Don't listen to your realtor when they say that advertised apartment is really a two bedroom if you just throw up a wall in the middle of the living room. Though the DIY separation could make your rent cheaper, the city is cracking down on a previously widely ignored code about separation walls. Hundreds of walls thrown up without Department of Buildings approval are being taken down, and new renters are being told that if they want to separate rooms, they must use bookshelves or other partitions that don't reach the ceiling. more ›

Just over a year after a passenger fatally stabbed B46 bus driver Edwin Thomas in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has installed its first bus partition in hopes of safeguarding its drivers. The half-inch-thick piece of plexiglass — covered in a non-glare coating — is already in use on the #5052 bus, which runs on B46 route. more ›

In the wake of the fatal stabbing of B46 bus driver Edwin Thomas by a passenger earlier this month in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the MTA has announced a pilot program to test partitions that would separate drivers from passengers. The partitions will be tested on buses operating out of the Flatbush Depot in Brooklyn, the Times reports. A committee studying bus driver safety is also urging the MTA do away with the paper transfers issued on buses because it's a common cause of confrontation between drivers and passengers. Thomas was allegedly stabbed to death by 20-year-old Horace Moore after Thomas refused to hand out a paper transfer because he hadn't paid his fare. And the MTA also released a study showing that there were 236 assaults on bus drivers so far this year through December 9th, and 18 percent of those were related to fare evasion. (67 of the incidents involved the driver being spit on.) more ›