Results tagged “marvinfranklin”

The February edition of the MTA’s monthly television show, Transit Transit (Saturdays, 3:30 p.m., WNYE 25) , has a segment about Marvin Franklin, the NYC Transit Authority track inspector who was killed last year in an on the job accident in Brooklyn. The piece talks with some artists who knew Franklin and his co-workers and covers the opening of an exhibition of his work at the New York City Transit Museum in December.

day on my travels." These remind us of faster-paced versions of what Marvin Franklin, the late subway track inspector/artist, had been creating all of his years underground.

In April of this year Marvin Franklin, a subway track inspector, was struck and killed by a G train. It quickly came to light that Franklin, who had worked underground for 22 years, was also an accomplished artist. He held an arts degree from FIT and dreamed of opening his own gallery one day, giving the proceeds to the homeless (which he once was, and who were frequent subjects in his sketchbooks).

The supervisor on duty for the group of men at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station when track worker Marvin Franklin was killed by a G train has been demoted to the position of cleaner, in lieu of being fired. Investigators found that superintendent Lloyd London was the individual most culpable for the death of 55-year-old trackwork veteran Franklin, after he told two workers that he would stand as a lookout at the end of the station, but failed to do so. He also failed to instruct Franklin and Jeff Hill not to carry a heavy piece of equipment across a series of active tracks.

The NYC Transit Authority issued a report about separate incidents that led to two track worker fatalities in April. According to the NY Times, much of the blame is placed on an "organizational culture" where "critical safety rules were not practiced in day-to-day operations."

Two men risked their own lives just two hours ago, (around 1 PM) to save a disoriented stranger who fell onto subway tracks in Brooklyn. Apparently, an unkempt-looking (presumably homeless) man fell onto the tracks at the elevated F line stop at 9th St. and 4th Ave. He appeared disoriented and unable to extricate himself from the very real hazard he was in, so two strangers jumped onto the tracks and walked the man all the way to the end of the platform, where there are stairs back up to safety.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a stabbing at the 41st Precinct House in the Bronx, a homicide on Parkhill Ave. on Staten Island, and a double shooting on East 113th St. in Manhattan.
• Forget aluminum bats, a Staten Island mom is suing her son's former Little League coach for not teaching the then-12-year-old how to slide correctly.
• The Daily News interviews Jeffrey Hill, the track worker injured by the train that killed his co-worker Marvin Franklin.
• The cops beat the firefighters 20-10 in their annual NYPD vs. FDNY football game.
• The Queens security guard who was hit as he tried to stop a speeding getaway van succumbed to his injuries yesterday and died.
• Female solidarity on the political front as songstress Christina Aguilera and porn star Jenna Jameson endorse Sen. Clinton for President.
• The two cops arrested in NJ for planning a robbery have quit the NYPD.
• People get crazy with string as they intertwine 21,000 meters of yarn at McCarren Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The ProTran1 ProTracker Personal Pocket Device (PPD) Is a handheld R.F. transceiver designed to automatically send and receive digital commands to/from the ProTran1 ProTracker Train Unit. This unit will alert the user by an audible/vibrating alarm to an approaching train.ProTran1 co-developer Peter Bartek told the Post he started work on the Pro-Tracker "after a friend was killed while working on Boston's subway tracks."

Franklin spent more than two decades working among trains and on the tracks where he would eventually die, but his passion was art and he carried a sketchbook with him nearly always. In a poignant intersection of two stories this week, when two homeless men were also killed in one night while in the subway system, the people who lived in the subway were Franklin's frequent subjects. Marvin Franklin was awarded Best in Show for his art work at the 2006 City Workers Invitational, hosted by the 136-year-old Salmagundi Art Club. The honor included a year's membership in the club. The work he entered was a watercolor chosen from his "Homeless Series." Some of Franklin's sketches of the homeless in the subway system can be seen here. One of the last watercolors Franklin completed can be viewed here (scroll down). He held a degree in illustrative arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology and spent many of his off-hours studying and practicing at the Art Students League. The New York Times reported that for his retirement, Franklin's dream was to open a gallery and give the proceeds to the homeless, the people he worked around for 22 years.

238 people were killed while doing their subway jobs since 1946. That is a rate of 3.9 deaths per year, although this figure is highly inflated from the large number of deaths experienced between 1946 and 1959. The number of employees killed during that 13-year period totals 120, or a rate of more than nine per year. In 1948 alone, 17 workers were killed. Excluding that 13-year period from the full 61 years of records, the annual death rate drops to 2.4. Before last month's two terrible accidents, the fatality rate for subway workers had fallen to one per year since 2000. One has to wonder if the historical ebb of deaths on the tracks lulled some transit workers into a dangerous sense of complacency regarding the hazards of their work.

After two transit-worker deaths in five days, NYC Transit Authority President Howard Roberts wrote what the NY Times called an "emotional letter" to the thousands of transit workers.

Referring to his 20-year career in the United States Army, the transit president, Howard H. Roberts Jr., recalled the time he served as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, where staying alive was a matter of following safety rules.

Continue reading "Transit Chief Takes Recent Deaths "Personally""

The NYC Transit Authority continued its investigation of Sunday's fatal accident involving a track worker and an oncoming G train. "Non-essential" track work has been suspended as the agency looks at its safety protocol. NYC Transit Authority president Howard Roberts suggested work should have been suspended earlier, given that another transit worker was killed last week, "If I had any idea we would be here this afternoon on this subject, clearly we would have started the process we are in now last week."

A subway transit worker was killed and another was seriously injured when a G train hit them at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Station yesterday afternoon. It seems that Marvin Franklin, a 22-year-veteran, was fatally hit when he and 37-year-old Jeffrey Hill went to pick up a dolly on another track. The G train's operator did see the men, but could not brake in time; Franklin was dragged by the train, while Hill was hit but is now in stable condition at Bellevue. From the Daily News:

The ill-fated workers were performing maintenance jobs in the station while the busy A and C lines were shut down for major track work.

Continue reading "Subway Repair Work Suspended
After Death of 2nd Transit Worker in 5 Days"