Photograph of a West 72nd Street subway stair hairball by Joe Schumacher on Flickr; the hairball has been there for 3 years and counting. Okay, maybe it's not a news flash, but New York City Transit Riders Council has put it on paper--61 pages to be exact (PDF)--as it reported that many stations are in need of a lot of cleaning and care. The NY Times noted that the worst conditions at some included......

"White guy" Streeter Seidell created a White Folks’ Guide to the NYC Subway System, though he admits he should have left in Columbia. Our stop was omitted, was yours? View larger image here. [via Gawker]......

We were one of many interested sites examining the Kick Map nearly three years ago, when word of a new subway map design started to filter through the Internet. The new map departed radically from the MTA's current design by graphically displaying separate trains running on the same lines. Encouraged by the interest being shown, map designer Eddie Jabbour contacted the MTA and designers at the agency agreed to meet with him.But when he showed......

Via Triborugh, the New York Public Library has this cool map showing the Brooklyn Bridge Station and City Hall loop. The station was first opened at the start of the Interborough Rapid Transit Line on October 27, 1904, but it closed in 1945 - there were big gaps between the platform and doors of newer and longer trains. Since the station wasn't used very much, the MTA decided that the Brooklyn Bridge station was......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a "boat in distress" at the 79th Street Boat Basin, several shootings in Brooklyn, including one at Brookdale Hospital, and a police officer stabbed at a diner in Queens. The funniest SNL short since Lazy Sunday: "D!ck in a Box". Warning, lyrics are as raunchy as the title. Sometime in the next 30 years, old people will outnumber school children in NYC. "According to police estimates, there are over......

+ Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: "Large Fight in Front Of Firehouse" at 12:02pm on 58th Street and a huge fire at the Memorial Presbyterian Church on 7th and St. Johns in Park Slope. + The Villager has a nice history of the L.E.S. Tenement Museum: "Built in 1863, with 20 apartments measuring approximately 325 square feet each and no indoor plumbing, ventilation or light, 97 Orchard St. was home to an estimated 7,000......

We used to think it was pretty sweet that disabled people got themselves a handsome little discount when riding subways and buses. But we always felt that there was probably some downside that we didn't see. In fact, it turns out that only a little over 10% of the subway stations in NYC are actually even accessible to the disabled. And apparently even a $300 million renovation of the Stillwell Avenue Station in Brooklyn wasn't......

After months (and probably years) of planning, the MTA and Mastercard unveiled the contactless payment system at 30 subway stations along the 6 line - plus two non 6 stations in Queens, you know, where the Citibank building is at Court Square. We saw the sensors back in June, and now the whole test is called "The NYC Subway Trial." Which is kind of unfortunate, because it made us think about how sometimes riding......

- The Straphangers' Campaign's Gene Russianoff has a blog! - Forty-nine MTA workers were saluted for their “bravery and selfless acts in aiding those in need” and given medals from the NYC Transit president Larry Reuter. One subway worker rescued a woman who fell in the tracks, and bus driver Courtny Granston helped nab a thief: “I saw the cops pass me, and then I picked up this guy two blocks later,” Granston recalled.......

We'd like to take a moment to talk about the High Entrance Exit Turnstile (HEET) at many subway stations. A friend was telling us how he was fined for allowing another straphanger enter the station with him. Our friend wasn't trying to deliberately flout the law - he thought he was being a Good Samaritan because the straphanger had just swiped through, but accidentally turned the turnstile from one behind where you're supposed to,......

Last night Gothamist went to look at the new R160 subway car for New York City Transit, which features one major change - the FIND system (Flexible Information and Notice Display). FIND replaces single line maps that are currently on the R142 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and R143 (L) that have bulbs indicating stops along the line, instead using a display that can change depending on the location and line that the train......

Delicious has long been an indispensible tool for our work here at Gothamist-- we have bookmarks for dozens of tags and monitor them throughout the day. Our favorites include Brooklyn, New York, and Photography, but our favorite tag is definitely "NYC." Starting today, Josh and his pals have added a new feature to make the NYC tag page even better: you can now see the most popular recent NYC tags. The default view for the......

Proving that some subway stations are in a sad, vicious circle of getting worse and worse every year, the NY Daily News selected ten subway stations, with the help of readers, the NYC Transit Riders Council and the Straphangers, that are awful. Bad stations seem to be ones less frequented (five stations in the Bronx, two on the G, and the lone Manhattan station being the J, M, Z station on Bowery) and in poor......

The huge fire in the Bronx this morning that turned into a six alarm fire is definitely suspicious. It's apparently the third fire since August that has hit a strip of stores and apartment buildings. We can't wait until further coverage, especially from the tabloids, to delve into whether it's the building owner, a disgruntled tenant, a business rival, or just a lunatic who have been causing the fires. And we didn't realize there was......

As the feds close in on the people who leaked the maybe, maybe not terror alert, Gothamist would like to take a moment to look at the MTA's evacuation plans for subway riders. If you go to their Evacuation procedure subpage, and you'll find links to videos and, better yet, some animated diagrams of what you should do in case of an emergency. Now, we want to know how many evacuation trains there are......

Probably one of the best "source" quotes ever in today's Daily News story about how the MTA will nix a ban on drinking beverages (non-alcoholic ones, natch) on the subway because "It ain't worth the fight." No, it ain't! This comes after straphangers were outraged to learn they couldn't drink their tall half-caf mocha lattes or even bottles of water (Gothamist included). But the Daily News says the MTA will pass the rule that ban......

A woman was stabbed 13 times as she waited for a J train at the Bowery stop on Saturday afternoon. The Queens woman, a home care attendant, was attacked from behind, as a man grabbed her purse then punching and stabbing her. She is hospitalized and her son was angry about the lack of police presence in that particular subway. That was something Gothamist wondered about: Even though police presence is ramped up in certain......

Sometimes there are fun subway ads, like the Bronx Zoo ads. Sometimes there are bizarre ones that become a part of your brain's fabric, like the Dr. Zizmor ads. And then there are the unbearably lame ones, like the Mitchum Man ads that try to appeal to men's machismo or something, with phrases like, "If you're pretty sure you could kick out the window in the event of an emergency, you're a Mitchum Man." And......

A month after they were proposed, the MTA is adopting a new set of rules of conduct that will see fines being handed out for things like drinking (non-alcoholic beverages) in a subway car, putting your feet on a seat, and riding between subway cars. And you can't ride your bicycle, wear you Rollerblades or be atop a skateboard, either. The MTA says that police officers, who we have been seeing in droves at......

As it was suggested last year, the 9 train is leaving the NYC subway system. There's a NY Times story about how signs will be taken down as the 9 train will go to subway heaven on May 31. For instance, the "9" will be taken down from the flashy Times Square subway entrance, and the 9 information are probably black-decaled over on the platforms. The 9 train had served as a way to help......

After almost a year of bloggers (photo and non) worrying and snickering, plus at least two protests, the MTA and NYPD have finally decided that a subway photo ban is unneccessary! Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne says, "We are not pressing for a ban. Our officers will continue to investigate, and intercede if necessary, if the activity - photo-related or not - is suspicious," he said. The Daily News had a nice summary of......

While taking a look at NYC Subway, we noted that there was a new, "geographically correct" New York City Subway Route Map by SPUI. Gothamist likes the map, because it gives us a sense of how the city really looks (reminding us once again that Manhattan does not run North-South) and gives us ammo for the "We knew the train take a sharp turn at..." But in terms of day-to-day use, it doesn't really......

The Daily News might not be able to hold a Scratch 'N' Match contest, but they do love using subway cellphones to prove points! On their cover today, the News announces that a subway flasher in Queens was caught via cameraphone by some Catholic schoolgirls. Apparently, the suspect, Wilfredo Ponte (whom the News calls "the alleged pervert"), had flashed previously on the F, but when he flashed some girls at 179th St. station, they fought......

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......

Though the MTA has been a bit of a pain lately, Gothamist loves the subways and even enjoys our commute (when we have stuff to read, when we don't have to unduly transfer extra times, when we aren't pressed up against the population of Rhode Island in a train car). Travis Ruse has put together a photoblog of his commute, Express Train, to capture his Park Slope-Grand Central journeys. We've always loved Laura Holder's......

A young magazine publisher died from a third rail electrocution last night, after he tried to cross to the opposite platform by walking across the train tracks. The Daily News reports that Patrick Elasik, who lived in Far Rockaway to be near the ocean, was found on the tracks at 1:35AM. His business partner and co-publisher of Mass Appeal says that Elasik entered the Nassau Avenue G train station on the wrong side. Then the......

The skip-stop along the 1/9 will end in May, meaning that the No. 9 train is headed for that trainyard in the sky...or Queens, as it were (well, it's not really a trainyard...the MTA will get rid of the signs and make new maps). In May, all the stops in upper Manhattan and the Bronx will get No. 1 trains all the time, making some people happy and others, who liked the "local yet express"......

Gothamist likes these photographs that Bluejake took at Marcy Avenue a lot. Because we tend to disappear beneath the surface for our subways, the outdoor stops always seem more exotic to us (plus, the urine smell gets washed away by the rain). But outdoor stops abound through the five boroughs. And, here, Marcy Avenue seems a little like Chicago. Who knew? NYC Subway on the Marcy Avenue stop. And get ready, photobloggers: Saturday, December......

This is exactly what subway enthusiasts and watchdogs want: The possibility that a disgruntled employee deliberately unscrewed part of the third rail, which caused part of the third rail to fall over and started the fires that plagued the B/D/F/V line on Wednesday. Well, that was earlier coverage from Newsday, because the NY Times reports that the MTA does not think it was sabotage, simply an accident that caused 15,000 pounds of the third rail......

Steven Weiss gives us some more information about the purported NYC Subway edition of M&M's. Apparently, the Subway M&M's were announced as part of the Subway centennial festivities at Grand Central, but, aside from handing out some Subway Centennial M&M's to members of the press, there was no further information on how to get them. Argh. Steven also points out that, based on his photo at left, some trains may have missed the M&M's boat.......