Inside The Second Avenue Subway

Gizmodo took a tour of the Second Avenue subway and has posted some great photos as well as the video below. The 72nd Street station reminds me of the DC Metro. And that's a very good thing.

New York City's new 2nd Avenue subway line is a construction project of truly monumental scale. Decades of planning and billions of dollars have led to the near-completion of Phase 1 of the tunnel running underneath Manhattan's Upper East Side. Gizmodo was lucky enough to take a tour through a section of the caverns and passages that will soon be a bustling subway line. Boring the two miles of Phase 1's tunnels began in 2010, with the project scheduled to be completed in 2016. It will eventually carry around 200,000 riders between 63rd Street and 96th Street. All four phases of the line, once completed, will run from 125th Street all the way down to Hanover Square at the southern tip of Manhattan. This won't wrap up for many years, however, as funding is procured on a phase-by-phase basis.

(Tipped by JMG reader Peter)

Morning View - Upper East Side

Morning View - Upper East Side

A lot of hullabaloo for six inches of snow. But the wind chill is minus five.

Morning View

Now Playing

The seven-plex in my neighborhood has bitten the dust and the storage place next door is apparently taking over the space. The theater had been in bad shape for years.

Their Prices Are Next To Nothing

In a bit of gallows humor, a bike shop on the Upper East Side glumly notes that the storefronts on either side have been vacated due to the construction of the Second Avenue subway. Dozens of businesses have closed around here since the giant muck houses went up three years ago and blocked the shops from the view of passersby.

UES Muck Houses To Come Down

A couple of years ago I took the above photo of one of the "muck houses" that went up all along the Upper East Side as part of the Second Avenue subway construction. Since then many businesses have gone under due to being blocked from the view of pedestrians. Some blocks have only two or three surviving shops out of the ten or so that used to be there. And don't even bring up the muck houses to the folks who live in one of the hundreds of blocked apartments, where they've spent the last two years in perpetual darkness.

Gothamist reports today that the MTA has announced that the muck houses are finally coming down.

"Really? I don't know whether to believe you," a waiter at an empty Japanese restaurant sitting in the shadow of the bland edifice on 72nd Street said when a reporter told him it would be broken down next month. "Ever since that went up, business has been going down, down, down, down." The waiter, who has been working at the restaurant for eight years and asked that his name not be printed, said that the MTA workers rarely came in for food. "Maybe it's too expensive, I don't know. They eat pizza."

Richard Barry, a clerk at the Pet Market next door, said that the Egyptian restaurant on the corner of 73rd, Pyramida Grill, was forced to close last summer. "He couldn't hold on any more. So now it's just us, the Japanese restaurant, and the CVS. There used to be a bakery too across the street but they're gone." "Who would assume that there's a pet store behind this big wall?" Barry said. "I have to ask people what the weather's like outside because I can't tell from here."

I've not read about the city offering any compensation to the businesses or to the apartment residents, some of whom have found it impossible to sell or rent their units. The MTA did erect lovely directional signs pointing people down the shadowy tunnels created by the muck houses.  The names of the now-closed shops on some of those signs have been angrily crossed out.

Morning View: Upper East Side

MANHATTAN: Gay Music Mogul David Geffen Pays Record $54M For UES Co-Op

Billionaire gay music mogul David Geffen has agreed to pay a record-setting $54 million for an Upper East Side penthouse.

The co-founder of Asylum Records and DreamWorks just closed on a $54 million duplex penthouse on the upper East Side owned by songwriter and socialite Denise Rich, real estate insiders say. The Brooklyn-born Geffen already owns an apartment in the same building, 785 Fifth Ave. at 60th St., right below the duplex. His new 12,000-square-foot unit has 20 rooms and outdoor space galore, with a roof deck and wraparound terraces amounting to another 5,000 square feet. The interior amenities include fine marble flooring, mahogany doors and multiple fireplaces. The upper level features a chef's kitchen near a dining room that can seat 22. But if Geffen wants a snack, there are two more kitchens on the lower level. He can work it off in the full gym that overlooks Central Park.

While Geffen's buy is the record for a co-op apartment, two condos (which do not require board approval to purchase) recently sold for much more.

UNRELATED TRIVIA: Joni Mitchell's Free Man In Paris was written about David Geffen.

Morning View

Morning View - East River

I'm just a couple of blocks from the East River, where water is already topping the seawall. Even at high tide, the water level is usually about eight feet below the ledge.  I'm guessing that they'll have to close the FDR before too much longer.

Inside The Second Avenue Subway

The New York Times reports today on the Second Avenue subway, whose excavation explosions still rattle my apartment daily after almost two years of work.

In Manhattan, where street traffic tends to stall, only one subway runs the length of the East Side. Every weekday, 1.3 million passengers — more than are carried in 24 hours by the transit systems of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco combined — cram onto the Lexington Avenue line. Yet the chaos above and below has inspired a feat: about 475 laborers are now removing 15 million cubic feet of rock and 6 million cubic feet of soil — more than half an Empire State Building by volume — out from under two miles of metropolis. In December 2016, that tunnel will make its debut as a portion of the Second Avenue subway — the great failed track New York City has been postponing, restarting, debating, financing, definancing and otherwise meaning to get in the ground since 1929.

The 6 train at rush hour really must be experienced to be believed at times. I've often wondered when the Japanese pushers will show up. The Times notes that East Siders can sign up for a Sunday tour of the caverns. I've totally got to do that. (Tipped by JMG reader Peter)

RELATED: The Second Avenue subway and the Long Island Rail Road extension to Grand Central are the two largest ongoing public works projects in the nation. And they're both on the East Side.

Morning View - Neighbors On Fire

At this writing the apartment building across my back alley is in flames. I tried to go out onto my fire escape to take more photos and a fireman yelled at me to get back inside. A moment later my building was hammered by fire hoses blowing out the shown windows from inside. All the buildings on that side of the block are being evacuated but we've been told to "sit tight" for now.

UPDATE: Everybody got out OK and at the moment the sidewalk is crowded with tenants and their pets, including one guy covered with scratches from frantically trying to cram his terrified cats into their carriers. (Lesson learned: I'm going to move Shelley's carrier to an easier to get to place.) Word on the street is that somebody was smoking in bed as the firemen had hurled a charred mattress out of the windows.

Shake, Rattle, & Roll

Finally we have a video of what's been rattling my apartment daily for the last 18 months. The cat used to get freaked out, but now she hardly lifts her head.

(Via - Gothamist)

Afternoon View - UES Polling Place

Photo by Dr. Jeff.

Morning View - Yoghund

The pet store up the street sells yoghurt for dogs.

Morning View - First & East 72

Looking north towards Harlem.

Afternoon View - Garbage Shot

When the folks in my building toss out books and magazines, they sometimes leave such items on top of the cans in case other tenants want them. Today: Edgar Allen Poe, investment strategies, Irish architecture. Also: the 2002 Britney Spears calendar. Score.

Morning View - At Fairway Market

Morning View - NYC Parking

I noticed that the parking garage in my building posted a new rate card over the weekend. No idea what qualifies as an "exotic car."