MTA Blows Up 72nd St, Halts Construction On 2nd Ave Subway

Something went spectacularly wrong during construction on the Second Avenue subway station at 72nd street earlier this week. What was supposed to be a controlled explosion for the escalator wells got wildly out of control and blew rocks and dirt more than 80 feet into the air, breaking windows and making pedestrians scatter. Miraculoulsly no one above or below ground was hurt.

The photo of the explosion above was captured by a tourist, John Wilson, who was told by an MTA employee to get his camera ready as they stopped pedestrians and cleared 72nd street for the blast--standard practice for the project. What wasn't standard was what happened next. Yesterday, the MTA said construction on the project has been temporarily halted until they can figure out what went wrong. Of course, the usual statement was released saying that it was not an act of "terrorism"....just another mishap on the long delayed and trouble Second Avenue subway.

Beach 105th Street Is The Loneliest Station In New York City

The MTA released a ton of data this week about ridership figures for 2011. Basically, ridership across the system is up, recording nearly 1.6 billion passengers last year. It's the largest number to travel the system since 1950.

The figures have been parsed and examined over at the transit blog Second Avenue Sagas. However, there was one particular statistic that SAS pointed out that I found interesting.  Times Square, with nearly 190,000 riders a day, is not surprisingly the busiest station in the city. But the quietest station is Beach 105th Street, way out in the Rockaways, with an average of just 255 passengers a day. That is an incredible disparity.  The reason is that Beach 105 is served by the S shuttle line, which only runs to Broad Channel and back with an additional 10 express A trains for commuters.  Also, there is not much immediately around Beach 105th Street...just a Key Foods and some industrial sites.  I actually have been there, shooting a student film back in the 90's and I can say that part of the reason we were out there is that there were absolutely no people...especially in the middle of February. Brrrr.

I decided to look up the history of the lonley little station and, surprisingly, it is older than the actual NYC subway system. The original station opened in 1880, was called Seaside, and served as a stop on the Long Island Railroad.  After the station burned down four times (something that apparently happened a lot out in the windy Rockaways), it was finally replaced with a concrete viaduct that remains today. The MTA took over Beach 105th Street in 1956 and incorporated the line into its subway system.

Swingin' Second Avenue Subway Workers

Ben over at Second Avenue Sagas posted this video of an MTA crooning during the lunch hour.  In neighborhoods on the UES where the noise, dirt and general nuisance of subway construction have been driving residents nutty, this guy intends to have his music calm the savage upper east-sider.  It just may be working....

A Trip Into The Tunnel For The 2nd Ave Subway

Benjamim Kabak over at Second Avenue Sagas got a special tour yesterday of the launch box and tunnels for the Second Avenue Subway. He has a great series of photos up on his site showing the deep cavern, nearly 60 feet under the avenue, as well as a peek inside the tunnel (seen above).

The west tunnel is now complete from 96th to 65th street and they just started boring the east tunnel.  Service on the line is still about 5 years away but this is a cool look at things to come.  Yes, Virginia, there will be a Second Avenue subway....here's the tunnel to prove it.

Tracking Progress On The Second Avenue Subway

I was on the Upper East Side last week for a film shoot and got to see first hand all the construction happening on Second Ave for the new "T" line.  Its been in the news lately as merchants and residents have been complaining loudly about the noise and mess of construction and how it's been bad for business.  This weekend the MTA responded with an comprehensive new plan to address these concerns.  Over at the Launch Box blog, there is a summary of what's going on along with pictures of all the mess on the street.

Also on that blog, they've put together a great Google Map where you can follow the progress of the boring machine. The map also has pictures of the new station locations and some of the major construction sites, like the launch box itself where the tunnel boring machine took off from earlier this year. Currently, it's chewing its way through granite about 100 feet below 79th Street.  It has about 15 blocks to go before it will turn around and start boring it's way back up Second Ave next year.

Mapping the NYC Subway System

After more than 10 years, a new version of the NYC Subway Map is coming out next month.  There is a write-up in today's TIMES talking about the changes to the new map; Manhattan is 30 percent wider, no more weekend schedule info (which was often wrong), less detail on bus connections.  But overall, the map sticks with the approach the MTA took starting in the late 1970s, after years of complaints about the iconic and somewhat modernist map by Massimo Vegnelli (pictured here).


Of course, this being the age of the Internet, the MTA does not have the last word on it's own maps anymore.  There is a competing map, downloadable to your iPhone, which has more than 250,000 fans of it's somewhat retro approach.  Using the Vegnelli design as a starting point, the Kick Map goes back to the future while also adding some of the more familiar surface references too, like streets and landmarks.  In fact, it's an admitted compromise between the two warring map factions.


In some ways, it is curious that NYC is the only major US city that takes the topographical approach.  The argument is that there needs to be a more direct connection to the street because there are so many tourists and new arrivals from all over the world.  However, tourist-stricken Washington DC has stuck with it's own modernist map since the system debuted in 1976.  Despite the MTA's improvements, I think the Kick Map has got the right idea for clarity and ease of use.  Now all I need is an iPhone....

Gentlemen, Start Your Tunnel Boring Machine

More than 6 stories underneath 2nd avenue, a massive 50 ton Tunnel Boring Machine has started its slow march south from 92nd Street to 63rd.  The link above to Second Avenue Sagas has some great pics and video that Ben shot at the official ceremony last Friday.

I've posted before about the Launch Box for the TBM and now, it's on its way....chewing up a dozen yards of earth a day as it makes it's 30 block journey south.  The downtown tunnel will arrive at 63rd Street in December of 2011 and then they will go back and do the uptown tunnel.  Trains will be running in 2016 and, of course, we'll believe that when we see it.  But this is a huge step forward in the long-delayed expansion of the NYC subway.

Countdown In The Launch Box

As I've blogged before, New York City is currently in the midst of the biggest expansion of its mass transit network in decades. There are four projects underway tunneling beneath the city to build the new 7 line extension, the LIRR Grand Central terminal, a new Hudson tunnel for NJ Transit and the biggest project of them all, the long-delayed Second Avenue Subway.

After months of blasting, the actual tunneling far beneath 2nd avenue is set to begin later this spring. The launchbox, a large cavern where a TBM (tunnel boring machine) is assembled and set in motion, is ready to go. The TBM itself weighs roughly 485 tons, thus the big assembly launch/box. It just arrived in Newark last week.

There are some remarkable photos and videos of this machine (as well as the launch box) posted on a blog following the project called, of course, The Launchbox. The blog will be counting down the days to the start of tunneling from 96th to 63rd street.