Results tagged “heraldsquare”

Reader and Flickr user Hello Turkey Toe took this photograph and writes, "Taken in the 34th Street - Herald Square Station, where the subway system has apparently collapsed in on itself, creating a sort of singularity..." We are also reminded of Cosmo Kramer's freakout, "Hey, I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe."

A PATH train entering the Herald Square station apparently hit a wall (or bumper). We are hearing that 10 people were injured—8 passengers and 2 PATH employees. Initially, it was reported that there were no delays but now 1010WINS says, " Commuters should expect PATH service delays." Update 8:57 a.m.: NotifyNYC says, "West 33rd Street between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue is closed to traffic because of emergency vehicle activity." Update 9:56 a.m.: Now MyFoxNY is reporting there were 13 injures, all minor and got amateur video of the response—see it after the jump.

JC Penney has arrived in Herald Square, leaving locals disaffected and tourists hurling towards a familiar sight. Is Penney's our TGIFriday's of retail? The NY Times reports on the department store's new digs, look and goods with, dare we say, a biting tone that's less becoming than a plethora of polysynthetics. Miss Size 2 reporter guesstimates that 96% of the inventory is made of polyester, and it's nearly impossible to find anything below a size 10. She adds, "it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on. It’s like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of Roseanne.” Hopefully there are enough airbrushed magazine covers out there to combat this, lest little girls grow up thinking it's okay to be anything more than a size 2.

       

With seven blocks along Broadway in Times Square and Herald Square closed to vehicular traffic for pedestrian promenading pleasure (oh, and to ease traffic congestion too) on Sunday, New Yorkers and tourists alike have been testing out the suddenly clear streets. The Broadway pedestrian plazas are between 42nd and 47th Streets and between 33rd and 35th Streets, and in the Times Square stretch, there were lawn chairs for perambulators.

      

Tomorrow is the start of the city's "Greenlight for Midtown" program, which involves banning vehicles on Broadway between 42nd and 47th Streets (by Times Square) and between 33rd and 35th Street (by Herald Square). The city hopes that traffic congestion can be reduced by "reconnecting the street grid on 6th and 7th Avenues and giving space to pedestrians on Broadway." According to the Department of Transportation, the plan will result in "Traffic lights with up to 66% more green time," "Significant travel time improvements on Sixth and Seventh Avenues," "Safer and simpler crossings for pedestrians," and "Faster bus speeds for 70,000 daily riders."

    

Coming soon to Times Square and Herald Square: Vehicle-free Broadway! Starting on Memorial Day, two stretches of Broadway, from 42nd to 47th streets and from 32nd to 35th streets, will transformed into pedestrian plazas in an experiment that will last through the end of the year and may become permanent, the Post reports. Mayor Bloomberg is expected to announce the plan today, and promise that the change will actually improve the overall traffic flow, because Broadway disrupts traffic where it intersects with other streets. As part of the changes, Seventh Avenue will be widened from three to four lanes at 45th Street.

      

Isn't it irritating how when you take the subway or PATH to Herald Square en route to Penn Station you have to clamber up to the street and wade through the mob scene just to schlep a block over to Seventh Avenue and go back underground again? Why can't there be a tunnel connecting the two stations? Turns out there is; it's just that it was closed sometime around 1990, possibly because nobody wanted to pay for its maintenance.

      

The DOT's $700,000 transformation of a seven block stretch of Broadway into a pedestrian esplanade with tables, chairs and planters is complete, and the Times has taken the anxious pulse of local workers lounging on their lunchbreaks. The consensus? A nice gesture, but it's only a matter of time before a cab swerves into the tables and turns the urban oasis into a scene of unspeakable carnage. Some choice observations from the men and women on the street:
• Robert Stribley, information architect: “You look around and expect a truck to veer off and plow into you at any moment. It’s not Bryant Park. You’ve got exhaust coming at you. But it’s kind of cool.”
• Vicki Lee, clothing designer: “You hear so many accidents of the cars going out of control and all they have here is plastic pots,” she said. But she dug into her salad and added, “We’re going to roll the dice and eat lunch here today.”
• Karis Durmer, Condé Nast employee: “It’s amazing how a few plants can make you feel removed from all that [noise and traffic].” At one point her conversation was interrupted when the siren of a passing fire truck drowned out her words. “They transport you to a calmer place.”

Surprise! Without a formal public announcement, the city has been moving ahead with a $700,000 plan to shrink part of Broadway in midtown from a four-lane to a two-lane street and use the rest of the space for a public esplanade, which the DOT is calling “Broadway Boulevard.” The change will be complete on August 15th, when the east side of Broadway between 42nd Street and Herald Square is turned over to a bicycle lane and a pedestrian walkway, teeming with cafe tables, chairs, umbrellas and flower-filled planters.

It's not rats at a KFC/Taco Bell, but little critters are all around--sometimes in very public areas. Reader Stacey sent us footage of a window at Macy's in Herald Square, where a little mouse is really enjoying the Macy's Flower Show. WARNING: You may think this is cute.

A driver for a private garbage trucking company was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Police say that Auvryn Scarlett lost control of his truck on West 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues Tuesday night, fatally hitting a couple and injuring a man; they believe Scarlett had a seizure and note he recently stopped taking his seizure medication.

Last night, a private garbage truck jumped a curbed, hitting and killing two pedestrians on West 35th Street near 6th Avenue in Manhattan. The truck driver suffered a heart attack, losing control of the truck. A police source told the News, "He traveled along the sidewalk taking out lampposts, signs, storefront."

Stores were packed with post-Christmas shoppers, as retailers marked down their products in hopes of boosting holidays sales. So far, holiday period sales are up 3.6%, which is the "lower end" of expectations according to MasterCard Advisors.

In the middle of the month, Macy's announced it would be keeping eight locations in New York and New Jersey open from 7AM on December 21th until December 24th at 6PM - for 83 hours straight! Macy's chairman and CEO Ron Klein had explained, "We are giving our customers extra time to shop when it’s convenient for them," and said that the success of the Queens Center mall location staying open last year encouraged Macy's to expand the extra-holiday-hours shopping this year.

Will Macy's give its regards to Broadway? The NY Times reports that the developers who are trying to redevelop the James Farley Post Office building into the new Moynihan Station "are in the early stage of negotiations with Macy’s" to move from the store's landmark Herald Square location to the Farley building on Eighth Avenue. Charles Bagli's article summarizes the progress of the Penn Station redevelopment and Farley-into-Moynihan Station project: It's complex, given the...

That report of an EDP near Herald Square this morning? It turns out a man stabbed a woman - in the lobby of the Manhattan Mall! The Post says the woman was "stabbed in the back, arm and wrists" during the morning rush hour. The lobby was covered in blood, forcing the building to close the West 33rd Street entrance. The victim and attacker were both taken to Bellevue. The victim is described as the...

Earlier this year the law started cracking down on illegal bootleggers of all kinds, so those looking for more inexpensive gifts like Prada bags or not-yet-released DVDs on the city sidewalks may be barking up the wrong Christmas tree. The NY Post reports that cops are paying extra-special attention to the counterfeiters this year, leading to a big decline in sales for the sidewalk entrepreneurs and aiming the consumers to (gasp!) legit storefronts.That's great news...

Yesterday's lovely weather made the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a big crowd pleaser. An estimated 3.5 million spectators watched as giant balloons, floats, and hundreds of parade performers sauntered from 77th and Central Park West to Herald Square. Some people waited since 4AM in hopes of catching a glimpse of their favorite performers, who included Dolly Parton, Wynonna, the cast of Legally Blonde, American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, Good Charlotte, Menudo (really!), the Rockettes...

amNewYork's cover story, "Grand Funk Railroad," takes a look at the special scent of subway stations. Subway smells were vividly described as being "rancid excrement" or "rotting garbage and vomit." Smelly subway platforms - and trains - are nothing new, but the New York City Transit Authority is adding 350 more cleaners to help fight the grossness; amNY reports the cleaners will "be able to respond to specific stenches faster."

What does the future of the Fulton Street Mall look like? If the Bloomberg administration and Downtown Brooklyn Partnership have their way, it'll look less gritty and more like Herald Square and Bryant Park in Manhattan. The Post has details on the city's $18 million investment to re-make the Fulton Street and Albee Square mall areas nicer.

New York has never celebrated the forms of dance that it has birthed until now: Voguing, Jazz, the Jitterbug, Punk, Gothic--even Salsa was birthed in the Cuban Communities in this great city. And it is now time for Dance. New York has enjoyed the last two years of a September Art Parade and in May 2007, we can finally honor Dance in a similar fashion.

Well, this is certainly makes the prospect of trying on clothes worse: A 16-year-old girl was attacked by a naked man in a dressing room at Macy's Herald Square.

April 28: Food and Wine Pairings: Remarkable Greece

Yesterday, Shahawar Matin Siraj, who had been convicted of plotting to bomb the West 34th Street subway station at Herald Square, was sentenced to 30 years in jail. Siraj, in jail since his arrest in August 2004, had claimed he was entrapped by authorities, since a police informer had secretly taped their conversations where Siraj discussed his plans. After receiving his sentence, the 24 year old he said, "Your honor I want to apologize about whatever I said in the tapes — I wish I could take those words back but it already happened, I already said those things. I’m taking responsibility for 34th Street, but I was manipulated by this person.” He also said, "I told [the informer], 'I don't want to do it.' I told him I wanted to ask my mother's permission."

We don't know what's up with the crazy gas smell. The reports we've read had the location at 34th Street and 5th-7th-8th Avenues in Manhattan, but our readers are smelling it from the Upper West Side to downtown. WNBC reports that the smell is so strong on the 6th floor of 30 Rockefeller Center, "people are leaving the building." NY1 says the smell is strong around Herald Square and in NY1's neighborhood in Chelsea."

A childhood phobia of escalators requires us to update yesterday's story about the 2 year old whose finger was partially severed by an escalator at Macy's Herald Square. The Post reports that 2 year old Michael Grateraux "underwent surgery Sunday night at Bellevue" in an attempt to keep his thumb. Other reports said that Grateraux stuck his thumb while riding an up escalator, but his mother Sandy Lopez tells a different story. From the Post:

Michael, his mom and five siblings [all visiting from Mississippi] were descending on a crowded escalator to the fourth floor when someone fell, knocking the little boy down and causing him to snare his thumb in the moving staircase, Lopez said.

Continue reading "Doctors Try to Save 2 Year Old's Thumb"

Light and Oil on Water by mdpNY.

Police are searching for a man who has been jamming Bank of America ATM card readers, taking $5,000 from customers' accounts; the man has duped 17 customers since August 23. His M.O. seems to be to insert some sort of jammer into the ATM's card reader that will make it difficult for a customer to remove his/her card. When customers enters, he watches them enter their PIN number and then waits for them to give up trying to remove their cards. Then he takes their cards - and their cash!

The amNewYork cover story is about dangerous intersections in the city. Queens Boulevard, aka the "Boulevard of Death," has only had four fatalities in the past three years, but there have been a number of pedestrian injuries on Grand Concourse in the Bronx and at Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Grand Concourse has had 35 pedestrian injuries during the same period, while Eastern Parkway had seven pedestrian deaths in 1999 and 2005, not including many pedestrian injuries.

A Lexus SUV jumped a curb and crashed into a store window at Broadway between 32nd and 33rd Streets. From WNBC:

A woman who works across the street from the crash scene told NewsChannel 4 that she saw the SUV run down a potted plant and swerve into the storefront. The woman said she saw one woman and one man who were unconscious, as well as someone with bandages on his head.