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After last week's C line incident, Gothamist has been delighted to notice that the MTA is getting it from all sides. The NY Times, Newsday, and NY Post all have prominent feature/editorial type pieces that question the sanity of the MTA. And the Daily News notes that the way the MTA's capital plan works, fire-proofing the remaining signal relay rooms could take 16 years, but NY magazine looks at how the Governor's and Mayor's budget decisions have dug the MTA into a terrible hole.
Gothamist is glad that the local media is putting the pressure on the MTA and the city and state governments to be even more accountable. But we're not sure if we're glad or mad that the NY Post listed vulnerable MTA locations for terrorist attack, like a "fake brownstone in a Brooklyn neighborhood that camouflages a ventilation system for the IRT line" (photo from the NY Post at left) and the "hatch leading to a Manhattan subway tunnel that can be opened with a pair of pliers." But we don't worry that much, since it's highly likely that any subway route is plagued by the many problems, courtesy of the MTA.
We encourage you to sign the Straphangers' petition to make the MTA more open and accountable.
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Just wondering, has anyone else ever watched the MTA's "TransitTransit News"? It's all volunteers, usually shown on WNYE - very amateurish and charming. Kind of makes it hard to dislike these people.
I personally really like the subway. The track workers, conductors, signal supervisors and operators are a high-spirited and nice group of people.
It's the MTA's greedy upper management that sucks.
I LOVE the idea of the MTA, don't get me wrong. I love the NYC subway system so much. Sure, there are other subway systems that are cleaner and more efficient, but this one has been around for 100 years and gets you all over the place. I love the conductors, token booth clerks, the workers who clean the subways, the engineers. Really wonderful people are working there. But I hate hate hate the management.
Jen is right on the money. The people you see each day on the Subway are great people. But MTA management is sickeningly corrupt. And something seriously needs to be done.
Kalikow needs to be tossed out and the whole place needs to be seriously restructered. Any city organization that has a 500 person PR staff while cutting back on real jobs needs to be auditted like crazy.
I agree with the original post and comments.
But I also love the hypocricy of posting the image that ran in The Post for which the article questioned. Good stuff.
does anyone else remember the ny times article on that same building maybe a month ago? they discussed the building and because of neighborhood and mta concerns, they didn't publish a picture.
security is a big joke in the subway system. anyone with the proper knowledge can go any which way they determine in the tunnels. the signal room fire was bound to happen one way or another. if journalists really wanted to see the lack of security in the subway, they could definitely do so, but probably get injured/killed in the process. the day i see an article in the daily news on how they were able to go to X amount of "secure locations" is the day i will be proud of the high-caliber journalists we have today.
local media ARE putting pressure. "media" is the plural of "medium". Thanks.
What a strange idea- disguising a ventilation shaft as an abandoned building. Was it built for cosmetic or security reasons? Is it new? Are there more of them?
How do they maintain the "unoccupied-ness"? Do they
sneak up at night and sorta fix the place up a little so they wont get shit from the neighbourhood people?
It's got a nice paint job, somebody shoveled the snow, there's no grafitti, it just looks like the nut who lives on the first floor nailed all the upper windows shut. Probably after hacking up the rest of the tenants. If I was little and lived near there I be scared of that house. If you do open the (unsecured-WTF?) door, do you fall into a giant fan? How do they keep the crack-heads out? What does the city say if somebody calls them and asks if it's for sale or something? Does it have an address? Does it get mail? Did it used to be a real house before the subway? Now that the Post broke this
whopper I hope to find the answers to these questions-and more- on an upcoming Law& Order.
The building is on Joralemon Street just off of Willow Place. It is disguised like a brownstone because the neighbors gave the TA flak for having an airshaft on an all residential street/mostly residential neighborhood. behind the doors is an emergency exit staircase. not sure what the deal is with the windows, though they needed something so people can't look into this highly security sensitive area blah blah blah. the TA doesn't use the backyard obviously so they rent it out to one of the neighboring houses to double their backyard space. pretty clever :)