Results tagged “jaystreet”

It's official. Today the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate DUMBO a historic district, pending City Council approval.

A rendering of Brooklyn's proposed City Tech Tower, designed by Renzo Piano, at Tillary and and Jay Street sent some into speculation mode, especially since its height seemed to be up to 1,000 feet tall. Which would make just about twice the height of the 512-foot tall Williamsburgh Savings Bank, currently the tallest building the Brooklyn. However, the rendering of the building is apparently old. A representative at Forest City Ratner, the development company which...

Newsday reports that emergency track work at West 4th Street will be causing delays on the A, E, D and F lines. Apparently Brooklyn-bound F train will be running on the E between 36th Street Station in Queens and 42nd Street Times Square, and then the F will run on the A between Times Square and Jay Street-Borough Hall. And some other Brooklyn-bound F trains will "run on the D line from 47th-50th Street-Rockefeller Center...

Yesterday we visited the New York Transit Museum’s new exhibit “Show Me the Money: From the Turnstile to the Bank" which details the fare cycle, from buying the fare instrument to the sorting of the money. If you haven’t been to the museum, it is located in a disused 1930s vintage IND subway station in Brooklyn Heights.

We love a good birthday party, especially when it means cheap tacos. To celebrate their 20th year in business, San Loco will be offering beef, bean or rice hard tacos topped with cheddar, lettuce and sauce for a mere 20 cents at all four of their locations. The only downside -- there's a five-taco limit. We think you'll survive. From 11 a.m. "until supplies last."

Untitled, by Keith on Overshadowed.

Get ready to rumble: Tonight is the first of two public meetings to discuss the Atlantic Yards project - but this is the only public hearing, where comments will be recorded into the record (a public forum will be held on September 12 - Primary Day - and it's unclear whether testimony with be recorded). While the Empire State Development Corporation seems to support this project no matter what, it's important for residents to speak up. Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn is asking that anyone attending read up on the project by checking out sites like Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Brooklyn Papers and Atlantic Yards Report. And here is the link for the ESDC-issued hundreds and hundreds of pages about the project.

The Times today takes a look at the Brooklyn Bridge Park fight that's been brewing for a while now. A quick recap: Everybody basically agrees that an 85-acre park at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge is a wonderful idea. In 2002 the city and state agreed to pay up the $150 million that would be required to convert the land from Atlantic Avenue to Jay Street into usable parks. But as parks aren't cheap to maintain the question quickly rose as to how exactly to pay for the maintenance of the land. The solution that the city and state, along with the newly formed Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, agreed on was private real estate development. More specifically a hotel, a restaurant, some box stores and some residential units. About 1,200 "luxury" units to be exact (up from an initial estimate of 700 units).

Have you noticed the sensors at certain subway stations for the MTA's "contactless payment" system? Or, are you part of the program that is actually using them? In January, the MTA announced the Lexington Line, plus Jay Street/Borough Hall A/C/F and 23rd Street Ely Avenue 2/V stops would be the pilot test stations. We wonder if the testers need the special MTA fob, plus a Metrocard, as people will probably commute outside of the test zone.

Here's an odd video to start your day: "Ushio Shinohara paints with boxing gloves on a street in Tribeca, New York City." Velvet Sea has a bunch of pictures showing some of the other paintings made at the Jay Street event. Bonkers!

March 10: The Back of the House

You complain about the dirty subways, the MTA complains about the media: The MTA put the blame on free newspapers for giving subway riders more things to drop on the floor and cause track fires. The MTA says that trash pickups have increased by almost 43% (35 tons in 2004 to 50 tons last year), which may have led to the 40% increase in track fires (the Daily News has lower numbers, which we can't quite figure out). Of course, the Daily News and Post love that the MTA is blaming the rise in problems to AM New York and Metro (combined circulation is around 600,000), but politicians say the MTA is being "disingenuous" since the agency has cuts its maintenance crews. Maybe the MTA needs to be better about putting newspaper recycling containers at its stations, like these clear ones at the Jay Street stop. What's interesting is the hypothesis the MTA has about the free newspaper causing track fires - if stacks of the free newspapers are set near a platform edge, the vacuum effect of the trains causes them to be "pulled into the tracks," but it's not just the free papers - many a time Gothamist will see all sorts of papers left on the subway platform (or subway car seats) for other riders to enjoy them. And we're more upset about seeing food and drink on the subway platform. For instance, who the hell left their cereal on the subway platform the other day? Think about that one, MTA!

February 11: Raw Desserts at Organic Academics

Janelle snapped a clear picture of the new recycling bins at the Jay Street station, and these babies are stunning! Judging by the contents, they are intended for paper recycling. We're guessing they are built of see-through materials for terrorism-related reasons. We've never noticed any recycling bins in the subway before, so these might be the first ones in the whole system-- although the MTA has long had newspaper recycling programs set up on the commuter platforms at Grand Central Station. Does this mean that the MTA will be adding recycling cars to their daily trash trains? [Related: learn more about the MTA's other environmental programs.]

Special boon for the cross section of the population that are subway nerds and Citibank customers: Select Citibank customers in the NYC area will be chosen to try out the PayPass "contactless payment" system for some NYC subways! A few months after announcing that they would conduct a $44 million pilot test, the MTA revealed that the Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan, along with the Jay Street/Borough Hall A/C/F and 23rd Street Ely Avenue E/Vstops, will start seeing the PayPass for a six month trial. Some pitfalls: The keychain fobs won't let buses read transfers from subways and there will be no unlimited rides (though every sixth ride is free, on the $2 per ride fare system). What about Transitcheks?

Hmm, this is quite a follow-up to a summer story about men cruising certain subway stations for sex: An undercover cop broke up what the Post delightedly calls a "group grope orgy" at the Jay Street-Borough Hall station in Brooklyn. The Post also enjoys mentioning that the "six men outside the men's room coming and going in two- to three-minute intervals" were doing this "right below NYC Transit headquarters." Words escape us. At least two men were charged with public lewdness and indecent exposure. Is Jay Street really "Gay" Street? When the Daily News wrote about it, the main hypothesis was that dingy Bronx stations were hotbeds for hookups. Maybe it's like we learned in our gay studies cinema class - once you look for homosexuality, you start seeing it everywhere! Hello, Time Warner Center bathrooms!

- And the G was suspended from Court Square to Fourth Avenue and the E was suspended in Manhattan.Also, here are this weekend's subway reroutings.

The news is showing smoke coming from the West 4th Street station on Sixth Avenue, and NY1 says that a storage room may be on fire. Which means there's no B, D, F, or V service between 34th Street and Broadway-Lafayette; NY1 says the F is moving on the A line between Jay Street and 42nd Street, which means the A, C, and E still seems okay (updated: So A, C, and E service is messy...). Gothamist hopes it's only a storage room on fire - not a room where switches and signals are, because the last time that happened, subway service was screwed for a few months (though not years).

The New York Transit Museum has been a staple of Elementary school trips for as long as Gothamist can remember, but in conversation with friends we find it rarely gets the love it deserves from the average New Yorker. Absurd, we say, since where else can you see (and enter) a hundred year old train? Look at every kind of token ever used in New York (oh tokens, those were days)? Not to mention stare at old posters, turnstiles, trains and more? Obviously the answer is nowhere else.

Everyone wants what they don't have. And, when you live in Manhattan, there is little you don't have at your fingertips - especially food-wise.

Today and Thursday are Rent Guidelines Board's hearings for the public to weigh in on the proposed increases to rent stabilized apartments. The board is looking at a 2-4.5% increase for one-year leases, and a 4-7% increase for two-year leases, and you can expect the tenants to argue for lower increases and the landlords to argue for higher ones, with some clever signs and passionate discourse. Today's hearing is in Brooklyn, at the NYC City College of Technology at 285 Jay Street, from 4PM to 10PM; Thursday's hearing is in Manhattan, at Cooper Union's Great Hall at 7 East 7th Street, from 10AM to 6PM. Let Gothamist know if you attend any of these sessions.

Sometimes there are things happening in this city that would (and could) only ever happen here, whether we like it or not. Thankfully we usually like it. The following are a few events taking place tomorrow that not only seem pretty cool, but somehow encompass why we love this city so much.

The MTA and riders will be entering another new era of subway service as token booth clerks start to move outside to help customers and new unmanned token booth kiosks are unveiled. NYC Transit President Lawrence Reuter said that since most riders use unlimited ride cards, token booth clerks have been selling less cards - and now they'll be able to help commuters who swipe swipe swipe to no avail. The booths are a new addition to the MTA's plans to eliminate token booths; originally, the MTA wanted to save money by getting rid of the booths, but when a man died at a station where there was no clerk on duty, they rethought things and won't end up saving money, chalking it up to providing better customer service.