Because of the large scale and extended duration of the construction required for the Second Avenue Subway, the construction could potentially increase regional concentrations of ozone precursors-NOx and VOCs-as well as fine particulate matter (PM2.5), all of which are pollutants of concern on a regional basis."

Furthermore, for 6 miles of 2nd Ave Subway building costs, 60 miles light rail could be constructed, consequently, solving not only Manhattan commuting needs but also those of Staten Island, Eastern Queens, Central and South Brooklyn and Northeast Bronx, all areas greatly needing improved transportation. Mr.Aggarwala should be aware that Barcelona, Toronto, Munich, Lisbon, Vancouver plus Salt Lake City , Portland and Denver in the United States, are choosing light rail in preference to subways and buses. He should persuade Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff to withdraw environmental permits for the 2nd Avenue Subway until a fair and open study can be initiated perhaps in collaboration with Queens Councilman John Liu, Chairman of the City Council Transportation Committee on whether New York City should spend virtually all available transit funds on a subway project utilizing pre-1950 technology that will serve only one portion of Manhattan rather than on a modern light rail system that will benefit all New Yorkers.

GEORGE N SPITZ,

www.georgespitz.com (http://www.georgespitz.com/),

source: http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/luciedove/vpost?id=1937024 (http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/luciedove/vpost?id=1937024)

Eugenious

June 10th, 2007, 12:08 AM

Goddamn nimby's, THEY WILL REPLANT THE DAMN TREES WHEN THE SUBWAY IS FINISHED RELAX

People in this city are messed up in the head I swear...

Punzie

June 10th, 2007, 12:20 AM

luciedove (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/member.php?u=8661) is a new member and may not be used to taking a thrashing on message boards. Go easier on him -- at first, anyway.

macreator

June 10th, 2007, 01:36 AM

This Spitz man does have a point about funding. I'll believe the Second Avenue subway will be built when the cars are on the tracks.

clubBR

June 10th, 2007, 04:29 AM

Goddamn nimby's, THEY WILL REPLANT THE DAMN TREES WHEN THE SUBWAY IS FINISHED RELAX

People in this city are messed up in the head I swear...

Lol we have similar mindstates

Punzie

June 10th, 2007, 05:05 AM

Goddamn nimby's...
You're pre-judging. He may be one, he may not be:

If he doesn't want the 100-year-old tree cut down because they are in his backyard, but he doesn't mind if others further away from him are cut down, then he's a nimby.

But if he doesn't want any more of them cut down, no matter how far they are from his dwelling, then he's not a nimby. He's just a man who loves trees. (And the wildlife around them.)

THEY WILL REPLANT THE DAMN TREES WHEN THE SUBWAY IS FINISHED RELAX
Here you have a point. Except that they won't be replanting the large, gracious 100-year-old trees; they'll be planting fledglings.

ZippyTheChimp

June 10th, 2007, 08:01 AM

The letter from George Spitz to the Parks Commissioner contains a door-opener (for anyone else reading it) - the removal of trees on 2nd Ave at 90th and 91st. The main topic of the letter, however, seems to be a challenge of the SAS vis-a-vis light rail.

I'm not going there.

As for the tree removal, it's reasonable that they should be removed at a time that is as close to actual construction as practicable. It should be something that can be worked out among the MTA, Parks Dept, and CB.

90th-91st is within the Phase One zone, but there is no specific information on that segment:

MTA webpage
Construction Contract One will include the construction of the tunnels between 92nd and 63rd Streets, for the construction of the launch box for the tunnel boring machine (TBM) at 92nd to 95th Streets, and construction of access shafts at 69th and 72nd Streets. It is expected that the first surface work for Contract One will take place in the first quarter of 2007 in the vicinity of the launch box, 91st to 95th Street. Contract One is expected to be 40 months in duration.

The NY Bird Club forum provides no information as to whether these trees need to be removed at all, just rather impassioned posts that they should not be, citing environmental and property value benefits. That's true, but it must be weighed against the environmental and property value benefits of the SAS.

Tree removal is painful, since it takes so long before they are replaced. The Holland Tunnel rotary was finally re-landscaped, and the DEP came along and removed a block of decades-old trees to construct a riser for the water tunnel.

Whataya gonna do?

Eugenious

June 10th, 2007, 09:28 AM

ok I get the point, the trees are a big part of the landscape. But when the property owners cut down hundreds of trees all over the city there is no outcry. So I say to the tree hugger, how about you talk about the whole city and support the laws for punishment of people who remove tree's for no reason. How about you support the neighborhoods that are not as fortunate as your's to have kept the trees untouched for so long, how about you look at some portions of the city with ZERO trees that don't have any reason not to have them besides city oversight.

If you're really a bird/tree hugger/lover you need to look whats going on in the city as a whole not just your block.

Ed007Toronto

June 11th, 2007, 04:16 PM

Except that they won't be replanting the large, gracious 100-year-old trees; they'll be planting fledglings.

How long will 100-year-old trees survive on their own? And a completed subway will bring a lot more environmental and financial benefits than a few trees.

TonyO

July 6th, 2007, 08:36 AM

Second Avenue Subway Plan Retooled for Grocer's Sake
By Staff Reporter of the Sun
July 6, 2007

On the Upper East Side, where basic supermarkets are scarce, two Food Emporiums that had been slated to shutter to accommodate station entrances and escalators on the Second Avenue subway line are off the chopping block.

Because of the high cost of acquiring the grocer's retail space, as well as vocal community opposition to the plans, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has unveiled a redesigned station entrance so that it does not have to acquire any space along Second Avenue between 85th and 86th Streets that has been occupied by Food Emporium for almost a decade.

"It was the source of tremendous relief for our neighborhood," the chairman of Community Board 8, David Liston, said. "There's no shortage here of high-end stores, but in terms of your basic supermarket with relatively affordable prices, we have very few."

The redesigned station entrance , unveiled to a crowd of relieved Upper East Side residents a few weeks ago, would stand in front of the store instead of replacing it.

The new station entrance includes two glass-paneled doors that would open onto a widened sidewalk in front of the store to accommodate foot traffic, officials said.

Another Food Emporium at 63rd Street and Third Avenue, which was to be converted into an escalator and ventilation facility for the subway line, has also been repositioned, a move that saves the supermarket as well as significant dollars for the MTA, a spokesman, Jeremy Soffin, said.

The real estate costs for the first segment of the subway line, which would stretch to 96th Street from 63rd Street and is slated for completion in 2013, have been reported to cost $245 million. Mr. Soffin said any redesign costs for the station entrance were negligible, and that there were significant savings associated with allowing the supermarkets to keep their retail space and avoid the process of procuring easements to kick them out.

jersey_guy

July 8th, 2007, 10:46 PM

http://bp1.blogger.com/_tXHSxzTHLHg/RpE3DFDOz2I/AAAAAAAAACA/VO4vCm1q7bk/s1600-h/IMG_7717.JPGSAS is in existence already, at least in an Absolut world!!!

http://yorkvillenyc.blogspot.com/2007/07/ad-on-this-bus-stop-caught-our-eye.html

http://bp2.blogger.com/_tXHSxzTHLHg/RpE4ZVDOz4I/AAAAAAAAACQ/KoYoYu687vc/s1600-h/IMG_7719.JPG
http://bp2.blogger.com/_tXHSxzTHLHg/RpE4ZVDOz4I/AAAAAAAAACQ/KoYoYu687vc/s1600-h/IMG_7719.JPG
http://bp2.blogger.com/_tXHSxzTHLHg/RpE4ZVDOz4I/AAAAAAAAACQ/KoYoYu687vc/s1600-h/IMG_7719.JPG

lofter1

July 8th, 2007, 10:55 PM

RED XXXXX ^^^ :mad:

jersey_guy

July 8th, 2007, 11:35 PM

Sorry, I simply added the photos from the article I linked, but I guess it won't let you link images directly. Funny thing is, when I go to edit the post, those image links do not appear in the edit post field, so I can't even delete them!

TonyO

July 19th, 2007, 10:34 AM

NY Sun

Second Avenue Subway Could Prove To Be Track to Profits

BY ELIOT BROWN - Special to the Sun
July 12, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/58290

Property owners on the East Side could reap huge profits in coming years, with the large-scale public investment in the long-awaited Second Avenue subway expected to lead to a corresponding spike in real estate prices.

Although years away, when the completion of the "T-line" is eventually realized, real estate experts say, the added transit would add momentum to an already-transforming East Side.

With the large-scale development being planned at the former Con Ed site between 34th and 41st streets, a United Nations that is attempting to expand, a rezoning slated for 125th Street, and a planned esplanade for the East River waterfront, supporters of the subway line say it will boost the area's momentum and open up new opportunities for residents who for decades have clamored for a second subway line.

The Second Avenue line has been on the drawing board since at least the 1920s, as planners have long eyed an eastern sibling for the perennially crowded Lexington Avenue line. Political and economic constraints — particularly the extraordinary cost of tunneling under the well-developed East Side — have repeatedly put a halt to any progress, and the line's groundbreaking in April was at least the fourth since the 1970s. The cost could exceed $15 billion for the entire line, which would run between the financial district and 125th Street, though funding has been secured only for the first $4 billion segment.

Advocates of the line have touted the potential economic benefits of the investment, which would produce rewards by decreasing commute times throughout the East Side and spurring greater real estate prices and new development.

High land values, especially in subway-dependent Manhattan, traditionally follow the path of mass transit, with seniors, young children, and Wall Street commuters all benefiting from the increased ease of access.

For now, real estate experts caution that a big bump in prices along the project's footprint is still years off, a result of the distant completion date — the final phase of construction is slated to end in 2023 — and the lack of a committed funding source for much of the line.

On the Upper East Side, where the first section of the line is scheduled for completion in 2013, brokers say the prospect of years of constant construction is driving some buyers away.

"People are wary because of its inconvenience, and people are always wary about an unknown," an Upper East Side broker for the Corcoran Group, Wendy Sarasohn, said.

Still, others are lured by the long-term investment value, Ms. Sarasohn said, leaving prices relatively unchanged in comparison to nearby neighborhoods.

"I can't say that I've seen a pattern or a surge, or any change in pricing," a partner at the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, Jonathan Miller, said.

"In some respects, it might provide a drag on price growth in the short term — and that would be recouped and likely accelerated" upon completion, Mr. Miller said.

High property values on the Upper East Side have long been concentrated toward Central Park, as land prices gradually decline with movement eastward. Upon completion of the subway line, developers and brokers say the prices along First and Second avenues could come closer to narrowing the gap with the high-end havens of Park and Fifth avenues.

"It's always been known that First Avenue and Second have always been at a great discount," in large part because of the distance from a subway, the developer of a nearly completed condominium tower on East End Avenue and 88th Street, Orin Wilf, said.

With the first phase of the subway still years off, Mr. Wilf said landlords and investors see a long-term opportunity, one for which buyers of individual condos do not have the patience.

"As an investor of properties, it's a good time to buy right now on First and Second avenues for 10 to 15 years down the road," he said.

A 2003 study by the Regional Plan Association found that the line would open up opportunities for new development throughout the project's footprint. The report cited the possibility to expand a health services corridor on the Upper East Side, and open up the relatively underdeveloped East Harlem area to new investment.

"That's an area that is softer and has been bypassed by developers for a long time," an author of the report who is a senior fellow at the Regional Plan Association, Jeffrey Zupan, said. By connecting into the growing 125th Street corridor, which includes a Metro North station, the project will open the upper sections of the line to large levels of new development, Mr. Zupan said.

The section of the line that carries one of the project's greatest benefits — a far East Side connection to the financial district — is the last scheduled to be completed and could take more than 15 years.

Many of the stops south of Midtown connect into already existing stations, though supporters say the added transit opportunities will still spur increased real estate value throughout the line. The substantial investment required for the line has irked its critics, who claim other transit projects could see far more return on the dollar. The Upper East Side, they say, is already one of the most densely populated areas in the city.

In 2003, the Partnership for New York City issued a report weighing the benefits of numerous potential transportation projects, and found investments such as a new Pennsylvania Station and a Long Island Rail Road connection to Grand Central Terminal had a far greater payback in terms of spurring economic development.

"The Second Avenue subway is primarily a transportation project as opposed to an economic development project," the president of the Partnership, Kathryn Wylde, said.

The Upper East Side is already well developed, Ms. Wylde said, and other projects such as a connector from Lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport would spur construction in areas that investors are traditionally less appealing to investors.

"The benefits there multiply with downtown Brooklyn and Jamaica," Ms. Wylde said of the JFK connector project, "and those are areas that clearly have significant development opportunities that the improved transit is a catalyst for creating."

Dynamicdezzy

September 16th, 2007, 03:35 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007...25m_in_fe.html
Second Ave. subway line to get $125M in federal funding
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY KATHLEEN LUCADAMO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, September 15th 2007, 4:00 AM

A rendering of the exterior of the Second Ave. subway line projected to be finished by 2013.

The interior of what one of the stations on the new train line may look like.

The Second Ave. subway is a stop away from an infusion of federal money.

The long-awaited rail line got a boost yesterday when the Senate passed the Transportation Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2008, which earmarks $125 million for the project.

The bill also includes $200 million for the MTA's so-called East Side Access project, which will bring Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central Terminal, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said.

The bill now goes to a conference committee, where the Senate and House must reach a compromise on funding for transportation projects across the nation.

"The Second Ave. subway line will provide desperately needed relief to the severely stressed Lexington line," Schumer said.

After decades of delay, state and city officials finally broke ground on the $3.8 billion subway line in April. The first phase of the line will have stops on Second Ave. at 96th St., 86th St. and 72nd St., as well as at Lexington Ave. and 63rd St.

The line is scheduled to be completed in 2013, and officials expect it to carry about 200,000 riders a day.

The Second Ave. subway has been touted by officials since the 1920s. The April groundbreaking marked at least the fourth for the subway line.

"Now that the ground has been broken and the commitment is real for the Second Ave. subway, this kind of federal investment is critical to helping the city and state keep the project on track," Clinton said yesterday.

Schumer called the East Side Access project, which will link the LIRR to Grand Central Terminal through the 63rd St. tunnel, "a necessity for Long Island and Queens commuters who spend needless hours every week on their daily commutes."

TonyO

October 7th, 2007, 06:39 PM

NY Times
October 7, 2007

Nerves Exposed, Second Avenue Waits for Its Subway

By ANNE BARNARD

To entice buyers to spend $1 million for one-bedroom apartments on the less glossy eastern edge of the Upper East Side, the builders of a shimmering glass tower going up at 91st Street and First Avenue advertise customized stone countertops, a private fitness center, “expansive sunrise and sunset views” — and the Second Avenue subway.

Now that construction crews have started work on the Second Avenue line after decades of delays, bullish real estate brokers and nervous neighborhood tenants alike expect New York’s first new subway in 50 years to join the market forces that are driving Park Avenue-style prices farther east and replacing quirky Hungarian shops with high-end chain stores.

Ending commuters’ long walk west to the Lexington Avenue subway will bring new cachet to addresses on Second Avenue and eastward — or at least that’s what developers and real estate brokers are betting. Among them are the builders at 91st and First, who point to the subway’s expected opening in 2014 and boldly declare that their tower, christened the Azure, stands at “the heart of the Upper East Side.”

“That’s really been the aversion to that area, that it was so far from transportation,” said Chris Poore, a real estate agent with the Corcoran Group who uses the subway as a favorite talking point when he shows apartment hunters the Cielo, another high-rise of million-dollar condos, at 83rd Street and York Avenue. “People now see the value of moving further east, and what a good investment it is.”

But for many longtime residents and business owners, the neighborhood’s reputation as a bit of a backwater has been one of its attractions: harder to get to, but cheaper and more intimate. Their attitudes veer between the optimistic and the elegiac: They are excited about the subway, but apprehensive about what the neighborhood could lose.

The subway is not the reason that high rents and high-rises have encroached; that has been going on since the 1980s. But some residents suspect the train line’s arrival could be the final step in the transformation of Yorkville and the rest of the eastern Upper East Side from a relatively modest enclave of mom-and-pop stores and restaurants to just another grid of luxury towers and national retailers.

Today, four- and five-story tenements, many rent-regulated, line avenues that show vestiges of Eastern European and German immigration. Many corner lots have sprouted glass towers. But along Second Avenue, old-fashioned businesses like the Heidelberg restaurant, a family-owned hardware store and sellers of Hungarian sausages and pastries jostle with shinier spots like Justin Timberlake’s new barbecue joint.

Next year, some local businesses and lower-income tenants will be forced to move to make way for new subway stations. They fear they will have to leave the neighborhood for good. Construction, which could take years, will strain many more businesses, including sidewalk cafes and restaurants that have given Second Avenue its vibrant streetscape and made it the heart of affordable night life on the Upper East Side.

“There’s going to be more banks and more chain stores and more high-rises with $2 million condos. There’s no more neighborhood,” said Carol Crnobori, who has run Mustang, a Southwestern-style restaurant on 85th and Second, for 14 years. Like many restaurants along the avenue, it is to lose the rights to its sidewalk tables and glassed-in cafe during construction, a blow Ms. Crnobori said could be fatal.

But her bartender, Megan Johnston, 32, confessed that she was looking forward to the new subway to ease the sardine-can crowding on the No. 6 train.

“We need it,” said Ms. Johnston, who lives in the neighborhood. But she added, “If the rents get any higher, I’m going to have to do the Astoria thing.”

Sally Ardrey, 69, is one of the tenants the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must relocate because of the subway project. Even though she will be forced to move from her rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment at 72nd and Second, she supports the subway. But she worries it will kill what little economic diversity remains. When she arrived in 1986, she said, for fancier Upper East Siders west of Third Avenue, “First Avenue might as well have been on Cape Cod.”

But between 1980 and 2000, in the area from Second Avenue to the East River and 70th to 96th Street, the population grew 12.9 percent, compared with 7.6 percent for all of Manhattan, according to an analysis of census data by demographers at Queens College. Rents grew by 41.8 percent, compared with 31.1 percent boroughwide.

Many residents say they will believe in the subway when they see it. City officials first proposed it in the 1920s, to replace the elevated trains on Second and Third Avenues. Twice voters approved it. But funds earmarked in 1951 went instead to improve existing lines; a second bond issue in 1967 led to construction that halted during the city’s financial crisis in the 1970s.

The idea that a subway could spiff up the neighborhood has come and gone. In 1930, a real estate auctioneer told The New York Times that the Second Avenue line would make Yorkville “high-class apartment house territory” and gentrify the blocks in the East 90s that were then lined with breweries. But in the 1950s, letter-writers complained that the chaos of construction would bring down the neighborhood.

Last year, voters approved a bond issue partly financing the first leg of the line, and the federal government has also committed money. Projected to cost $4 billion and open in 2014, it will run down Second Avenue from 96th Street, stopping at 86th and 72nd Streets and then at 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue, where it will join existing tracks. Someday, the line is to stretch down Second Avenue to the financial district. Transit officials will not venture to guess when.

Building crews will mostly tunnel underground, out of view. But to build the stations, they will dig up parts of the street.

That means restaurants along swaths of Second Avenue, including from 82nd to 88th Streets and 70th to 74th Streets, will temporarily lose permits for cafes that jut onto the sidewalk. Authority officials do not yet know how long that will last.

The Heidelberg, where German sausages have been served since 1908 and waitresses still wear dirndl skirts, must pull in its outdoor tables, but hopes for the best. The subway will improve business, says the manager, Regina Bryant, if restaurants survive its construction.

At Dorrian’s Red Hand, a red-tableclothed neighborhood fixture, a glassed-in balcony may have to go for a time. Similar inconveniences loom for at least a dozen other neighborhood standbys, like A la Turka on 74th and Second, which faces losing a portion of its seating during the subway construction. “That’s it; end of life,” the manager, Suleyman Secer, said.

For several businesses and residents, the consequences are worse. The authority is using eminent domain to take over and tear down the properties they rent.

Tony’s Di Napoli, a chicken-parmigiana-and-spaghetti Italian family restaurant where former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani courted his current wife, Judith, must move. Its dining room will become a subway entrance. Falk Surgical Supplies, a drugstore that has sold hard-to-find medical products on 72nd and Second for 50 years, will be torn down. Owners of both say they will never find affordable space nearby.

Four buildings will be demolished, forcing out the tenants of 57 mostly rent-regulated apartments. Federal law requires the authority to find them housing in the neighborhood of a comparable type and price. If there is none, the law requires the authority to pay the difference in rent for their new apartments for up to three and a half years, up to $5,265 total. Transit officials vow to find apartments the tenants can afford indefinitely, even if it means going above the maximum amount, but have not determined how they will do that when one-bedrooms routinely rent for more than $2,000.

Regulars at Tony’s saw an ominous sign for their own future.

“We’ve spent every graduation, birthday party and anniversary here,” said Stewart Cohon, 57, a human-resources consultant who lives nearby and was eating with neighbors who fretted that their favorite hangouts would disappear. “This hurts not just Tony’s but everybody in the neighborhood,” Mr. Cohon said.

In the short term, the subway could hurt real estate owners, too, since dust and inconvenience could spook tenants and buyers. But for the long term, said Deborah Gutoff, a senior director at the brokerage firm Eastern Consolidated, “We’re excited.”

Earlier, the area was not as prosperous as the rest of the East Side, but that is changing, Ms. Gutoff said. She expects the subway to further raise the value of retail and residential properties, like the four buildings on 71st and Second, a row of modest old tenements, that she is offering to investors in an estate sale.

And the fate of those buildings, with their rent-regulated tenants and shops like the cheap and beloved Afghan Kebab House? Within a decade, Ms. Gutoff said, a buyer could put up an 80,000-square-foot apartment tower, adding to the Upper East Side’s population boom.

That growth, which began long ago, is one reason the area needs a new train line despite the even higher rents it will bring, said State Senator Liz Krueger, who represents the district: “It’s a chicken and egg thing.”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/06/nyregion/subwaymapFull.gif

ramvid01

October 7th, 2007, 09:15 PM

I wish the MTA was more open in it's reporting of construction progress. It feels we won't know whats happening until its happened about 2 months later.

On another note anyone know when serious tunneling will begin for this project?

TonyO

October 8th, 2007, 09:23 AM

On another note anyone know when serious tunneling will begin for this project?

This site is the best resource I've found for progress reports on the SAS:

http://secondavenuesagas.com

mkeit

October 8th, 2007, 02:22 PM

A report said the TBM will arrive in Feb., but I don't see tunnelling beginning until June. The shaft has to be excavated and the machine assembled.

antinimby

October 8th, 2007, 03:09 PM

Will the air rights to all the properties that the MTA will bring down to build subway entrances eventually go/get transferred somewhere else?

NYatKNIGHT

October 8th, 2007, 04:41 PM

We may have gotten used to long construction durations in this city, but still, five and a half years sounds right for a lunar base, not a single subway station.

mkeit

October 10th, 2007, 02:36 PM

The seized properties will be used for 3-story vent buildings and entrances.

ramvid01

October 11th, 2007, 12:24 AM

This site is the best resource I've found for progress reports on the SAS:

http://secondavenuesagas.com

Thanks. :D

We may have gotten used to long construction durations in this city, but still, five and a half years sounds right for a lunar base, not a single subway station.

That just made me chuckle lol.

AmeriKenArtist

November 17th, 2007, 10:05 AM

As Zoe mentioned early in this thread (2003!) a cross-town connection at 125 St would be sensible. alonzo-ny mentions the walk from LEX line to MMA. For years, I imagined another shuttle that I'll toss into the soup!

(Someone quietly suggest to Mr. Trump... ;-) ...to build a cross-town shuttle, beginning at 86 ST & Broadway, #1 Train, and connect with B & C at CPW, MMA at 5 AV, #'s 4 5 6 at Lexington, and the 2 AV line!

A seperate shuttle or another leg from an existing line, crossing at 86 would be great.

brianac

November 19th, 2007, 04:24 AM

U.S. Approves $1.3 Billion for 2nd Avenue Subway

By WILLIAM NEUMAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=WILLIAM NEUMAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=WILLIAM NEUMAN&inline=nyt-per)
Published: November 19, 2007

The long-dreamed-of Second Avenue subway will take another important step toward becoming a real thing of concrete and steel today, as the federal government plans to announce that it has formally approved $1.3 billion in financing for the project’s first phase.

Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said in an interview that the money would be paid out over the next seven years as construction progresses on the subway’s first leg, which will have stops on Second Avenue at 92nd, 86th and 72nd Streets and at 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority began preliminary work on the line after Gov. Eliot Spitzer (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/eliot_l_spitzer/index.html?inline=nyt-per) held a ceremonial groundbreaking in April.

Ms. Peters said the federal money would pay for about one-third of the work on the first phase, which is expected to cost more than $4 billion. The first leg is scheduled to open in 2014, and it will run as an extension of the Q line.
“It will be very good news to people in the area that this long-planned, on-again-off-again project will finally be completed,” Ms. Peters said.

She said the financing for the Second Avenue subway would be the second-largest federal expenditure ever on a single mass transit project. The largest is for construction of a Long Island Rail Road link to Grand Central Terminal, which is also under way. The federal government has pledged $2.6 billion to that project.

Most of the additional money for both the subway line and the commuter rail project will be raised by the sale of bonds.

Plans for the Second Avenue subway call for the line to eventually stretch from Harlem to the financial district. It is to be built in four phases, but there is no schedule for the other three sections of the line. Ms. Peters said the transportation authority would have to apply to her agency for financing of the subsequent phases.

Contractors for the transportation authority have begun to cut a hole in Second Avenue south of 96th Street, where a massive tunnel-boring machine will be assembled.

The Second Avenue subway has been a dream of mayors, straphangers and urban planners since at least the 1920s. In the 1970s, a few isolated sections of tunnel were built, then covered over and abandoned when the city ran out of money.

The transportation authority has said that it is confident it will be able to complete the first phase of the subway.

It has been grappling, however, with rapidly rising costs on its large construction projects. On the subway project, the authority has had to add to its budget for acquiring the real estate needed to allow construction to $245 million, a $54 million increase. And it agreed to a tunnel-drilling contract for $337 million, which was $17 million more than it had budgeted.

Copyright 2007 New York Times Company

NewYorkDoc

November 19th, 2007, 04:58 PM

This is good news. Now lets see if we dont fall asleep until 2014.

TonyO

November 20th, 2007, 05:42 PM

NY Post

MTA TO $UFFER IF TRAIN 'STALLS'

By JEREMY OLSHAN Transit Reporter

November 20, 2007 -- With yesterday's federal commitment of $1.3 billion, many officials all but guaranteed the Second Avenue subway would finally be built - but the MTA could still lose out on the funding if the project doesn't stay on track.
Should the $3.8 billion plan run substantially over budget or behind schedule, the Federal Transit Administration reserves the right to back out of its agreement, officials said.

In 2004, the agency withheld funds from a San Diego rail project that had huge cost-overruns and delays.

"Until the last of the bids are in and all the money has been locked down, I don't think I'd ever say I would rest easy," said Bill Henderson, director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.

"Although I have 1.3 billion more reasons to be optimistic, ultimately everything is always subject to appropriation."

It is unlikely the feds will pull the plug on a project as important and massive as the new subway unless there are colossal problems, transit sources said. In fact, the FTA would not sign off on the funds until the MTA changed its anticipated date of completion from 2013 to 2014.

"With the MTA, you always have to worry about this," said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign. "Other projects have gone way over budget and behind schedule. It is always a danger."

The first phase of the subway will extend the Q train from 63rd and Lexington Avenue up Second Avenue to 96th Street, with stops at 86th and 72nd streets.

All of the stations will have elevators and "air-tempering" systems that will make them comfortable even in sweltering New York summers, officials said.

The full project, which has yet to be funded completely, will run from 125th Street to Lower Manhattan.

Just as 110 Livingston St. was synonymous with city bureaucracy, the Second Avenue subway has long been shorthand for the city's inability to build big projects.

Gov. Spitzer insists that, unlike the 75-year history of false starts and squandered funds and opportunities, this time the city, state and federal government mean business.

"For much of the 20th century, New York talked about building the Second Avenue subway," Spitzer said. "Today, with the help of our partners in Washington and Albany, the shovels are already in the ground."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney went a step further.

"The Second Avenue subway is now inevitable," she said.

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com

ablarc

December 2nd, 2007, 02:13 PM

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/secondavenuesubway/0010.jpg

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/secondavenuesubway/0020.jpg

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/secondavenuesubway/0030.jpg

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/secondavenuesubway/0040.jpg

86th Street station entrance:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/secondavenuesubway/0050.jpg

^ Indiansunite of SSC found these.

NewYorkDoc

December 2nd, 2007, 04:40 PM

I like the entrance at Front St. On the other hand, the building atop the 86th st station is really ugly.

antinimby

December 3rd, 2007, 06:31 AM

What's that building for anyway? :confused:

mkeit

December 3rd, 2007, 02:10 PM

Ventilation. The line is so deep that it has to have fans at each end of the stations. For security reasons, the intakes are elevated above ground level-no more sidewalk vents

Ed007Toronto

December 11th, 2007, 01:47 PM

MTA has updated their website.

http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/index.html

Includes a construction update page which will be updated weekly.

http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/construction.htm

Tectonic

December 12th, 2007, 10:11 AM

I really hope this gets done. The subways helped make NYC what it is today and its continued growth/improvement will be vital to the city's future prosperity.

econ_tim

December 12th, 2007, 10:46 AM

the 86th street entrance looks like it will replace the buildings currently housing cold stone creamery and gothic cabinet craft

macreator

December 15th, 2007, 06:28 PM

the 86th street entrance looks like it will replace the buildings currently housing cold stone creamery and gothic cabinet craft

Actually I'm pretty sure that the new entrance will be on the opposite side of the street (the southeast corner) where a restaurant sites currently.

Eugenious

December 15th, 2007, 11:47 PM

Can somebody in the neighborhood take some pics

mkeit

December 17th, 2007, 02:44 PM

The MTA Cap Construction page on the SAS has a Documents page with presentaions for the various Community Boards. The have drawings of the planned entrances and photos of existing conditions.

http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/sas_documents.htm

mkeit

February 11th, 2008, 01:58 PM

Schiavone is a major part of the Second Ave Subway, the # 7 extension and the current Water Tunnel joint ventures. Its new parent, Dragados has $ 1 billion worth of the East Side Access.
From Engineering news Record 2/10

Federal agents arrested Anthony Delvescovo, the 51-year-old director of tunnel operations for Schiavone Construction Co., as part of a broad offensive against mob-related racketeering. Federal prosecutors have not yet described his possible connection to organized crime but they did provide some information about alleged threats and intimidation against a subcontractor as part of an alleged extortion scheme.
Officials of Schiavone could not be reached for comment at the company's Secaucus, N.J. headquarters.
The arrest was part of a sweep of 62 individuals indicted Feb. 7 by federal officials for alleged crimes ranging from loansharking and embezzlement of union funds to murder. Defendants include key members of the Gambino crime family as well as Louis Mosca and Michael King, laborers' union officials in Jersey City, N.J. and Queens, N.Y., and key officials of a New York City-based Teamsters' union local. Defendants are charged with a total of 80 counts in the 170-page indictment.
According to the indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., "The charged crimes date back three decades and reflect the Gambino family's corrosive influence on the construction industry in New York City and beyond, and its willingness to resort to violence, even murder, to resolve disputes in dozens of crimes of violence dating from the 1970s to the present."
Separately, on Feb. 7, Michael Annucci, a shop steward for the New York City District Council of Carpenters, was found guilty in federal district court in Manhattan on charges related to his role in a scheme to defraud its benefit fund of nearly $500,000. He was also an executive delegate from Local 157 and a member of the council's trial committee, which imposed discipline on carpenters who broke union roles, says the U.S. Attorney's office.
Federal officials claim Delvescovo also used the name Anthony Delvecchio. In the indictment, federal officials claim Delvescovo and others used threats and intimidation to extort cash from an unidentified Schiavone subcontractor during the period from February 2005 through last month. Michael King, a 41-year-old shop steward of the Building, Concrete, Excavating and Common Laborers union Local 731 based in Queens, N.Y., was also charged. That 4,000-member local is affiliated with the Laborers' Union International of North America, based in Washington, DC.
Mosca, 62, was identified in the indictment as business manager for Laborers' Local 325, which has about 500 active members. He is charged with mail fraud and embezzlement of union funds, among other crimes.
Delvescovo could be reached for comment. He is believed to be one of 55 persons now in federal custody. A spokesman for the laborers union declined official comment.
Delvescovo appeared to be a rising star at Schiavone Construction, which was acquired in December by Spanish contracting giant Grupo ACS, which also owns Dragados, the Madrid-based contractor that has partnered with the US firm in recent years on major infrastructure work.
According to a biography on the Schiavone website, Delvescovo joined the contractor in 1986, after graduation from the New Jersey Institute of Techology in Newark, N.J. He advanced to project superintendent on the Brooklyn Water Tunnel No. 3 project in 1993 and in 1999, was promoted to project manager on the expansion of Carnegie Hall. Delvescovo was named an ENR Newsmaker in 2002 for his work on that complicated tunneling project.
He continued as project manager on the Manhattan section of NYC's Water Tunnel No. 3, where he is responsible for all tunneling and shaft construction operations, according to the website.
The indictment points out the Gambino family's profitable connections from extortion rackets at a number of New York City area projects, including a planned NASCAR racetrack in Staten Island and the Liberty View Harbor condo complex in Jersey City. Trucking firms that hauled dirt and debris from these and other sites were controlled by the family or extorted by its members, according to authorities. The indictment notes that subcontractors of joint venture Granite/Halmar were among those shaken down.
The indictment "represents a significant milestone toward eradicating a far-reaching and insideous conspiracy involving some of the largest construction companies in New York City that are owned, controlled and/or influenced by the Gambino organized crime family," says Gordon Heddell, the U.S. Dept of Labor Inspector General. "Many of these construction companies allegedly paid a 'mob tax' in return for 'protection' and permission to operate."

MikeW

February 28th, 2008, 05:07 PM

As if this wasn't expected. I wonder when they'll announce the suspension/cancellation?

http://www.amny.com/news/local/transportation/am-mta0228,0,4191142.story

amny.com/news/local/transportation/am-mta0228,0,4191142.story
amNY.com

MTA: Big delay for Second Avenue subway

By Marlene Naanes and Steve Ritea
mnaanes@am-ny.com
February 28, 2008
NEW YORK

The Second Avenue Subway will be delayed yet again, nearly a century after it was first proposed. Rising construction costs have pushed back the long-awaited companion to the overcrowded Lexington Avenue line until June 2015, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said Wednesday.

Commuters on the packed downtown platform at the 51st and Lexington station were in no mood to sympathize during the Wednesday's evening rush hour. "It's bordering on incompetence at this point," said Max Chee, 35, who was trying to get home to Park Slope. "By the time it's eventually ready I'll be retired."

The one-year delay - the second such postponement in recent months - affects the first stage of the Second Avenue line that will connect 96th Street to 63rd Street.

David Guin, a lawyer who lives in the West Village, sat on a bench watching the shiny metal No. 6 trains that resembled sardine cans rumble past.

"I wait for at least one or two, sometimes three trains to go by before I get on," Guin said. "Anything that would relieve the congestion on this line would do a lot."

MTA Chief Elliot Sander said after a board meeting Wednesday that delaying completion of the Second Avenue line and other projects would allow the agency to save money by signing smaller contracts for each job.

The increased costs of construction also put the brakes on plans to connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal. The East Side Access plan to ease crowding in Penn Station will not debut until February 2015, about seven months later than the previously estimated.

The delays were revealed in the MTA's 2008-2013 Capital Plan that the authority will submit to the state legislature for approval. The $29.5 billion capital budget depends on $4.5 billion in revenues from congestion pricing, which would charge motorists $8 to drive below 60th street in Manhattan during peak hours. The state legislature and city council must act on congestion pricing before a March 31 deadline or risk losing $354.5 million in federal funds for mass transit.

With roughly one million more people expected to live in the city by 2030, "these investments are crucial to that growth," Sander said.

Approval by the Legislature is vital, he said, noting after the meeting: "I think the stakes are about as high as they could be."

In a statement Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer called it "a well-considered plan for critical investments" that "also reflects the challenging fiscal times." For riders on the Lexington line, the immediate challenge last night was to get home.

Jonas Katzoff, 28, took the news of a delay to the Second Avenue plan in stride as he headed home to Murray Hill. "You just kind of just laugh at it at this point."

Steve Ritea is a Newsday staff writer. Matthew Sweeney and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2008, AM New York (http://www.amny.com/)

brianac

August 2nd, 2008, 08:11 AM

MTA SUB-WEIGHS ALTERNATIVE

By PATRICK GALLAHUE

Posted: 4:14 am
August 1, 2008

The MTA is going to study alternatives to station entrances for the Second Avenue Subway after Upper East Siders battled over a midblock gateway on 72nd Street.

Residents complained, and several even sued, to stop the agency from opening large entrances on their residential street, arguing that it would eat up sidewalk space between First and Second avenues.

The MTA said it would now study alternatives for the 72nd Street entrance.

"Midblock entrances are not common in residential areas and will have a significant impact on pedestrian walking patterns, traffic flow and emergency vehicle access to their buildings," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08012008/news/regionalnews/mta_sub_weighs_alternative_122532.htm

Copyright 2008 NYP Holdings

econ_tim

August 22nd, 2008, 05:47 PM

this document contains some good descriptions of different subway construction methods that will be used: http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/documents/2ndave.pdf

brianac

September 24th, 2008, 10:49 AM

About New York

One Tunnel, Two Views of the Future

By JIM DWYER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/jim_dwyer/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: September 23, 2008

Right now, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_transportation_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org) is digging a subway tunnel down a short piece of Second Avenue. The current estimate is that the construction will cost about $3,000 every minute of every day next year. Then the real money begins.

Which raises the question: Is it really such a great idea to be digging subway tunnels in Manhattan?

Once this was a simple question. A century ago, only dirt and rocks were under the sidewalks. The subways built between 1900 and 1940 made the modern city grow, a system of human irrigation for skyscrapers and apartment buildings. Today, though, the underground is practically as crowded as the streets above.

Running beneath every street is an invisible, honeycombed world of cables and conduits, pipes and vaults.

To thread new subway tunnels through this tangle requires both brilliant engineering and construction, and spectacular amounts of money.

The Second Avenue subway is only one of a number of megaprojects that came to life during a prosperous era that appears to be coming to an end.

The Long Island Rail Road (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/l/long_island_rail_road/index.html?inline=nyt-org) is tunneling under the East Side of Manhattan to add a connection with Grand Central Terminal. And the city wants to extend the No. 7 train from its current terminal in Times Square to the Far West Side.

Only now are city and authority officials beginning serious exploration of using the surface of the city, rather than its underside, for mass transit.

One idea is to dedicate portions of big streets and avenues to protected bus lanes, physically separated from other traffic. Riders would pay their fares before they boarded. An experiment to do that in the Bronx has made a big cut in travel time, said Joan Byron, director of the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative at the Pratt Center for Community Development.

Such systems are called bus rapid transit (http://www.prattcenter.net/pubs/PrattCenter-Bus_Rapid_Transit_fact_sheet.pdf), and the cost to build them is $1 million to $2 million per mile, Ms. Byron says, compared with $1 billion per mile for the Second Avenue subway.

“If you just took the cost overruns for one year on any of the megarail projects, that would pay for a handsome bus rapid transit network,” she said.

Others, including a group of private transit planners, have argued that the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should examine light rail (http://www.vision42.org/), essentially a modern version of old-fashioned streetcars.

To Jeffrey M. Zupan, senior transportation fellow at the Regional Plan Association (http://www.rpa.org/), it makes no sense to drop the Second Avenue subway. While the final price is estimated at more than $16 billion, Mr. Zupan says it will be the most cost-effective rapid-transit project in the country — not only providing a new line on the East Side, but also easing congestion on the existing Lexington Avenue trains for people in the Bronx and Brooklyn. The Second Avenue project has received federal funding precisely because it will reduce travel time for hundreds of thousands of people, Mr. Zupan said.

It has been on the drawing boards through the terms of eight mayors and eight governors; portions were actually dug in the early 1970s, but the city and state ran out of money.

“With the checkered history — if you stop now, you’d never start again,” Mr. Zupan said. “Inertia is what we had for a generation. You’d be kissing goodbye the benefits that would accrue to a half million riders a day, and you would continue to subject riders on the Lexington Avenue lines to inhumane crowding conditions.”

A report (http://prattcenter.net/pubs/PrattCenter-NYC_commutes_by_race_and_income.pdf) from the Pratt Center says that 750,000 people in the five boroughs now have commutes longer than one hour. A bus rapid transit system, Ms. Byron argues, would be the quickest, least expensive way to make those rides shorter.

New York’s vaunted subway and rapid-transit network — including the els — essentially stopped growing with the completion in 1940 of the IND lines. A 1986 report from the Regional Plan Association noted that since 1940, New York has gained the “dubious distinction of being the world’s only city with a shrinking rapid transit system, even as world mileage grew over 40 percent a decade.”

Gene Russianoff (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/gene_russianoff/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign (http://www.straphangers.org/), said he was reluctantly coming to the view that the grand new projects could hurt the upkeep of the existing system. “The M.T.A. just proposed cutting a fifth of their core capital program,” Mr. Russianoff said. “That included dropping fixing 19 stations, and hundreds of millions for emergency fans in the tunnels. At some point, maybe not yet, how vigorously can we proceed on these expansion projects if we don’t have the money to keep fixing the existing system?”

Mr. Zupan of the regional planning group said construction jobs from the megaprojects would help the city through an economic downturn. “This is what I’ve been fearing will come up in the conversation because of the M.T.A.’s financial situation,” he said. “Now more than ever we need them.”

E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/nyregion/24about.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

ramvid01

September 24th, 2008, 03:56 PM

Some shortsightedness from a few people in the article.

The solution is more funding and higher efficiency with the maount of work being done with the money.

scumonkey

April 27th, 2009, 02:54 PM

Second Ave. subway set back - again

BY Pete Donohue (http://www.nydailynews.com/authors/Pete%20Donohue)
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, April 24th 2009, 9:57 PM
The first segment of the Second Ave. subway may not be finished until 2016 - four years later than the original schedule, the Daily News has learned.
The MTA, which has pushed back the completion date several times over the last decade, recently predicted additional construction and design delays totaling 18 months, an internal document drafted in February reveals.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Metropolitan+Transportation+Authority)'s handling of some aspects of its major construction projects has frustrated the Federal Transit Administration (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Federal+Transit+Administration), The News has learned.
After extending the Second Ave. subway schedule in March 2008, citing higher than anticipated construction costs, the MTA was required to give the feds a recovery plan with options to make up some lost time and fill budget gaps.
The feds have "provided the MTA with a time period that is more than reasonable" regional administrator Brigid Hynes-Cherin (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Brigid+Hynes-Cherin) wrote to the MTA in November. "Unfortunately, the MTA appears to have been caught up in a never-ending process of evaluating and reevaluating each program. The time for evaluation has taken far too long, and the time for presenting a recovery plan is now long overdue."
In the letter, Hynes-Cherin also complained about a "lack of leadership" when the MTA "took an excessive amount of time" to fill top-level vacancies in the capital construction division, including the presidency.
The MTA still hasn't provided the recovery plan but is working closely with the federal government, and it should be completed in the coming weeks, FTA spokesman Dave Long (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Dave+Long) told The News.
After an exhaustive review, Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu will release a report with new project schedules and management strategies next month, MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Jeremy+Soffin) said. "One of the greatest threats to the budget and schedule for the Second Ave. subway, and all of the MTA's projects, remains ongoing uncertainty of funding for the vital upcoming capital program."

avngingandbright

April 27th, 2009, 05:39 PM

Surely, this is no surprise.

ramvid01

April 27th, 2009, 06:13 PM

I'm shocked. No really.

I thought this would be delayed until 2040.

ZippyTheChimp

April 27th, 2009, 06:44 PM

Queens and Brooklyn legislators have no balls.

Toll the East River bridges.

NoyokA

April 27th, 2009, 08:42 PM

Its amazing how far we've digressed since the late 1800's.

Ninjahedge

April 28th, 2009, 12:57 PM

Everybody is screaming.

The state is not providing funding for things, the MTA is this indecisive beaurocratic blob, the Unions, IN A RECESSION are demanding to keep their jobs and pay, and the MTA (again) is saying that even WITH the cuts and outrageous fare hikes they will STILL be over $600M in the red.

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't they have a surplus a few years back? Where did this money go?

And why the hell are the Feds asking the MTA to re-evaluate everything. They already know they can't do anything on time! This requires a heavier hand to start dredging through the scum on the bottom (odd, it usually rises to the top!)

antinimby

April 28th, 2009, 01:27 PM

Where did this money go?This is the MTA we're talking about here. It goes and it goes pretty quick.

STT757

April 28th, 2009, 06:53 PM

Toll the East River bridges.

Long overdue.

Simple, whatever revenues are generated from East River Tolls go directly into Capital Expansion projects:

Second Ave Subway (whole length)
N Train to LGA
etc..

philvia

April 28th, 2009, 10:40 PM

the MTA is such an embarrassment
http://www.furuanimepanikku.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/kyon_facepalm.jpg

ramvid01

May 2nd, 2009, 02:21 AM

As much as I would hate to admit it, the slow movement in construction progress leads me to believe that they are stalling only to later announce that they are cancelling this project because of the economic crisis as well as the ever bloating deficit that the MTA suffers from.

What a shameful state of affairs.

ablarc

May 2nd, 2009, 09:41 AM

Is it time to change the title of the thread?

lofter1

May 3rd, 2009, 12:28 AM

Perhaps add two words: "... to nowhere."

NYatKNIGHT

May 4th, 2009, 12:29 PM

Is it time to change the title of the thread?To what?

antinimby

May 4th, 2009, 01:34 PM

This is where Obama's Federal Stimulus should come in.

I can't think of another, more worthy transportation/infrastructure project in the whole country that deserves FULL Federal funding as this project.

BrooklynRider

May 6th, 2009, 02:40 AM

To what?

I changed it yesterday from

"Second Avenue Subway on track"

to

Second Avenue Subway Project (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=282858#post282858)

avngingandbright

May 6th, 2009, 12:25 PM

I can't think of another, more worthy transportation/infrastructure project in the whole country that deserves FULL Federal funding as this project.

It certainly affects more people than most any other project nationwide would.

NYatKNIGHT

May 6th, 2009, 05:25 PM

I changed it yesterday from

"Second Avenue Subway on track"

to

Second Avenue Subway Project (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=282858#post282858)

Oh! Now i get it.

philvia

May 7th, 2009, 07:36 PM

The long-delayed Second Avenue subway (http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/index.html)will receive $79 million from the economic stimulus bill passed this year, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan), announced today.
The money will be used for the first phase of the project, which includes stations at 96th, 86th and 72nd streets on Second Avenue. This section is expected to be complete by 2016.

The full $16 billion project, currently under construction, will run from 125th Street to Hanover Square.

TonyO

June 10th, 2009, 02:11 PM

NY Post

DIGS AT 2ND AVE. SUBWAY
FURY OVER EVACUATION

By TOM NAMAKO Transit Reporter
June 10, 2009

Second Avenue Subway construction is being blamed for the sudden evacuation of residents at an already teetering Upper East Side building last weekend.

About 18 people at 1772 Second Ave., near East 93rd Street, had to be relocated when Department of Buildings inspectors discovered cracks in the façade they feared could lead to collapse, officials said.

It is unknown when residents will be allowed back in the six-story walkup.

"Saturday we were on site to escort tenants, between 9 a.m. and noon, in and out of the building so they could get personal belongings because they'd be out of their apartments for a while," said Seth Donlin, spokesman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

"It was their last chance to grab their stuff until they're able to come back."

Business owners and neighbors say vibrations from the never-ending construction on the MTA Second Avenue project played a role the evacuation.

"Absolutely, without a doubt, it was the construction," said Eddie Crowe, who owns Crowe's Nest bar down the block from the apartment building.

"Just last week they had to install sheds over some buildings on my block because debris was falling off the façade."

Marcelo Ronchini, who owns nearby Nina's Argentinian Pizzeria, said, "There's no coincidence here. Buildings have been suffering all along the construction route."

The MTA is "cooperating with the Department of Buildings and continues to closely monitor vibrations, which remain at acceptable levels," said spokesman Jeremy Soffin.

Building records show a long list of complaints about the walk-up, including one from 1989 that says the structure is leaning eight inches to the north -- a serious structural problem that was never rectified.

A January 2008 complaint said the building was shaking and vibrating, which affected its stability, the records show.

Inspectors are still looking into the cause of cracks in the building's façade, said DOB spokeswoman Carly Sullivan.

Ninjahedge

June 10th, 2009, 02:55 PM

The MTA is "cooperating with the Department of Buildings and continues to closely monitor vibrations, which remain at acceptable levels," said spokesman Jeremy Soffin.

Here's the thing.

What happens when the vibrations are at acceptable levels, but the buildings are not?

Who would be to blame for an unsafe building falling apart?

stache

June 11th, 2009, 12:01 AM

From a legal standpoint, a vase that is cracked but still holds water has integrity that a broken vase lacks.

Ninjahedge

June 11th, 2009, 11:05 AM

Oh, I know that stache.

The problem lies in the fact that tese buildings are only now being discovered to not be safe when they are being exposed to relatively minor shaking.

Which means they were ALWAYS unsafe (what happens if we have a MINOR EQ in Manhattan? I am not taking 6's here, but a high 4 or low 5? Definitely possible).

These places should be inspected and determined if they are still SOUND, so that minor things do not damage them.

Requiring them to retrofit to current seismic code would be expensive and not practical, but making sure that a probable event will not cost human life is important!

stache

June 11th, 2009, 12:46 PM

If they did it in Los Angeles, they can do it here.

Ninjahedge

June 11th, 2009, 02:45 PM

That's kind of funny, actually Stache.

They CAN, but it would cost a HELLUVALOT more!!!

The density here is MUCH greater, and there are many more low to midrise brownstones that simply do not have any appreciable lateral bracing. Hoboken is the same way. Just about anything between 2 and 20 stories built at the turn of the century (or even for some time after... 1940's as a rough guess) would come down in a "respectable" seismic event.

Me being on the 4th floor of a 190X brownstone does not help my insanely optomistic look on life, but we will ignore that for now! ;)

The main problem is that, just like Global Warming, if you do not see it effecting you DIRECTLY, you (the people) will do little to stop it.

The fact that SF and LA both GET regular earthquakes has prompted a LOT of study there (and elsewhere) and very stringent code restrictions (some actually MORE strict for NYC because of bizarre combinations of different factors, but that is another subject), because of that fact, they are more in tune with building safer buildings in the event of an earthquake.

We have not had anything that people could even FEEL in Manhattan for decades, and nothing else for longer than that. Does not mean it will not happen, or that another event (like the rumored great midwestern quake that rang the church bells in Boston), but until the ground starts shaking.......... :(

That being said. I know that NYT will be blamed and we can add a few more million on to the cost of construction, but it just irks me that there are buildings that are so fragile that this can do damage. I am not talking vases. People do not live in vases and few die because one falls apart.

I don't want this project held up by litigation and other BS. I want to make sure that they keep within the specs and that that is all we really worry about. Maybe someday we will have the silent tunneling machine, but that is not today, and civic construction would be non-existant if we treated everything like eggshells......

lofter1

June 11th, 2009, 04:31 PM

... We have not had anything that people could even FEEL in Manhattan for decades, and nothing else for longer than that.
I felt the quake that rolled around Manhattan a few years back.

But then I feel every train that rolls nearly underneath our building, not to mention the occasional garbage truck that grinds by on the street. And two years ago when they did pile driving across the street from us for a new building our entire building vibrated. Our foundation is 150+ years old and the buildings on either side are from the same time. It would scare the bejeezus out of me if I were to learn that anything nearby was going to be taken down or if serious digging were planned for anywhere in the vicinity.

The only sane way to build in older sections of NYC is to assume that the neighboring structures are helping to keep each other up and that any demo / major digging should require an in-depth study and preventative action to protect nearby structures BEFORE the demo / digging starts (rather than waiting until leaning / cracking / collapsing occurs after the fact).

stache

June 12th, 2009, 08:22 AM

From our friends at Wikipedia -

New Madrid was destroyed. At St. Louis, Missouri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis,_Missouri), many houses were severely damaged, and their chimneys were toppled. This shock was definitively attributed to the Reelfoot Fault by Johnston and Schweig. It was uplift along this reverse fault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_fault) segment, in this event, that created waterfalls on the Mississippi River, disrupted the Mississippi River at Kentucky bend, created a wave that propagated upstream and caused the formation of Reelfoot Lake. [7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Earthquake#cite_note-6) The earthquakes were felt as far away as New York City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City) and Boston, Massachusetts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Massachusetts), where church bells rang.

ffm784

August 5th, 2009, 12:31 PM

Interested parties can find a lot more information on the MTA's Second Avenue Subway project on this URL link:

http://www.thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/

Ben

PS: Yes, I'm the editor of the blog referenced above.

NYatKNIGHT

August 5th, 2009, 12:39 PM

Merry

September 9th, 2009, 09:28 AM

Tenants Evicted by M.T.A. Ask: Move Where?

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Finding an apartment in Manhattan can be tough. Just ask the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_transportation_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org).

Next year, dozens of New Yorkers in some of the city’s wealthiest ZIP codes are set to be evicted to make way for the long-delayed Second Avenue subway, and federal law requires the transit agency to find them comparable new homes. So far, it has not been going so well.

Dave Zigerelli was told to consider low-income housing across from an on-ramp to the Queensboro Bridge (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/b/bridges_and_tunnels/queensboro_bridge/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). The first apartment shown to Nicolle Poian was half the size of her own. Ann and Conrad Riedi, ensconced in the same rent-stabilized apartment for 40 years, said they were encouraged to move out of Manhattan — and their dog, Biscuit, might not be allowed to come along.

“They told us to think outside the box,” said Ms. Riedi, 64.

The Riedis’ apartment, a big three-bedroom in a stucco-walled walk-up, is one of 60 homes on the Upper East Side that will soon be converted into ventilation shafts, public stairwells and electronics hubs, the infrastructure for the $4.5 billion underground line, scheduled to open in 2017.

The transportation authority said that it was doing its best to accommodate residents who want to stay in the neighborhood, and that no one was being forced to leave the area. Affordable housing was suggested to residents who might be eligible, said a transportation authority spokesman, Kevin Ortiz.

But the options for tenants are limited. At first, Mr. Ortiz denied that the relocation service hired by the authority, a national real estate company called O. R. Colan Associates, had suggested that residents move outside their district, which stretches from East 59th Street to East 96th Street. Given an e-mail message showing that one tenant was encouraged to consider housing in Harlem, at East 116th Street, Mr. Ortiz said the authority wanted to offer as many choices as possible.

“We’re doing our due diligence,” he said. In the case of the Harlem apartments, he added, “No one seemed to be interested.”

Under federal law, the transit authority must find replacement housing deemed “comparable,” a phrase that officials have interpreted to mean an apartment of a similar size and rent, in the same neighborhood or nearby. If the tenant chooses a more expensive replacement, the authority must pay the difference in the rent for three and a half years.

But New York’s real estate market makes this an onerous task. Many of the residents live in rent-regulated units that cost far less than similar ones in the neighborhood. Rents could be an additional $1,000 a month.

Such a situation was not anticipated by federal eminent domain law, which says the authority is obligated to pay each tenant up to $5,250 in subsidies over the three and a half years, a pittance on the Upper East Side. In a pamphlet distributed to tenants, a sample case involves a move from a $500-a-month apartment to a $600 one.

The authority said it planned to spend more than the required amount to assist the tenants. So far, the agency has had no problem finding rent-stabilized units in the area, said Mr. Ortiz, the spokesman. (O. R. Colan referred questions to the transportation authority.)

But some tenants have rejected those units, saying they did not live up to expectations.

“Not exactly equivalent” is how Ms. Poian, who pays $1,850 a month for a one-bedroom at 253 East 72nd Street, described the choices she was given. An apartment several blocks away was “half the size” of her own, she said, and the kitchen was about as big as a sidewalk square. “They said I could find a different one for $1,800,” she said. “I said you’re out of your mind.”

Marc Shatzman, 23, moved last month from Ms. Poian’s building, where he had lived in a studio for a little over a year. Although his moving expenses were covered by the transportation authority, he used his own broker after rejecting the options provided by O. R. Colan.

“They kept trying to show us low-income housing,” Mr. Shatzman said. “They kept trying to see if somehow we could come up with some numbers that would qualify it for us.”

Sally Ardrey, who pays $1,600 a month for a one-bedroom at 257 East 72nd Street, said traditional measures of an apartment’s fitness were being ignored. “I was informed that light, view and big windows are not important,” she said.

Mr. Riedi, 76, has lived in the squat building at 83rd Street and Second Avenue since he was 12. When he and his wife married in 1969, they moved down one flight to a rent-regulated five-room apartment, now $1,120 a month.

Like other tenants, the couple was urged by the relocation agents to consider moving to 250 East 60th Street, a housing development beneath the Roosevelt Island tramway. The building faces a traffic-clogged intersection at the entrance to the Queensboro Bridge.

The Riedis balked, saying the location would be dangerous for elderly residents. They said their agent also suggested that, because of their fixed income and the limited rent subsidy, they should consider moving out of Manhattan.

Tenants can find apartments through their own broker, but the relocation service must agree to the price based on a formula.

“Tenants are matched up with three units, based on what they can afford to pay and what their needs are,” Mr. Ortiz said. “We’re not in any way, shape or form saying you have to do this, you have to move there.”

But tenants may be left with little choice. “There are many rent-stabilized units on the Upper East Side and Yorkville, but the problem is people are already living in them,” said Stephen Love, a broker at Ardor Realty.

Anticipating these problems, the authority approved a program in 2007 to rent vacant apartments and hold them for displaced tenants. That never happened, though the authority did spend more than $200,000 to rent empty units in the buildings it plans to acquire, to mitigate relocation costs and legal troubles.

Six tenants have already moved out, according to the authority.
But after decades of living by the site of a long-planned subway line, the Riedis are not prepared to go just as the project comes to fruition.

Ms. Riedi, her voice straining, said she and her husband had been scared since the eviction proceedings began. “We were married in here,” she said. “We lost our first baby. We mourned the death of our child. There’s history in this apartment. How do you take the memories?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/nyregion/08mta.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

ffm784

September 22nd, 2009, 03:34 PM

For those interested... here are a few hyperlinks to
some key information on the Second Avenue subway project:

Just released...
Construction Images Irom the 70s (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2009/09/second-avenue-subway-construction-in.html)
(posted on 9/21/2009)

Announced Completion Dates Through the Years (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2009/01/announced-completion-dates.html)

The MTA's 3-week "Construction Look Ahead" (http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/construction.htm) website

And more information can be found on The Launch Box (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/) blog site.

Ben

PS: Yes, I am the editor of the blog noted above.

lofter1

September 22nd, 2009, 04:35 PM

good blog ^

Thanks for the link.

Merry

September 23rd, 2009, 07:44 AM

Dashing the Dreams of Alphabet City's Subway Future

September 22, 2009, by Lockhart

http://curbed.com/uploads/2009_09_lesway.jpg

The graphic at right, which circulated around last year (http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2008/11/06/second-avenue-subway-rethink-2/), shows the planned downtown section of the Second Avenue Subway in light blue. But what's that in dark blue? Why, it's a crazy dreamer plan for the subway to roll down Avenue B instead of Second Avenue. And while it's going to probably be a few more decades at best, and centuries at worst, before the new subway line even makes it below 42nd Street, the Second Ave. Sagas blog doesn't even want you to think about (http://secondavenuesagas.com/2009/09/22/sending-the-sas-to-alphabet-city/) this kind of crazy change:
The first issue is one of the reality above the ground. Second Ave. is a six-lane road and so is First Ave. Further east though, the avenues narrow as Aves. A, B and C are all four lanes. It would be a near impossibility to run a two-track subway line underneath well-developed four-lane avenues. Furthermore, because the area surrounding Alphabet City and the East Village/Lower East Side are so densely developed, a loop east would have to make a series of very sharp turns on 14th St. — below the L train — and again on whichever avenue were to serve as the north/south route. The engineering would be a nightmare, and the train speeds around these curves would resemble the crawl of the R south of Canal St.Alphabet City: now and forever, 100% subway-free.

Sending the SAS to Alphabet City (http://secondavenuesagas.com/2009/09/22/sending-the-sas-to-alphabet-city/) [Second Ave. Sagas]
LES Alternative for Second Ave. Subway (http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2008/11/06/second-avenue-subway-rethink-2/) [Transport Politic]

http://curbed.com/archives/2009/09/22/dashing_the_dreams_of_alphabet_citys_subway_future .php

ablarc

September 23rd, 2009, 08:09 AM

The loop is needed.

BrooklynRider

September 23rd, 2009, 10:30 AM

This as well as a 34th Street / 42nd Street Loop can be accomplished with a lightrail system.

ZippyTheChimp

September 23rd, 2009, 01:02 PM

The Sagas blog says it all.

The Transport Politic blog talks about how close other routes are to the SAS, such as the Lex at Union Square. This ignores one of the main reasons for the SAS project - existing overcrowded conditions on the Lex. The Lex is the busiest rail line in the US, with about 25% of the total NYC subway ridership.

stache

September 23rd, 2009, 01:49 PM

Will the 2nd. Ave. connect with the L train?

lofter1

September 23rd, 2009, 03:24 PM

On days such as today, with the UN in full session, surface level traffic on the East Side is blocked every which way.

The new SAS (MAP pdf (http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/documents/feis/figures-01.pdf)) will run an underground tunnel with a big station in close proximity to the UN (not to mention all the ancillary structures above the route).

That must make for an interesting security situation.

stache

September 23rd, 2009, 03:51 PM

Yesterday it took me 90 minutes to get from 60th. & Bwy to Houston on the #20 bus. Silly me, I did not take the train. We went down 5th. Ave. 'express' to 14th. St., then he resumed the regular route. I just made the movie I wanted to see.
Lofter I see from the plan that we would be able to walk underground from 8th. Ave. to 2nd., if we took the shuttle.
Edit:. Never mind, we could take the 7.

Ninjahedge

September 23rd, 2009, 04:26 PM

That loop might need to be looked at different;y. If you can get that close with the 2nd avenue line, you would not need much of a short-loop bus line to get people to where they wanted to go (maybe not even use full size busses).

Yes it is a transfer, but reading about the practicality of the construction sounds daunting. The only other solution would be some lower manhattan cross-town line that sould divide that loop at Houston Street. I don't know if that would also be able to be extended under the river like the E/F/Etc lines, but it is a thought....

Merry

September 29th, 2009, 07:07 AM

Sun block at E. Side co-op

Fury over subway tower

By TOM NAMAKO and SHARI LOGAN

September 28, 2009

http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2009/09/28/news/photos_stories/manhattanleadphoto052240--300x300.jpg

Ain't no sunshine for these folks.

A ventilation tower for the chronically delayed and overbudget Second Avenue Subway is about to leave the angry owners of 28 Upper East Side apartments in the dark.

Residents learned this year that the planned 75-foot-tall structure, which will have two 20-foot-tall water towers, is going up right next to the east- and south-facing windows at 233 E. 69th St., a co-op building.

The tower -- meant to evacuate smoke and provide emergency exits -- is slated for completion next year.

"I'm losing four of seven windows, and I'm furious," said fourth-floor resident Jolene Appleman, 50, who has lived there for 12 years.

"They're inconsiderate and incompetent," she said, adding that windows in her bathroom, dining room, kitchen and extra bedroom will be completely blocked off.

Residents also say property values will drop once the tower goes up. Units there have sold for $600,000 to $1.5 million.

"They shouldn't take away my ability to sell my place," Appleman said. "I'm not going to live here forever."

The structure will replace two apartment buildings on the corner of East 69th Street and Second Avenue that the MTA plans to knock down.

Those are separated from No. 233 by about 20 feet -- but the massive above-ground ventilation facility for the East 72nd Street subway station will come right up to the property line.

"The air will be blocked. Ventilation will be blocked in the apartment," fumed Lawrence Levit, a fifth-floor resident who will have four windows completely sealed off and another three obstructed.

One of the soon-to-be sealed-off windows will be in his 16-year-old daughter's bedroom, Levit said.

"We don't know what's going to be ventilated and where it's going," said Levit, an attorney. "And with the wind, it could blow back into the building.

"Having smoke blown into the apartment is a safety concern."

The MTA argued that, legally, the windows never should have been there in the first place, since city zoning laws allow anyone who owns the land to build right up to the property line.

"Since our lot coverage and building height is in line with zoning regulations, no compensation is due to owners of adjacent properties with illegal lot line windows," agency spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/sun_block_at_side_co_op_1k1cNyFvAroO0ylVsH9XHO

Ninjahedge

September 29th, 2009, 10:22 AM

I feel bad for them, but I have seen this many times in buildings. They build windows on a side that they may, in the future, not have because of building regulations.

Also, these people seem to be kind of whiney about it. They have the right to be angry, but crying about lost property value (when they were probably thrilled at the possibility of values going up because of a new station nearby...)

Thing is, the city should have TRIED to make the smoke stack a bit narrower to allow a light-shaft between it and the building next to it. Just because you are right by the law does not mean you are doing right by your neighbors.

BrooklynRider

September 29th, 2009, 10:38 AM

Buyer beware.

I think the owners complaining ought to suck it.

ZippyTheChimp

September 29th, 2009, 11:00 AM

If you buy an apartment, pretend the lot-line windows aren't there.

Ed007Toronto

September 29th, 2009, 12:43 PM

I stayed with a friend in midtown once. He lived on the 20th floor. In his kitchen he had a window that was covered with blinds. Went to check the view. Opened the blinds to a fantastic view of a solid cinder block wall.

Ninjahedge

September 30th, 2009, 02:35 PM

Buyer beware.

I think the owners complaining ought to suck it.

You think that of everybody, but that is another story....

/me whistles innocently.

stache

September 30th, 2009, 07:58 PM

Well, he's a top. ;)

Tectonic

November 24th, 2009, 09:54 PM

:eek: Moving along....Does any know under which streets the T will run below E. Houston Street?

Tectonic

November 27th, 2009, 04:21 PM

Well, he's a top. ;)

Anyone out there. Lofter the reliable?

lofter1

November 27th, 2009, 06:31 PM

T: You need to make friends with Google ;)

Based on info HERE (http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/index.html) and this map \/ it looks as though, once the line crosses Houston Street, it will run under Chrystie Street:

http://www.mta.info/capconstr/sas/images/sas_map_lg.gif

There will be a transfer available with the B / D lines at the Grand Street Station (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Street_(IND_Sixth_Avenue_Line)):

Unused spaces for two tracks which would have been used by the Second Avenue Subway is behind the walls. If the Second Avenue Subway is built in Lower Manhattan, the new station would be built below the current one, providing a transfer point.

Of interest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_East_Side_–_Second_Avenue_(IND_Sixth_Avenue_ Line)):

As part of the 1929 plans for the Second Avenue Subway—which would have run directly over Second Avenue station—room was left (http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/indsecsys.html) for the anticipated right-of-way above the Sixth Avenue trackways and between the two mezzanines. A large, open space is still visible over the tracks and platforms. When the Second Avenue Subway is built in Lower Manhattan, instead of using this space for its Houston Street station, it will be left unused. The new Houston Street station will be built below the existing Second Avenue station, with a free transfer between them.

And:

No track connection will be provided to the Chrystie Street Connection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrystie_Street_Connection).

Seems it will then cut a bit west under Canal Street / Manhattan Bridge approach towards a new Chatham Square Station.

As it moves south (http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&q=Chatham+square+new+york+ny&fb=1&gl=us&hq=Chatham+square&hnear=new+york+ny&cid=0,0,12683843529461311007&ei=GE8QS9-rFYvllQeskKGxAg&ved=0CAgQnwIwAA&ll=40.711028,-74.000301&spn=0.012801,0.019805&t=h&z=16) from there it seems it will run basically under St. James Place to Pearl Street and then Water Street to the Fulton Street / South Street Seaport Station. Then to the final stop at Water Street / Hanover Square where it will have a transfer point to the 2 /3 Lines.

It seems that the southern terminus of the SAS should be re-thought to assure a connection to the Whitehall / South Ferry Station. And that the Fulton / South Street SAS Station should have an underground connector to the Fulton Street / WTC transit hub.

Tectonic

November 28th, 2009, 05:48 PM

Thanks a lot, saw the map but couldn't be sure based on that. Great info as usual.

I agree the southern terminus should be Whitehall/South Ferry.

Merry

December 1st, 2009, 06:36 AM

With new subway, massive eyesores

As long-awaited Second Avenue subway becomes a reality, Upper East Siders cringe at giant utility structures also planned

By Sarah Ryley

http://s3.amazonaws.com/trd_three/images/142693/2nd-ave-subway.gif (http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/LINK%20TO%20JUMP)
Renderings of the utility structure planned for outside the 96th Street
station of the under-construction Second Avenue subway

From the December issue: Those sticky summers languishing on the platform will be obsolete for future riders of the Second Avenue subway. Unlike most city subway stations, where air is sucked through sidewalk grates by passing trains, the new stations will be chilled by a modern ventilation system.

But much to the dismay of some Upper East Siders, that ventilation system will be housed in permanent aboveground utility structures situated at each end of the stations, many as large as midsize apartment buildings, rising up to nine stories tall.

As part of its first phase of Second Avenue subway construction, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning eight of these structures along a 34-block stretch of the Upper East Side.

Elected officials, apartment owners and architects who have seen renderings of these hulking mechanical cabinets argue that they will blight the residential avenue, depressing property values in their immediate vicinity.

The real estate implications of erecting these structures, which will also sink seven stories belowground, are already proving to be enormous.

Thirteen properties have been seized via eminent domain to make way for them, while 75 residents and business owners face eviction at an estimated cost of $10 million.

In addition, dozens of co-op owners could forever be left with bricked-up windows or blocked sunlight.

What's more, their utilitarian facades resemble "an improved parking garage," said Stanford Eckstut, founder of the Manhattan-based architecture firm EE & K, which co-designed ventilation towers for the PATH train in Greenwich Village in the 1990s.

"These are buildings that are going to last forever; they should be contributing to the street scene," he said. "They should not just be a wrapping to hide mechanical things."

Thomas Noble, who owns a co-op at 233 East 69th Street next to the largest of these proposed structures (it would fill two lots and rise nine stories), said that based on renderings the MTA has shared, "it's going to be a real detriment to the neighborhood."

Soft-footed negotiations

Some Upper East Side residents are wary of locking horns with the MTA, fearing that a protracted legal battle would delay or kill the subway project.

Instead -- through elected officials, civic groups and the law firm Herrick Feinstein -- they have attempted, with some success, to negotiate behind the scenes.

"People in the Upper East Side want this subway. When it's finished, all in all, it's going to be a great boon to the neighborhood," said Noble, who is also an architect. "I don't think it's in anyone's interest to have the process grind to a halt yet again."

The fact that the structures need to be built is nonnegotiable -- they are needed to house utilities, smoke evacuation systems and emergency exits, said MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz, noting that sidewalk grates now violate the city's building code.

The architecture firms DMJM+Harris and Arup were chosen in 2001 through a competitive bidding process to design the entire subway, including the utility structures. Neither firm responded to requests for comment.

The first phase of the Second Avenue subway, expected to be finished around 2017, will extend the Q Train from 57th to 96th Street and create four new entrances with these utility structures at each end.

Since ultimately the subway is planned to stretch from 125th Street to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan, the structures erected on the Upper East Side could set a precedent for what is built in other neighborhoods.

Noble, Eckstut and several others said the MTA should hold a design competition to improve their bland facades, which they argue will create "dead corners."

"I think aesthetics have to be part of the discussion here. These facilities serve a critical purpose for the subway, but there's no reason for them to be ugly," said City Councilman Dan Garodnick.

Already, the MTA has made a few concessions, including incorporating small-footprint retail, such as newsstands, in six of the eight planned structures.

Morphing larger

Originally, planners said these utility structures would replicate row houses.

The Final Environment Impact Statement (FEIS) for the project stated that the new ventilation structures "would typically be approximately the same size as a typical row house -- 25 feet wide, 75 feet deep, and four to five stories high, although some may be wider."

"They could be designed to appear like a neighborhood row house in height, scale, materials and colors," said the document, referring to a rendering of a four-story brick building with faux windows.

Somewhere along the line, however, the structures grew from five to, in one instance, 15 stories tall (although the height was later reduced). Their facades changed from chameleons with faux brownstone windows to tricolored behemoths. And the ventilation shafts were shifted from just the roofs and rear yards to entire street-facing walls.

Ortiz said the brick rendering was just an example, noting, "at that point we didn't even have a conceptual design."

He added that the size of the current design is consistent with what a private developer could build under zoning laws.

Richard Bass, a senior real estate analyst with Herrick Feinstein, has been working with property owners in 14 buildings along the first-phase stretch. He successfully negotiated on behalf of a co-op at 245 East 72nd Street to have the neighboring utility structure's height reduced to 75 feet from 150 feet.

Fortunately, Bass said the MTA has been generally open to negotiation. "I've found them reasonable, easy to work with. Sometimes we disagree, but for the most part we're both trying to facilitate a win-win scenario."

Noble's co-op board, which Herrick Feinstein also represents, is asking the MTA to push the planned neighboring ventilation structure back 10 feet to prevent 16 apartments from losing either their lot-line windows or sunlight.

While the MTA has a right to build up to the lot line, the 69th Street co-op's recourse could be that the planned structure is larger than what was approved in the FEIS.

Appraiser Jonathan Miller, president of the firm Miller Samuel, said the co-ops could stand to lose between 5 and 20 percent of their value -- the lower amount for apartments with already obstructed views that would lose even more sunlight, and the higher for those with clear views that would have their lot line windows bricked up.

"If you have compressors, buzzing … that to me would have a bigger impact than loss of light," said Miller.

Conversely, he said properties further east and away from the current subway could see their property values increase up to 15 percent because of better access to mass transportation.

http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/with-new-second-avenue-subway-massive-eyesores

lofter1

December 1st, 2009, 12:26 PM

Bring in the design squad. What they're showing are nasty.

scumonkey

December 1st, 2009, 04:32 PM

I know it's not quite the same thing BUT...
They should take a looksee at one of the tunnel air shafts in battery park,
the Battery Gardens restaurant IS an air shaft-
there doesn't seem to be any reason why they couldn't do something
along these lines (albeit bigger),rather than the merde in the renderings?!
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb276/scumonkey/Untitled-1-24.jpg
http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

Tectonic

December 2nd, 2009, 08:28 AM

The Upper East Side is generally an architectural eyesore. Its horrendous. Except
Park Av, 5th and some of the townhouses etc...

TonyO

December 14th, 2009, 03:00 PM

From NYMag's "Reasons to love NY 2009"

43. Because We Keep Digging

http://images.nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2009/loveny091221_43_560.jpg
Beneath Second Avenue near 91st Street, December 3.
(Photo: Patrick J. Cashin/MTA)

You almost don’t want to say it, for fear of tempting fate, but it’s real. Conceived 80 years ago, funded and canceled twice, surviving even last year’s financial calamity, a subway line is creeping down Second Avenue. Yet even if you live with the construction noise and dust, the scale of the beast has been hidden. This photo, shot on December 3, brings it home. The cavern you see on these pages is four blocks long.

You’re looking at the south end, beneath East 91st Street. Begun in June, scheduled to be finished in February, the space will serve as the launch area for a huge tunnel-boring machine that will chew its way down to 63rd Street. The workers at right are drilling holes and packing them with explosives, for further blasting. The crew at left is breaking up rock for removal. Underground work goes on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As Con Ed used to say, “Dig we must.”

The first run of the T train, as it will be called, is way off, and the whole thing could still go to hell. Opening day has already been pushed back from 2015 to 2017. The budget (about a third from the Feds, the rest from the state) has edged up to $4.4 billion, and just last week the MTA announced yet another shortfall. In the seventies, we actually did quit midway, after three bits of tunnel were built for this line. But this time, even when the economy cratered, we kept at it—armed with bond issues, dynamite, and our abiding optimism.

Read more: Because We Keep Digging - Reasons to Love New York 2009 -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2009/62672/#ixzz0ZguLrFwY

Derek2k3

December 15th, 2009, 01:26 AM

The Upper East Side is generally an architectural eyesore. Its horrendous. Except
Park Av, 5th and some of the townhouses etc...

Agreed. In fact, I almost find the entire east side north of 14th street & east of Third oppressive. The west side of the island blows it away

Stroika

December 15th, 2009, 02:17 AM

Fully agree. What does anyone think the chances are (i.e., 1 in a million or 1 in a billion) that any of that area will ever be redeveloped? Obviously, it's in nobody's interests to tear down the types of tall/bulky buildings that litter the Far East Side, and the replacements would probably be even worse given the crop of bottom-of-the-bucket developers that call New York home. But maybe some re-claddings would make things a bit easier on the eyes? The 1960s-80s era towers are atrocious.

Merry

January 28th, 2010, 05:59 AM

Second Avenue Subway hit with lawsuit

Co-op says enormous ventilation structures violate original plan

January 26, 2010

By Sarah Ryley

http://s3.amazonaws.com/trd_three/images/164910/second_ave_jump.jpg (http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/LINK%20TO%20JUMP)
Left, a conceptual rendering of the Second Avenue Subway's ventilation structures from the MTA's Final Environmental Impact Statement, approved in 2004.
Right, the MTA's current design of the ventilation structure that would neighbor 233 East 69th Street, presented at a community meeting last November.

Residents of an Upper East Side co-op filed a lawsuit last week against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, alleging that the agency unlawfully modified the design of its massive structures that would ventilate the Second Avenue Subway (see the complaint below).

Eight permanent utility structures are planned along a 34-block stretch of Second Avenue as part of the first phase of the under-construction subway. Under the most current design, some would be as large as mid-sized apartment buildings, up to 10 stories tall. The facades would be a utilitarian mix of translucent white glass, steel louvers and ceramic tile.

The co-op tower filing the lawsuit, 233 East 69th Street, would neighbor the largest planned structure, slated to cover the entire footprint of two lots currently occupied by five-story brick apartment buildings built around the turn of last century. Once the structure is built, eight co-ops would have their easterly facing windows entirely bricked up.

When the MTA presented its renderings of the utility structures at a community board meeting last November, it was difficult to restore order, said Mark Legere, a resident of the 69th Street co-op. "There was just a complete, like a cacophony, of 'Oh my God, not that!' sounds."

The lawsuit hinges on the subway's Final Environmental Impact Statement approved in 2004, which stated that the structures "would typically be approximately the same size as a typical row house -- 25 feet wide, 75 feet deep, and four- to five-stories high, although some may be wider."

Referring to a four-story brick building with faux windows, the document says the structures "could be designed to appear like a neighborhood row house in height, scale, materials and colors."

The MTA did not comment by press time, but spokesperson Kevin Ortiz recently told The Real Deal that the structures are needed to house the subway's state-of-the-art ventilation and smoke evacuation systems, utilities, and emergency exits. Sidewalk grates now violate the city's building code.

Ortiz had said the brick rendering was just an example, noting, "at that point we didn't even have a conceptual design," and added that the size of the current design is consistent (http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/with-new-subway-massive-eyesores) with what a private developer could build under zoning laws.

The residents are telling the MTA to redesign the utility structures so they mimic typical row houses, as outlined in the original plan.

"Otherwise, if the MTA insists on moving forward with this design change, then it must conduct an additional public environmental review, including a full analysis of the facility's impacts on the buildings at 233 East 69th Street, and an evaluation of suitable mitigation measures or alternatives to avoid or minimize the facility's impacts to the greatest extent practicable," said the residents' attorney, Michael D. Zarin of Zarin & Steinmetz.

Zarin said the supplemental environmental review process "can take anywhere between six months to a year, if done correctly."

The delay-plagued subway has been planned since 1929, but had been stopped by two financial crashes and one war over the decades. This most recent attempt at constructing the subway originally pegged the completion date as 2012, but The Real Deal reported in July that straphangers might have to wait until 2017 (link:%20http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/second-avenue-subway-delay-to-impact-real-estate-in-the-short-term).

"We would think that would be their interest [to revert to the original design]. They certainly won't want to go through a lengthy and protracted environmental review process," Zarin said.

The co-op residents attempted to negotiate with the MTA out-of-court, but received a letter from the agency Jan. 13 declining to modify its plans for the utility structure.

Second Ave Subway 69th St Complaint (http://www.scribd.com/doc/25874074/Second-Ave-Subway-69th-St-Complaint)

http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/second-avenue-subway-hit-with-lawsuit-from-co-op-that-says-ventilation-structures-not-okay

dtolman

January 28th, 2010, 11:41 AM

Whats the big deal MTA?

All they have to do is "reskin" it with bricks and some fake windows to make it blend in. Put up something around the roof to complete the illusion and hide the structures there.

Sherpa

January 28th, 2010, 12:08 PM

Just like that power station in the Seaport by Peck Slip..

ZippyTheChimp

January 28th, 2010, 12:12 PM

All they have to do is "reskin" it with bricks and some fake windows to make it blend in. Put up something around the roof to complete the illusion and hide the structures there.MTA should read some history books.

In 1907, the IRT finished construction of the Joralemon St-Battery tunnel. It was the first such tunnel in the city, and a test-bed for future tunnel construction. One of the project engineers was Clifford M Holland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Holland).

58 Joralemon St in Brooklyn Heights is a vent shaft for the tunnel.

Circa 1950s
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/6996/58joralemonold.th.jpg (http://img251.imageshack.us/i/58joralemonold.jpg/)

Today
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/2789/58joralemon01.th.jpg (http://img251.imageshack.us/i/58joralemon01.jpg/)

Merry

February 9th, 2010, 06:14 AM

Click on link at the bottom for photos.

Second Avenue: Then & Now - February 7, 2010

In this posting you will see how Second Avenue, in and around the TBM launch box site, looked in the early 1970s compared to how it looks today.

The black & white survey photos (below) were taken as part of the design process for the Second Avenue subway in the early 1970s. The MTA had photos taken of every block on Second Avenue, from Greenwich Village to 125th Street in Harlem, to document the streetscape.

I found these photos in the archives of the New York Transit Museum (http://www.mta.info/mta/museum/) in Brooklyn last year and the museum graciously agreed to let me reproduce them here on this blog.

As you will see, quite a lot has changed in 40 years.

Please Note:
The black & white images shown below may not be reused in any
format without the written consent of the New York Transit Museum.
The caption above each of these images was provided
to me by the Transit Museum.

http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2010/02/february-7-2010.html

ZenSteelDude

February 13th, 2010, 03:54 PM

We have been invited to bid on some work for the 2nd Ave. Subway, I should have a DVD or 4 full of prints and specs. on Monday.

ZenSteelDude

February 13th, 2010, 03:57 PM

MTA should read some history books.

In 1907, the IRT finished construction of the Joralemon St-Battery tunnel. It was the first such tunnel in the city, and a test-bed for future tunnel construction. One of the project engineers was Clifford M Holland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Holland).

58 Joralemon St in Brooklyn Heights is a vent shaft for the tunnel.

Circa 1950s
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/6996/58joralemonold.th.jpg (http://img251.imageshack.us/i/58joralemonold.jpg/)

Today
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/2789/58joralemon01.th.jpg (http://img251.imageshack.us/i/58joralemon01.jpg/)

That reminds me of the Woolworth Building in Newark, NJ (only it's a converted existing building)

The store closed long ago but the building was gutted and converted into an Internet hub.

Still looks exactly the same on the outside.

ZenSteelDude

February 16th, 2010, 05:23 PM

Oh bummer, it's just the 72nd Street Station and the connecting tunnels to the F line.

Merry

March 29th, 2010, 11:00 PM

MTA Pulls Back the Curtain on Second Avenue Subway Progress

March 29, 2010, by Sara

http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2767/4473396318_d16dc71dbc_o.jpg

http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/4050/4473396356_fc9cb97383_o.jpg

http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2692/4473396396_b2cf505409_s.jpg (http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2692/4473396396_e215f4f7df_o.jpg) http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2683/4472619379_ba9ac3cc37_s.jpg (http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2683/4472619379_9bb3ca1de8_o.jpg) http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2679/4472619443_e4a4d9941c_s.jpg (http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2679/4472619443_b5c51ee5e1_o.jpg) http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2718/4472619413_1381afb5fd_s.jpg (http://cdn0.cstatic.net/cache/gallery/2718/4472619413_84545f147d_o.jpg)
(click to enlarge)

New Yorkers have been waiting for the Second Avenue Subway since they were New Amsterdamers, but now the MTA has provided some concrete evidence of progress in the form of a Facebook photo album (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4031445&id=250313209090#%21/photo.php?pid=4031446&id=250313209090&fbid=382312444090). The shots, which we swiped for the gallery above, show work on what will eventually be the 96th Street station. Above are the launch box and starter tunnel for the tunnel-boring machine. Huh? Blog Second Avenue Sagas (http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/03/29/a-launch-box-and-art-for-a-subway-in-progress/) explains that the tunnel-boring machine goes into the launch box sometime within the next few weeks, and the machine will start drilling the tunnel south to 63rd Street. Holding your breath not recommended.

A launch box and art for a subway in progress (http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/03/29/a-launch-box-and-art-for-a-subway-in-progress/) [SAS]
Second Avenue Subway construction progress (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4031445&id=250313209090#%21/photo.php?pid=4031446&id=250313209090&fbid=382312444090) [MTA on Facebook]
Second Avenue Subway coverage (http://ny.curbed.com/tags/second-avenue-subway) [Curbed]

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2010/03/29/mta_pulls_back_the_curtain_on_second_avenue_subway _progress.php

vanshnookenraggen

April 6th, 2010, 03:40 AM

I know it is ridiculous dreaming nowadays but I've started blogging about subway expansion and I just posted a long write up about the 2nd Ave subway:

History:
http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/SAS-timeline.png (http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2010/03/the-futurenycsubway-second-avenue-subway-history/)

and Future:
http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Man-Brook-824x1024.png (http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2010/04/the-futurenycsubway-2nd-ave-subway-future/)

Alonzo-ny

April 6th, 2010, 07:38 AM

I can't believe they tore down the old Els without any replacement infrastructure in place.

ablarc

April 6th, 2010, 11:05 AM

Very nicely thought out, van. That loop through the East Village is especially crucial.

scumonkey

April 23rd, 2010, 03:22 PM

video of tunnel boring machine being installed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wicz03wzn1M&feature=player_embedded

Merry

May 15th, 2010, 07:02 AM

http://gothamist.com/upload/2010/05/2010_5_2ndave1.jpg

http://gothamist.com/upload/2010/05/2010_5_2ndave2.jpg

http://gothamist.com/2010/05/14/a_visit_to_the_second_avenue_subway.php

ablarc

May 16th, 2010, 11:39 AM

Two major destinations that must be served by this line with dedicated stations: Tompkins Square, South Street Seaport.

dtolman

May 18th, 2010, 12:39 PM

Whatever else happens, looks like the dream of a subway line from 125th to 63rd is going to come true for the UES. Hard to believe that in 6 months to so, the tunneling will be done.

ZippyTheChimp

May 18th, 2010, 01:15 PM

Unfortunately, the planned route doesn't go to Tompkins Square. They should at least add a station at St Mark's Pl. 14th St to Houston is too long a run.

There will be a Seaport station, at Fulton and Water Sts.

ffm784

May 21st, 2010, 12:52 PM

The MTA opened the underground Second Avenue subway work site, between East 92nd and 95th streets, to the media last Friday, May 14th.

You can find a large set of images from this media event on these two links:

Inside The Launch Box: The Big Picture - May 14, 2010 (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2010/05/inside-launch-box-big-picture-may-14.html)

Inside The Launch Box: a little detail - May 14, 2010 (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2010/05/inside-launch-box-little-detail-may-14.html)

Merry

August 25th, 2010, 06:31 AM

Second Avenue merchants: subway construction cutting business by up to 40%

By Jane C. Timm

http://s3.amazonaws.com/trd_three/images/244180/2ndavesubway680.jpg
Second Avenue at the corner of 73rd Street, the Beach Café on 70th Street and Second Avenue and
Pyramida Grill on the corner of 73rd Street and Second Avenue

As Second Avenue Subway construction slogs on, more Upper East Side businesses are reporting additional losses -- and the end is far from near.

The construction has been obstructing businesses and walkways, even forcing residents out of their building for renovations in the 90s, but farther down the avenue, another stretch is suffering.

On Second Avenue between 69th and 74th streets -- where the east half of the street is fenced off for five blocks and has shrunk ordinarily wide sidewalks into smaller, temporary walkways -- business owners say their sales are down 20 to 40 percent. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, this area still has another three years of construction in the works, and the entire first phase, from 63rd to 96th streets, won't be finished until 2016.

The Beach Café on 70th Street has been in business for 42 years, but according to owner Dave Goodside there's "no guarantee that we're going to be in business next year and that's due to the subway construction. We've never felt like that before, but that's how we feel."

His business is down 25 percent, Goodside said.

"We deal with challenges every day that are related to the subway," he said.

Especially troublesome is the street lighting -- which was relocated by construction and darkens outside the restaurant at night -- and altered trash collection patterns, which in turn has impacted outdoor seating.

To deal with the losses, the Beach Café is dropping menu prices (weekend brunch prices are now 25 percent lower) and there are new weekly promotions on wine and lobster, Goodside said. They're also working to spruce up the exterior of the restaurant.

"We're trying to maintain our existing customers, as we're not getting as many new customers," he added.

New York State Assemblyman Jonathan Bing is the sponsor of a bill, which was proposed by Assemblyman Micah Kellner last year and passed in the Assembly in March. The bill would offer tax abatements for commercial property owners located in construction areas along Second Avenue.

The Second Avenue Subway will help both the city and the state, Bing said, and "I think it's our responsibility" to help the local businesses hurt by its construction," he added.

The MTA has tried to be as helpful as possible to local businesses, said Kevin Ortiz, an MTA spokesperson. In addition to having a full-time liaison working with business owners affected by the construction as well as local community groups and elected officials, the MTA is participating in a promotional campaign called "Shop Second Avenue" that looks to promote the Second Avenue businesses through an advertising campaign. They are also working to ensure proper promotional signage for businesses obstructed by the construction.

Surface roadwork on Second Avenue between 69th and 74th streets began in Fall 2008. The MTA is currently awarding another construction contract for the next 37 months.

Jae Lee owns two stores on Second Avenue near 73rd Street -- Naturino and Greenstones. Both have seen considerable losses due to the construction, he said.

"Before the construction began, a lot of my customers drove and parked right outside, bought their shoes and clothing," Lee said. "But now they aren't able to do that."

Lee said sales at both stores are down 20 to 30 percent.

Roger Remkissoon, owner of Pyramida Grill on the corner of 73rd Street, said his business is down 40 percent because of the subway construction. The restaurant is trying to bolster its delivery business, which now represents 70 percent of the overall sales, through flyering and promotions.

Goodside said he'd been to community meetings with the MTA and that they'd been as "accommodating as I think they're able to," but that it's still a struggle for small businesses. "They have to do their job, they have to build the subway." For now, he said he's working to "keep the business viable and not go into the red numbers."

Further north, tenants and business owners alike continue to struggle. "We are all being affected negatively. Tenants are frustrated by the lack of information forthcoming by the MTA and the nuisance of the construction. The small business owners may not survive due to loss of revenue," Bonnie Boyuk said. Boyuk is a resident of 1873 Second Avenue, the building that will be evacuated later this month to accommodate construction efforts. The MTA said the evacuation of 1873 Second Avenue would begin Sept. 11.

http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/businesses-fret-about-second-avenue-subway-impact-from-metropolitan-transportation-authority-construction

meesalikeu

August 30th, 2010, 11:53 AM

second avenue subway construction from this past saturday 8/28/2010
　
　
do you like your massive construction project pics? if so this thread’s for you - lol!

i’m never in this neighborhood but since I was the other day i walked along 2nd ave from the 70’s to the 90’s to check out the 2nd ave subway construction progress. i was surprised by all the crew and activity I saw, at least 50-75 workers along the route and non-stop action. i was also very impressed by how well the street disruptions were being handled.

first, you can read all about it via wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway
The total cost of the 8.5-mile (13.7 km) line is expected to be over $17 billion. :eek:

[/URL]last thursday the TBM doubled estimates and achieved a one day (not so) boring record:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/S-Qvi390BtI/AAAAAAAADhM/KDzjIoPrNZ8/S220/IMG_1791.JPG
[U]http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2010/08/tbm-now-mining-faster-than-planned.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheLaunchBox+%28The+Launch+Bo x%29 (http://wirednewyork.com/%20cite_note-nymag-Sargent-5)

^the above launchbox blog sez:
“The machine has now mined a total of 1,760 feet of TBM Run No. 1 (i.e. the west tunnel) as of yesterday - which by my calculations would put it at about 85th Street.”
TBM Run No. 1 (west tunnel)
92nd Street to 65th Street
7,200 linear feet
40 foot starter tunnel
1,760 feet mined w/TBM to date
5,400 feet to run
　
ANNOUNCED COMPLETION DATES FOR PHASE ONE OF THE SECOND AVENUE SUBWAY
2/2018
12/2016
8/2017 - 6/2018
7/2016 - 7/2017
2015
2014
2013
2012 (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2009/01/announced-completion-dates.html)

^ i.e. the date when Q Line service (http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/qline.htm) will be extended to the Upper East Side, via Second Avenue, with station stops at 63rd, 72nd, 86th, and 96th Streets. so don’t hold yr breath! :rolleyes:

*lots more interesting info on that blog if you like to dig in! also, here’s a eye-popping photo I found of the launchbox (around 90th-96th streets) from 5/2010:
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/IMG_1956.jpg
maps:
http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/0409_SUBWAY_MAP.jpg http://amysrobot.com/files/2ndave.JPG
　
lastly, i see we even have news from this morning - its dangerous and toxic down there!:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/subway_made_me_sick_suit_SbPdNoOf030qC4DTjO68BN?CM P=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/subway_made_me_sick_suit_SbPdNoOf030qC4DTjO68BN?CM P=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME)=
　
“hey whats going on here?”
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/ff4fd696.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/fa7a1078.jpg
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http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/792fb0af.jpg
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http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/8c6483b0.jpg
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http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/f0cc63b9.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/40d41165.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/50ea10b9.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/0e74e2e4.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/9f4b9a7a.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/8fe433d2.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/6f4a607e.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/a288f52e.jpg

“we’re workin here…brother!” :D
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/49be192b.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/da63d2c4.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/062d3ed2.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/08d6c0b4.jpg

finally, these are from later on, toward the end of the day
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/2b3b4c0d.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/595cbc80.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad293/meesalikeu5/4144a24b.jpg

*** i hope you enjoyed a peek at a day in the life of this big transit project ***

Merry

September 1st, 2010, 07:28 AM

Above Ground, a 2nd Ave. Subway Plan Attracts Critics

By TERRY PRISTIN

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/01/world/Subway2/Subway2-popup.jpg
A rendering of a subway building at 72nd Street and Second Avenue.

The Second Avenue subway, finally under construction on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is of course a vast underground project. The $4.45 billion first phase, now scheduled to be completed in 2018, will extend from 96th Street to 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue.

But the project will also include construction above ground — not just station entrances but also a half-dozen boxy buildings on corners along Second Avenue that the transit agency acquired through condemnation. These so-called ancillary buildings, ranging in height from five to eight stories, will house ventilation equipment. They are also intended to disperse smoke and allow for evacuation from subway tunnels in the event of an emergency.

To the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York, the proposed buildings, designed by DMJM+Harris and Arup, part of the team that designed the Jet Blue Terminal at Kennedy International Airport, are “handsome in proportion and detail, while simple and straightforward in design.”

But to some real estate specialists, the structures represent a missed opportunity or an unwelcome industrial intrusion into a residential neighborhood, or both. Richard Bass, the chief planning and development specialist for Herrick, Feinstein, a law firm based in Midtown Manhattan, said that at three of the sites — on 97th Street, 72nd Street and 69th Street — the M.T.A. could have worked with private developers to incorporate the ancillary buildings into residential towers.

Mr. Bass represented a co-op on 69th Street in negotiations with the M.T.A. over the adjacent ancillary building. He is not involved in a lawsuit the co-op filed against the Federal Transit Administration and the M.T.A.

On each of the corners cited by Mr. Bass, the developers could have sought development rights, known as air rights, from smaller adjacent residential buildings, Mr. Bass said. He said taller apartment buildings would have been more in character with a residential neighborhood and would have helped fill a need for moderately priced housing. In addition, the M.T.A. could have had the developers share in the cost of the subway structures, Mr. Bass said.

“It seems that the M.T.A. missed an opportunity to play in the real estate game in a way that would have been a win-win-win,” Mr. Bass said. “This could have provided the M.T.A. with a more cost-effective facility, a more urbanistically appropriate structure for the surrounding community, and an opportunity to create more housing in partnership with developers.”

Citing the pending lawsuit filed by the 69th Street co-op, M.T.A. officials were unwilling to be interviewed. But they did agree to answer written questions by e-mail. They said they would not release cost estimates for the ancillary buildings until they had hired the contractors. Nor would they say how much they had paid for the building sites.

Kevin Ortiz, an M.T.A. spokesman, said by e-mail that the agency had worked with developers on both the 97th Street site, where the Century Lumber Corporation once stood, and on 72nd Street, the longtime home of Falk Drug and Surgical Supplies. Plans for 72nd Street, where the site measures 75 feet by 75 feet, were scuttled because “in order for a development to work, additional property would have had to be acquired, which we couldn’t justify as a transportation use,” he said.

On 97th Street, “M.T.A. Real Estate worked very long and hard to make it work, but in the end the developer lost interest,” he said.

In a subsequent e-mail, Aaron Donovan, another M.T.A. spokesman, said the developers that the agency had consulted owned the sites. Mr. Donovan said the agency had not issued requests for proposals from developers “because we didn’t own the properties,” which were acquired through eminent domain.

According to the M.T.A., only the 97th Street site, which measures 100 feet by 125 feet, is large enough to accommodate a residential development. The M.T.A. also would not say why it did not consult a second developer for that site.

Several developers, architects and engineers took issue with the M.T.A. and said the agency should have sought to work with private developers. “It does sound like a missed opportunity,” said Douglas Durst, who developed the Bank of America building at One Bryant Park. The 69th Street site, at 50 feet by 80 feet, “is a little tight,” he said, “but the others are the perfect size for residential.”

Some real estate specialists said the transit agency could have found a model in an agreement struck in connection with the extension of the No. 7 subway line on the far West Side of Manhattan.

On a large site at 26th Street and 11th Avenue owned by the Moinian Group, the M.T.A. plans to build a seven-story ancillary structure for that line. The building was designed so Moinian Group could eventually build a residential tower that would incorporate the M.T.A. building, said Oskar Brecher, director of development for Moinian.

“It was a very complicated process that required a great deal of time,” Mr. Brecher said. “The midwife was the Hudson Yards Development Corporation,” he added, referring to the city agency overseeing the development of the area.

Around the country, public officials have worked with the private sector to encourage development along new mass transit lines to increase ridership. Of course, no one thinks the Second Avenue subway will lack riders.

But transit-oriented developments can also be used to defray construction costs. Julia Vitullo-Martin, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at the Regional Plan Association, said the M.T.A. typically had not engaged in strategic thinking when it came to its real estate. “The M.T.A. does not think of its real estate as either an investment opportunity or a development opportunity,” she said.

For Civitas, a civic group representing the Upper East Side and East Harlem, the critical issue is how the buildings, to be made of terra cotta tile, glass and granite, will affect street life along Second Avenue. The local community board has yet to take a formal position on the ancillary buildings.

“Certainly, the design of these structures could be improved,” said Hunter Armstrong, the executive director. “Having large blank industrial buildings inserted into a lively streetscape will diminish the activity and appeal of Second Avenue,” he said. Civitas persuaded the M.T.A. to include retail spaces in two of the sites — 360 square feet at 69th Street and 240 square feet at 72nd Street.

Mr. Ortiz said the M.T.A. chose this style so that the public would recognize the buildings as industrial. He said the structures were not intended to be “starchitecture” but would be “respectful of their immediate surroundings.” The building materials “need to be robust,” he said, “as they will receive only very minimal maintenance attention.”

The M.T.A. did not always intend to make the buildings look industrial. In the final environmental impact statement, completed in 2004, it said they “could be designed to appear like a neighborhood row house in height, scale, materials and colors.”

The M.T.A.’s decision to build industrial rather than brownstonelike buildings was cited in a federal lawsuit filed in January against the Federal Transit Administration and the M.T.A. by a cooperative apartment building, 233 East 69th Street. Residents say that, as now conceived, the auxiliary building would be so close to their building that 32 windows facing east would be blocked. They also contend that the building “would be totally out of harmony” with the neighborhood.

At a conference on April 14, the M.T.A. argued that its building would blend in with the surroundings, but Judge William H. Pauley III of Federal District Court in Manhattan disagreed. “You’re asking me to suspend my common sense,” he said.

The M.T.A. had no comment on the lawsuit, which is still in its early stages.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/realestate/01subway.html?ref=realestate

TonyO

September 1st, 2010, 10:30 AM

These corners are prime for retail and apartments, to just use them as ventilation and emergency egress is a waste of the space.

BBMW

September 1st, 2010, 11:25 AM

lofter1

September 1st, 2010, 11:54 AM

That is deadening architecture, especially on such a prominent intersection.

MTA FAIL

eddhead

September 1st, 2010, 12:02 PM

MTA= clustereff.

ZippyTheChimp

September 1st, 2010, 12:48 PM

^
LOL!

I haven't heard that one in decades.

eddhead

September 1st, 2010, 01:10 PM

^^

Wow. I feel old ;)

TonyO

September 1st, 2010, 02:59 PM

^
I'm guessing that the amount of core space in the building that would be needed to serve the subway function would be too large to allow for ground floor retail. To build apartments above, if I'm reading the article above correctly, would have required seizing more property by eminent domain, likely to provide lobby and other ground floor space for a residential building above. This could probably not be justified.

Buying air rights doesn't mean seizing them. There's air rights for sale in almost every block in Manhattan. The MTA wasted an opportunity with that, which was what I got from the article.

ZippyTheChimp

September 1st, 2010, 03:58 PM

Mr. Ortiz said the M.T.A. chose this style so that the public would recognize the buildings as industrialWhy is that necessary? Are they afraid we'll try to live there?

BBMW

September 1st, 2010, 06:27 PM

I'm not talking about air rights. The reasin the need the ground plot is for the ventilation and emergency access. These are basically vertical shafts. I'm guessing the building basically just encloses these, maybe with same large fans at the top. The width and depth of the building are probabaly not much bigger than the cross section of the shafts themselves. There probably isn't any leftover space on the ground level for retail.

Buying air rights doesn't mean seizing them. There's air rights for sale in almost every block in Manhattan. The MTA wasted an opportunity with that, which was what I got from the article.

TonyO

September 2nd, 2010, 10:18 AM

^

The lot/building footprint doesn't likely equal the exact amount of ventilation they need, there must be overlap. In order to even be talking about apartments above, you need to have access. So if there's access to apartments above it must be street level, thus potentially an opportunity for retail at coveted retail corners. I'm no engineer but if they really wanted to do it they probably could.

Merry

September 10th, 2010, 09:27 AM

Plumbing an Obstacle to 2nd Ave. Subway

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

The elusive Second Avenue subway line has been held up for decades by political turf wars and ill-timed recessions. Now frustrated New Yorkers can add another culprit to the list: plumbing.

The relocation of underground utilities, including water pipes, gas lines, fuel tanks and electrical wires, are to blame for at least six months of delays and more than $130 million in overruns on the perennially postponed project, according to the inspector general of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The utilities, within privately owned buildings or beneath Second Avenue itself, must be moved to make room for the first phase of the subway line, a 1.7-mile route between 96th Street and an existing station at Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street.

The inspector general, Barry L. Kluger, who admitted “frustration” over the project’s progress, also found that the transportation authority’s troubles in awarding contracts have added $120 million to the bill and extended its completion date by a full year.

Mr. Kluger’s findings offer a rare glimpse at the item-by-item causes for the enormous financial woes plaguing the project. Federal officials now believe the first phase of the subway line will cost about $4.98 billion, nearly $1 billion more than the original estimate in 2007, when federal financing was secured for the project.

Federal officials now estimate the first phase of work will be completed in February 2018, while transportation authority officials have put the date at no later than July 2017.

The transportation authority has acknowledged the project is over budget, but its planners say the ultimate cost for this phase will be around $4.45 billion.

Mr. Kluger disclosed his conclusions in a letter sent last month to the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, who asked the inspector general to examine some of the reasons behind the project’s delays. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.

“What due diligence didn’t happen that we are having these cost overruns?” Mr. Stringer said in an interview. “There is a sophistication needed for managing a capital program of this magnitude that is lacking.”

Mr. Stringer said he thought a joint city-state independent agency should be set up to coordinate work on the project, similar to a group created in 2004 that oversees construction in Lower Manhattan. “The M.T.A. must take a more realistic approach to managing expectations,” he said.

A transportation authority spokesman wrote in an e-mail that the agency had adopted a “new approach to maximize cost effectiveness for all of our capital projects.”

Some federal officials appear to be losing their patience with the transportation authority. In June, Peter M. Rogoff, the administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, pledged not to spend “a single penny” of federal funds to cover delays and cost overruns on the Second Avenue subway or a new Long Island Rail Road station beneath Grand Central Terminal.

The inspector general is in the midst of a broader review of the authority’s construction practices. Mr. Kluger wrote that he expected to complete that report by the end of this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/nyregion/09subway.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

BBMW

September 10th, 2010, 06:20 PM

Any bets on this thing rolling before 2020?

dtolman

September 13th, 2010, 11:29 AM

I'll take side bets on which gets delayed more - 2nd avenue or east side access :)

ZippyTheChimp

September 13th, 2010, 01:24 PM

^
I'll guess SAS.

ESA is deeper, further away from people yelling and screaming.

Merry

September 27th, 2010, 01:27 AM

2nd Ave. Subway is on the sloooow track

By MICHAEL BLAUSTEIN and MICHELLE KASKE

It's the pain train.

The Second Avenue Subway may have avoided significant construction mishaps this year, but the troubled project is still far behind schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, lawmakers warned yesterday.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) said the Federal Transit Administration estimates that the first phase of the "T" train running between East 96th and 63rd streets will cost $420 million more than the MTA's $4.5 billion price tag, and wrap up two years later than the agency's 2016 target date.

It was just the latest frustrating news for straphangers, who spent yesterday suffering through one of the MTA's biggest disruptions of weekend service ever.

Trains were disrupted on 18 of the 19 lines that run on weekends, with the MTA deploying 600 shuttle buses across the city.

Transit workers were dispatched to assist confused riders, but they offered little relief.

"They're just chilling in the shade while we're all confused standing in the sun," said Mary Webster, 34, a Brooklyn nurse, while waiting for a shuttle bus at the Court Square subway stop.

The pain will continue next weekend, when 14 lines will be disrupted, according to current estimates.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/nd_ave_subway_is_on_the_sloooow_BXKUXFk3hqqwBLHfVT L8yI#ixzz10hVmnChp

Merry

October 5th, 2010, 06:18 AM

Subway Work on 2nd Avenue Hobbles Stores

By JOSEPH BERGER

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/10/05/nyregion/05second-graphic/05second-graphic-popup-v2.jpg

The noise, dust, barricades and occasional explosions associated with construction of the long-awaited Second Avenue subway are driving away customers from businesses along the avenue and plunging many shops and restaurants into deep financial trouble, two dozen merchants said.

In July, the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce counted 29 shuttered storefronts between 63rd and 96th Streets — a once-bustling stretch where the subway’s first three stations and the connecting tunnel are being dug. Since then, at least two other businesses have closed. And while the anemic economy has surely taken its toll, many merchants say business has declined 25 percent to 50 percent over the last three years because of the hurdles posed by construction.

“Second Avenue has become a place that shoppers avoid,” said Jeffrey Bernstein, the chamber’s chairman. “People don’t want to come. It’s difficult to maneuver.”

The disruption is far worse than many of the merchants had expected when work finally resumed on the subway tunnel on the East Side of Manhattan in 2007, after decades of stop-and-start planning and construction.

The resulting damage to the local economy is also far worse than they had expected, store owners said. In particular, restaurants and local service stores that depend on sidewalk traffic, like dry cleaners and pet stores, have been hit hard.

“New Yorkers don’t go out of their way more than a block and a half for service, so if you make it impossible, they retreat to another location,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairwoman of retail leasing and sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

Even landmark businesses like the 74-year-old Heidelberg Restaurant and Dorrian’s Red Hand, a 50-year-old bar, are suffering because construction has gobbled up entire blocks of parking.

Chris Cunningham, a manager of Schaller & Weber, the 73-year-old purveyor of bratwurst and other German specialties, said business was down 30 percent because customers who left Yorkville for the suburbs and who drove in could not double-park to pick up their bags.

The construction has taken away at least one traffic lane along several long stretches where stations are planned, and chewed off five to seven feet of sidewalk in some spots. The work will not be finished until 2017, and many merchants said they doubted they could hold out.

Many say they were misled at meetings about the damage construction would wreak.

“I think they painted a picture at these meetings, and then they delivered something else,” said Joe Pecora, an owner of Delizia 92 pizzeria and restaurant at 92nd Street, who formed the Second Avenue Business Association two years ago because of the construction’s impact.

Officials say they have honored commitments they made to minimize disruption and mitigate noise and dust. Lois Tendler, a vice president for government and community relations at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the agency had met regularly with merchants and had signs on its Web site and at Lexington Avenue subway stations urging people to “Shop Second Avenue.”

Shopkeepers say they need financial help and compensation. But an effort to provide tax relief and grants was vetoed last year by Gov. David A. Paterson.

“We have been incredibly responsive to every feasible request,” Ms. Tendler said. “Where we part company with shop owners is that we do not have the ability to pay them for the lost income. We use public money, and we do not know of any government entity that pays for lost business.”

A Second Avenue subway from 125th Street to the Wall Street area to relieve crowding on the Lexington Avenue line has been on the city’s agenda since the 1930s. A tunnel section in Harlem was dug in the 1970s, but halted during that era’s fiscal crisis.

The current construction phase stretches from 100th Street to 63rd Street and Lexington, where a station connects with the existing Q line. New stations are being built at 96th, 86th and 72nd Streets. The transportation authority has postponed the completion date to 2017 from 2013, and increased cost estimates to almost $5 billion, from $3.8 billion.

A few stores — including a hardware store and restaurant, whose sites will be used for subway entrances or ventilation — were closed by eminent domain and the owners compensated. Since then, Mr. Pecora said, he has seen a pharmacy, liquor shop, two dry cleaners, three delis and a tool store cease business.

Two restaurants, CiaoBella at 85th Street, which closed on Wednesday, and Cinema Cafe at 70th Street, which closed at the end of July, say they shut down after losing a large chunk of sidewalk to construction barriers, which prevented them from putting up outdoor tables, a major source of earnings. Their losses were not reimbursed. Dust, noise and ugly views also deterred customers.

Khalid Ziouti, an owner of O.K. Falafel House, a 15-year-old nook at 92nd Street, said much of his trade consisted of drivers of taxis and ambulances who parked or double-parked in front, ran in and picked up a pita meal. With head-high construction barriers sealing off the traffic lane, those drivers go elsewhere, and business is down 35 percent, he said.

Peter Ahn, the owner of Ivory Cleaner near 85th Street, said earnings were down 10 percent because customers told him they were dropping clothes off on more pleasant commercial avenues. Orest Lapan, manager of the Pet Market in the 72nd Street area, said business was off 45 percent and the store was considering closing.

“A lot of people think we’re already closed because they can’t see us behind the barriers,” Mr. Lapan said.

Ms. Tendler of the transportation authority said that with the weak economy, stores had been doubly hit. But merchants say that the economy slackened before construction began on their blocks, and that the harm from construction was far worse. Mr. Lapan, the manager of Pet Market, said five other Pet Market locations in the city were thriving.

Merchants assert that they often get a runaround when they complain to the city.

Officials of the Bloomberg administration say an outreach team from Small Business Services has taken steps to make sure stores are accessible, extend utility payment plans and check that signs advise passers-by where obscured businesses are located.

But Giorgio Manzio, manager of the three-year-old CiaoBella, which had 25 employees, said that in the months before it closed, the restaurant was ticketed for having tables on too narrow a sidewalk — a sidewalk narrowed by construction.

Abigail Lootens, a spokeswoman for the Department of Consumer Affairs, said permits had to be revoked for 13 outdoor cafes along the construction zone, with refunds given.

One businesswoman had to call in family for help. Young Yoo, a Korean-born widow who opened Buddha BBeeQ, a narrow Asian grill near 92nd Street, a few months before ground was broken for the subway in front of her store, has exhausted her savings and is three months behind in rent, her son, Peter, 38, said.

A year ago, she brought in Peter, who quit his job as an editor in Binghamton, N.Y., and her daughter to work without pay. He said the family was trying to keep the business alive until April, when Mrs. Yoo, 64, can qualify for Social Security.

“Instead of being a prosperous restaurateur, she’ll end up being a penniless person waiting for a check,” Mr. Yoo said. “That’s what Second Avenue did to her. It created a pauper.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/nyregion/05second.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

TonyO

October 6th, 2010, 02:45 PM

A great graphic from that article. I live right near the Cinema Cafe and have got to say that there are plenty of other restaurants that do fine with the same headaches. The sign on their door after they closed claimed that the sidewalk seats they used to have were eliminated due to the narrower sidewalk and thus killed their business. However the staging area is not directly in front of their doors and Ko Sushi across the street does good business with the same situation. If you had many closings in the same area I would say the SAS was the culprit, like in the 90's.

londonlawyer

October 6th, 2010, 10:14 PM

mariab

October 6th, 2010, 10:42 PM

I lived in this area for many years and rode the overcrowded Lex. Ave. line to Wall Street daily. Every day, as I walked the huge distance from York to Lex and then entered the overcrowded car, I thought that a new line was essential. If a few crappy businesses die, it's a minor price to pay for an essential addition to the city's transit system. The few times I went to the Cinema Cafe, I found it to be mierda.

Ruthless! Although such is the cycle of history. Remember the radio guys before the WTC? Have you tried Gracie's Cafe? I had a roast chicken salad best I ever tried, although I didn't ask for it, & the service that day was slow, but I'd definitely go back because the food is good.

Merry

October 22nd, 2010, 07:25 AM

MTA Tries Those Second Avenue Ventilation Shafts Again

October 21, 2010, by Sara Polsky

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/secondavesubnewrenders_10_10.jpg

In the long history of the Second Avenue subway, Upper East Siders have done a solid job setting aside their hunger for better transportation to focus on the key issues. Namely, the ugliness of the ventilation shafts that are a big part of the subway's first phase. Those structures morphed from the original row house concept to something more utilitarian and more neighbor-enraging. The new design led to a string of complaints, a lawsuit, and even a request to turn the ventilation buildings into condos, so UESers can live in them instead of looking at them. The MTA isn't going for that, but did show up to a progress meeting earlier this month with a new set of renderings. See the differences? Second Avenue Sagas (http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/10/20/along-second-ave-building-a-better-ancillary-structure/) points out one: trees!

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/SASnewrenders2_10_10.jpg

The MTA's three fresh drawings are meant to suggest other materials that might blend better with the neighborhood. Second Avenue Sagas' insta-review: "The first one — my favorite choice — incorporates the same brick as its neighbor on 72nd St. The tan one in the middle tries, but fails, to replicate the building next to it. The bottom grey one is too utilitarian for the Upper East Side. It’s not a realistic alternative as much as a warning of what could be." Other thoughts?

Along Second Ave., building a better ancillary structure (http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/10/20/along-second-ave-building-a-better-ancillary-structure/) [Second Avenue Sagas]
Second Avenue Subway coverage (http://ny.curbed.com/tags/second-avenue-subway) [Curbed]

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2010/10/21/mta_tries_those_second_avenue_ventilation_shafts_a gain.php#more

lofter1

October 22nd, 2010, 11:09 AM

Three versions of a design that don't work. Why all that same colored brick in a huge expanse along one side? Even hiding some of it behind the added trees doesn't do any good. FAIL.

ZippyTheChimp

October 22nd, 2010, 01:21 PM

They're all so pretty, I just can't choose.

stache

October 22nd, 2010, 09:44 PM

LOL Zippy!

Ninjahedge

October 25th, 2010, 02:19 PM

It is a big box.

All they needed to do was look for how many of todays chain restaurants (namely Cheesecake factory et all) fake their way through Faux architectural embellishments.

All they need is a bit of depth and a bit of color change (as Loft mentioned). But no, they want to make the box as cheap as possibel because we all know how expensive it is to do a simple thing like ask an architect to design something with a LITTLE style....

ablarc

October 26th, 2010, 09:43 AM

^ Architects these days are little more than decorators?

Ninjahedge

October 28th, 2010, 08:58 AM

The main stream was never more than that Abl.

And that is if you were lucky, otherwise you did things like draw windows (elevations and sections) for larger projects.

Just

windows.

:(

brianac

January 11th, 2011, 07:57 AM

ACS Awarded $447M Construction Contract for NY’s Second Avenue Subway

January 1, 2011

Through Spanish construction and engineering company, Grupo Dragados SA and its subsidiary Schiavone Construction of Secaucus, New Jersey, Grupo ACS has been awarded a new $447 million contract for the construction of the 72nd Street Station in Manhattan, part of the ongoing Second Avenue Subway Line project.
[/URL]

The contract which was also signed by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority includes construction of the main cavern under Second Avenue which is approximately 1,056 ft long and 72 ft wide and is over 98 ft below ground level. It also includes maintenance and traffic control, monitoring of the existing buildings and structures, and the protection and relocation of the services affected by the construction work.

Construction on the 72nd Street Station is expected to begin by the end of the year and will last approximately 37 months.

[URL]http://newyork.construction.com/new_york_construction_news/2011/0101_SecondAvenueSubway.asp (http://oascentral.construction.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/newyork.construction.com/new_york_construction_news/2011/L51/646398932/Left/MHC/ConstructionFutureTech_300x250_RON_1210_0411/CFT_300_250.gif/584f7446424530734a363841412f3255;zip=GB:DY1?x)

GordonGecko

January 11th, 2011, 01:08 PM

3 years, and $447 million for a single subway station.

Is there any doubt why China is getting so far ahead in development?

BBMW

January 12th, 2011, 01:10 PM

I wonder what Schiavone has to pay for labor vs what the chinese workers get?

Ed007Toronto

January 12th, 2011, 02:28 PM

lofter1

January 12th, 2011, 02:55 PM

The pay rate for Honda factory workers in China, until a strike last spring (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/business/global/29honda.html?src=busln), was ~$37.50 / week. That's a six day week, 12 hours / day. There are perks:

Workers said that in addition to their pay, they also received free lodging in rooms that slept four to six in bunk beds. They also get free lunches, subsidized breakfasts for the equivalent of 30 cents and dinners for about $1.50.

There is no national minimum wage rate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country) in the People's Republic of China:

Set locally according to standards laid out by the central government[9 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country#cite_note-CRHRP-2008-8)] (see Minimum wage law#People's Republic of China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law#People.27s_Republic_of_China))

RoldanTTLB

January 12th, 2011, 03:15 PM

Loss of human life is also completely unacceptable here. That's not a bad thing, but it means a two year delay when there is a fire while deconstructing a derelict tower. It's important to note that the ESB was built in those same two years, but 5 people died in the time period. Imagine instead if it had taken 5 times as long.

GordonGecko

January 12th, 2011, 04:43 PM

You folks live in the richest country in the world for a reason. Do you think America would be the richest if workers were paid what they are paid in China? $447 million to build in Manhattan while a city lives above is not that much.
There is a middle ground too. A big problem is the union premium where construction workers get well above (US) market wages. Then there's the mountains of regulations to deal with for every conceivable eventuality under the sun.

But we should all be able to agree that transparency is a good thing, right? All public work contracts should be required to provide granular detail on all expenses. I think we should see exactly how many contractors were used, for how many hours and at what rate, how much all materials cost, and have a breakdown of cost by item at every stage. The project managers already have all that information, let them have to show it to the public so we can have data on where the unreasonable expenses are

stache

January 12th, 2011, 06:16 PM

I'm sure that's available if you look into it.

RoldanTTLB

January 12th, 2011, 06:17 PM

Yes, because the public is eminently qualified to pass judgement on what something should cost. As a government contractor, I absolutely can't get behind that. Additionally, the major things that drive cost, such as change orders, would then look bad for the contractor, but come at no expense to the government agency.

As for union premium, a bigger problem is the shear number of TBMs being used in NYC at one time. There are something like six or 7 in operation right now, and a lack of qualified labor to run them is really driving up costs.

Sherpa

January 13th, 2011, 05:11 PM

Hey, there's a really great Sports bar right where the TBM entrance is (92nd and 2nd). Best chicken wings in the City (after The Back Page closed over on Third Ave).

GordonGecko

January 14th, 2011, 03:08 PM

Yes, because the public is eminently qualified to pass judgement on what something should cost. As a government contractor, I absolutely can't get behind that. Additionally, the major things that drive cost, such as change orders, would then look bad for the contractor, but come at no expense to the government agency.
Maybe joe six pack isn't qualified, but I'm sure there's no shortage of private sector experts that are qualified to raise some red flags for us and put pressure to change how things are done. Construction costs are out of control in NYC metro, something has to change or eventually nothing will ever get done

ffm784

January 24th, 2011, 09:22 PM

Sherpa

January 24th, 2011, 10:28 PM

Very Cool! (My father was a railroad engineer)

mariab

January 24th, 2011, 10:41 PM

Fascinating pictures. I wonder if they'll make something more permanent for the weak rock. Looks like old subway grates holding it back. The scale of the project shows here. WOuld be nice if they finished ahead of schedule.

GordonGecko

January 25th, 2011, 04:04 PM

Week old images of the work that is taking place inside
the west tunnel can be found on this link to The Launch Box blog:

"A View Down Below" - January 23, 2011 (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2011/01/view-down-below-january-23-2011.html)

Great shots

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTelmPa1sOI/AAAAAAAAEls/QQ0bEANC97g/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_1.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTelllG2PhI/AAAAAAAAElk/459gXOz1ORw/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_2.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTellUhannI/AAAAAAAAElc/GXc7kOkIbd8/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_3.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTelRTGtjFI/AAAAAAAAElE/rTJUuHOxvBQ/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_6.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTellD7lefI/AAAAAAAAElU/5MGQncGXzHs/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_4.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTr1X25Q4bI/AAAAAAAAEmE/5Lc8mrfpHA4/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_16A.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekG4a2IAI/AAAAAAAAEjk/vzNmulkQ-Is/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_18.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTelQj2n98I/AAAAAAAAEk0/2OEpvF_aJn0/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_8.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTelQeamEfI/AAAAAAAAEks/mVC3ayNfkIw/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_9.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekzNtVkbI/AAAAAAAAEkk/1oUb3_e-Uy8/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_10.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekzOgPefI/AAAAAAAAEkc/jMiN-K4dzSY/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_11.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTr1Xxq0EmI/AAAAAAAAEl8/AZMWAznsMEY/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_12A.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekyoK9DqI/AAAAAAAAEkM/T4eDBrU9vjk/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_13.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekyZcSc5I/AAAAAAAAEkE/cOekQRvGxiw/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_14.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekHoVcVCI/AAAAAAAAEj8/Ofqx1B8I-rM/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_15.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekHQW7BZI/AAAAAAAAEj0/MPrYDkoz_a8/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_16.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/S_Lp2zrx8yI/AAAAAAAADp0/UR2YvCSc_Ak/s400/Robbins+-+cd_mb_906x365.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTysytpriQI/AAAAAAAAEmU/8zU8Ii3niX8/s400/IMG_2235.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekHMao8BI/AAAAAAAAEjs/aTW-PB_zk1g/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_17.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tjgTAe0iBhA/TTekGqnF5gI/AAAAAAAAEjc/nLrz-ZRpawY/s400/SAS_18JAN2011_19.jpg

Merry

February 7th, 2011, 07:46 PM

ADI completes her western run under Second Ave.

By Benjamin Kabak

(see article (http://secondavenuesagas.com/2011/02/07/adi-completes-her-western-run-under-second-ave/) for large photos)

Updated (2:28 p.m.): Just yesterday I reported that the tunnel-boring machine was approaching the end of its western run, and today, the MTA announced that ADI, the TBM digging out the long-awaited Second Ave. Subway, reached that terminus over the weekend. Ben Heckscher at The Launch Box reports that the run was completed at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. The construction crews will now disassemble the TBM, pull it back out along the tunnel and reassemble it in the launch box for another run down Second Ave. The authority hopes to start digging the eastern tunnel by April with an estimated completion date by the end of 2011.

“Construction of this much-needed subway continues to move forward and this week marks another major accomplishment to transform New York as we know it,” MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu said in a statement. “These are tangible results that will not only expand our capacity but will also bring new economic activity and growth to Manhattan’s Upper East Side and points beyond.”

During the western run, the TBM dug 7612 feet down Second Ave. but did not reach the existing tunnel at 63rd St. due to a curve too sharp for the TBM’s turning radius. The two tubes will be connected by blasting and digging work set to be done by the company tasked with building the 72nd St. station. The eastern run of the TBM will end at 63rd St. though because the curve from 63rd St. and Third Ave. to the straight shot up Second Ave. is shallow enough for the TBM to make it.

Of course, once the TBM runs are finished later this year, the hard work will only just begin. There is, after all, a reason why the Second Ave. Subway isn’t slated to open until nearly five years after the tunnel-boring machiens are through. Work crews will have to begin the arduous process of building out station caverns and modernized subway stations, constructing ancillary buildings and finishing the tunnels themselves. The completion of the first TBM is a major milestone for a project that has come to symbolize governmental inaction and ineptness over the past eight decades, but it is a small step on the way toward a new subway line.

Meanwhile, The Launch Box has some stunning photos inside the the western tunnel. Take a look at Part 1 (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2011/01/view-down-below-january-23-2011.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheLaunchBox+%28The+Launch+Box+ Blog%29) and Part 2 (http://thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2011/01/view-down-below-part-2-january-30-2011.html). The shots show the detail of the tunneling work, sandhogs working near the TBM cutter head and the muck produced by Adi as she heads south. These are truly stunning shots.

http://secondavenuesagas.com/2011/02/07/adi-completes-her-western-run-under-second-ave/