Morning Bulletin: Castle Closes, Cell Phone Drive, Frito-Lay Shortage
Shadows of water towers pass across the Apthorp at sunrise. Photo by Joeanna Sayler.
March 19, 2018 Weather: Sunny, with a high of 46 degrees.
Notices:
An interactive concert with a group from the Philharmonic and more local events this week are on our calendar.
Council member Helen Rosenthal is hosting a town hall with city agencies on April 26. You can submit questions today here.
Assembly member Linda Rosenthal is holding a cell phone drive for victims of domestic abuse. More info here.
News:
The Belvedere Castle in Central Park is closed for the next year for rehab. “At the castle specifically, some of the upgrades will include making it ADA accessible, cleaning the castle’s exterior masonry, installing new drainage and waterproofing systems, restoring the wood pavilions on the main plaza and upper terraces, recreating a wood tower that was once part of the larger pavilion in the northwest corner, and replacing the interior bluestone floors and ceilings, among several other upgrades.”
The Intercept interviewed an alt-right leader from the Upper West Side. “I didn’t put that there,” Jorjani said when I first visited him in December 2016, pointing to an American flag sticker on the door of his Upper West Side, Manhattan apartment. “It was probably some scared Muslim guy after 9/11.”
A guide to Central Park’s Ladies Pavilion. “This gem of 19th century decorative design was built by British architect Jacob Wrey Mould, considered one of Central Park’s overlooked architects, his legacy fading into the shadow of Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux’s.”
There’s a sudden shortage of Frito-lay snacks at New York bodegas! “Some store owners who have not gotten a Frito-Lay delivery in weeks are going so far as to approach random drivers in other neighborhoods to ask them if they can sell spare chips or pretzels.”
One reason the subway is so slow: the MTA has simply slowed down the trains. “But now, more than three years later, the report, which was obtained by the Village Voice along with other internal documents, provides a radically different explanation for the subway’s declining performance than the one that MTA leadership has given the public. The root cause of the subway system’s decay, it turns out, isn’t budget cuts or overcrowding — rather, the collapse of the subway system appears to have been primarily self-inflicted by the authority itself, in response to a single accident two decades ago that set the transit system on a path to disaster. Moreover, these internal documents suggest that much of what the MTA is doing to fix the subways, including the authority’s $836 million Subway Action Plan, is not addressing the bulk of the delays that are plaguing the city’s transit system.” And here’s why the MTA’s plan to fix the problem may be addressing the wrong issues.
Another reason the subways are so slow is the number of people who choose to stand in the doorways.
The doors are wide enough for two people to walk through at the same time, in one direction or both. As soon as someone plants him- or herself in the doorway, even if standing sideways, only one person can walk through. (If you watch, you’ll see this.) So simple arithmetic: you’ve just doubled the time it takes to on- and off-load all the passengers needing to use that door.
It doesn’t matter that there are other doors, because few people have the time to move to other doors before the conductor closes them up. And besides, nearly every other door has its own blockers in place anyway.
If you add a second person standing in the door on the other side of the doorway, you slow down the movement even more. And if one of those decides not even to pretend courtesy, and just stands square across the doorway, then you’ve slowed movement even more. People move much more slowly when they have to sidle sideways than they do when they can walk normally.
Perhaps the trains are moving more slowly. But the most frustrating times come in the station, where people have to struggle to get on (or off). When you see that, it’s nearly always because someone has decided to plant themselves in the doorway. And it’s every doorway!
If people would only move into the car, and out of the doorway, the trains — and your commute — would go much more quickly.
99.9% of the time, it’s a certain subset of the population that blatantly stands their ground blocking the doors. They have empowerment issues so this is their way of exerting control.
Really? Which subset?
NOT the .1%ers
(You must know that Woody won’t reply to you directly. He prefers innuendo and dog whistling.
Why do you ask? It seems like you have some ideas of your own and want to compare notes.
As I wrote yesterday: “You must know that Woody won’t reply to you directly. He prefers innuendo and dog whistling.”
Well here he is with his “Why do you ask? It seems like you have some ideas of your own and want to compare notes.”
a real straight-shooter- a real honest…um not-so-much.
Zzzzzzzz….what a bore. I would gladly pay the annual hosting fee of this website if your quotation marks key would cease to function permanently..
Woody, the quotation marks indicate that those are your words, take some responsibility for them.
Here are some words for which I DO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY:
As I wrote yesterday: “You must know that Woody won’t reply to you directly. He prefers innuendo and dog whistling.”
Well here he is with his “Why do you ask? It seems like you have some ideas of your own and want to compare notes.”
a real straight-shooter- a real honest…um not-so-much.
Woody, its now been 3 days of your obfuscation. Hiding much?
There is no subset of the population, we are all the population. Woody, you and people like you are the subset by dividing the population, America’s populatiion is the Human Race!
This article went a little to far with all the USW references. This one is completely extraneous:
A view of Manhattan’s Upper West Side and Central Park in New York City, N.Y., in 2010. Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP
But the illuminated handrails!
How to fix the subway:
Replace the entire MTA with Japan Railways Group (JR Group). Within 5 years NYC would have one of the finest rail systems in the world.
I’ve been riding these subways for over 50 years, and while the aging system and cars can be modernized and replaced at a cost, the real problem can’t be addressed. Over-crowding.
Population of NYC was approx. 3.5 million when our subways opened at the turn of the century (1904). We are nearing 8.5 million. Exacerbating the issue, developers replacing small 5-story walk-ups with high rises – adding more and more people. Over 10 new structures within the last 20 years in the UWS alone. If only every new development included a clause to improve a subway entrance/exit; adding an elevator/escalator; or adding an improvement that would ease congestion.
Keep up the good work in allowing developers to build and build without considering impacts to the infrastructure.
Hmmmmmm…..Frito Lay shortage. Sounds like there’s a black market on the horizon for them…
The Frito Lay thing is serious.
So: for delivering Cheetos around town, drivers earned $90,000 per year. Guess I went into the wrong line of work!
Then you’re working for Cheetos Chester.
That article with the AltRight wannabe was interesting – his behavior is just another example demonstrating how much these guys just crave control and celebrity. An entire violent social movement built upon the emotional disabilities of a bunch of white guys.
Erica,
The Alt-Right is just the tip of “An entire violent social movement built upon the emotional disabilities of a bunch of white guys.”
Read some WSR Comments.
What is the Intercept? And why is having an American flag on your door (or anywhere for that matter) noteworthy? Weird “story”.
Fritos are the new bitcoins.
https://theintercept.com/
You know, The Intercept’s co-Founding Editor Glenn Greenwald writes on civil liberties and social justice.