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Gridlock
in Manhattan. 3:20 PM. Photo: JH.
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It
was very cold in New York yesterday, the first
day of the Transit Workers strike, and it got colder last
night.
East End Avenue which is normally a fairly quiet street except during arrival
and departure hours when the two neighboring girls’ schools (Chapin and
Brearley) are open, was very quiet — sometimes empty of cars for minutes
at a time. That is very unusual for Manhattan, no matter where you are.
I looked out the window and saw that there were indeed cabs with their VACANT
signs on and only an occasional traveler hailing them down. My assistant who
came in about eleven-thirty had walked from his apartment on 175th Street and
Broadway. He started at nine-thirty. The cars coming into Manhattan, heading
downtown, he said, were bumper to bumper at 116th and Broadway, and not moving.
Not moving to the point where drivers were getting out of their cars and going
into delis for coffee, coming back and waiting some more for things to move.
I left the apartment
about noon to go down to Michael’s — usually a twenty
minute ride on a normal traffic-ridden day. Yesterday, however,
I was at 57th and Fifth Avenue in a little more than ten minutes
because 57th Street was almost empty of traffic.
Madison and Fifth Avenues were closed to traffic
entirely. I don’t know why that is. The official
word to explain that was “Security.” For what, from
what, is hard to fathom because what the strategy managed to
do was to tie up all the traffic on the cross streets midtown.
But this is par for the course for the Bloomberg Administration’s
Rube Goldbergian midtown-traffic logistics. They re-arranged
the traffic direction on the midtown cross-streets sometime ago
and the result of their re-arranging is gridlock gridlock gridlock.
This seems to be accompanied by an official disinterest in the
results. It is just another one of those official policies which
is wrongheaded, counterproductive and set in stone — or
rather, macadam — and you Joe Working Stiff can like it
or lump it.
The upshot of having Madison and Fifth Avenues closed entirely was that the center
of the city during the heaviest shopping time of the year, was very quiet. In
fact New Yorkers have never known such quiet. There were a lot of people on the
sidewalks of course, although far less than there would have been had cars been
able to access the stores who certainly must be hurting from this. |
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Escalators
on hold |
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Fastest
mode of transportation |
At
the restaurant I learned that many people were getting around
by sharing cabs at ten bucks per. My lunch partner, investment
banker Euan Rellie (whose wife designs manufactures
those clothes for your little ones under the label “Lucy
Sykes Baby”) told me he’d taken a cab up from his
apartment downtown;
and he’d shared it although he had to pay ten bucks per “zone” and
had traveled through two and half zones to get to 55th Street between Fifth and
Sixth. Which added up to twenty-five bucks. He was not pleased. Normally he would
have been a two dollar and ten minute subway ride away. Yesterday of course it
took forever thanks to the gridlock on the midtown streets and the closing of
the uptown bound Madison Avenue.
After lunch I walked over to the Quest offices on 55th and Third. It was almost
painfully cold although I was well bundled up. When I left the offices for home,
I did catch a cab. He put on his meter and charged me the going fare. He’d
been having an awful day – lack of customers and inert traffic when he
did have a customer (or even when he didn’t).
Last night I went out for a quick and early dinner at Swifty’s
with my friend and neighbor Charlie Scheips (who sometimes pens
The Art Set on the NYSD). Swifty’s is ten blocks south and five blocks
west. We got a cab right away. Ten bucks per. The usual cab fare is six to seven
bucks total at that hour. After dinner we got another cab quite easily although
many had passed us carrying several passengers (and all with the VACANT signs
on). Ten bucks a pop.
“People are going to get very sick of this very soon,” I said to
Charlie, ruminating on a forty dollar cab ride covering what is a little less
than a mile. “And they’re going to blame someone.” Right now
they’re blaming the strikers and the union who want higher wages and higher
pension benefits. But we’re all discriminating when it gets down to brass
tacks and you can’t blame “them” when your temperature is rising.
You blame “him,” or “him,” or “him.” |
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Looking
west across 50th Street |
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Madison
Avenue, looking north |
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Grand
Central Station |
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Many
years ago the retirement age for the transit
workers was age
50. Today it is age 55. Doesn’t sound so bad unless you give more than
a little thought to the conditions working in the underground, the underbelly
of the New York City public transit system. Or the business of driving these
enormous buses carrying hundreds of thousands of diverse temperaments across
the previously described terrain of gridlock.
Some seem to think these people should be lucky just to have a job. Maybe that’s
so. But most of the people I hear that from don’t feel they are lucky to
have a job. Because they feel they deserve the job or are more than qualified
to do the job. Or they never even think about the “luck” of it.
Transit workers are qualified too, and the job they often have to do in the underbelly
of the city amongst the rats (by the millions) and the refuse and the interminable
black dankness, and the cold, and the hot, is not a job a lot of people could
do even if they wanted to. Fixing broken tracks? Electrical lines? Etcetera.
It may be a beautiful life, but it doesn’t sound like one just considering
the basics. It’s what a lot of us call “the dirty work.” Although
I wouldn’t know because I’m lucky, I have a job. Above the ground.
The city will naturally grow quieter in the next few days as we approach the
weekend and the Christmas holiday, which will automatically relieve some of the
burden. Many New Yorkers will be traveling and the week leading up to New Year’s
will be less populated. So if we don’t have public transportation like
the buses and the subway we’ll also maybe have less need for them. Although
they are awfully convenient for those of us who like going all over town on a
whim for a movie, a friend, a meal, a shopping excursion. That will not be happening.
Unless of course they settle. Unless both sides get down to some kind of compromise
in the name of the well-being of the citizens and the city. But it takes two
to tango, as we all know, and both partners must be very very good at accommodating
and coordinating with the other. Otherwise it’s gonna be rage at ten bucks
a pop. |
Fifth
Avenue at 60th Street, looking north. 2:30 PM.
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