The MTA is holding an emergency L train public meeting Tuesday at noon to discuss the new plans regarding the non-shutdown of the Canarsie tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The meeting will be live streamed.
Cuomo’s announcement two weeks ago rocked the Brooklyn universe and understandably upset the renters and business owners who already relocated, not to mention the community leaders who worked for three years on mitigation plans and questioned the announcements’ lack of specifics.
The L train was scheduled to see 15 – 18 months of major service disruptions beginning in April, but as the story goes, a distraught Brooklyn man pulled Cuomo’s lapel, inspiring the Governor to assemble an engineering team of experts to visit the Canarsie tunnel. Continue reading →
The shell of the never completed subway tunnel above the G Line ( courtesy of secondavenuesagas.com)
Imagine how much easier it would be for alternative transportation with the L train apocalypse if there was a parallel subway line from Williamsburg providing another route to Manhattan!
In 1929, such a godsend of a line was not only planned but began construction; the plans did not get very far. The city dug out a tunnel that still sits under Williamsburg at S. 4th Street. Subway historian Benjamin Kabak described the tantalizing phantom subway line in his blog Second Avenue Sagas.
Kabak revealed the existence of the huge subway shell as part of his underbelly project. He claims that the envisioned subway tunnel was intended to accommodate four subway lines, which would have made it one of the largest stations in the city. Cruelly, the partially excavated tunnel sits just above the Broadway stop on the G line. The plans were tragically visionary: According to Kabak, both the Sixth Avenue and Eighth Avenue lines would have passed through this station, bound for multiple points east, south and north.
Corporate America’s valiant Governor, ‘Amazon’ Cuomo, tried his hardest last night to fix the Canarsie Tunnel during a 1.5 hour midnight visit with a team of “national and international experts,” but in the end, no miracles were made and the tunnel will close as scheduled for an estimated 15 months of repairs starting in April 2019.
Cuomo did bless us with a photo shoot providing images of the subterranean finger pointing and deep reflection we all wanted.
Amazon Cuomo held a press conference following the tunnel tour in which he revealed nothing new while name-dropping his photo-op team of global experts from Cornell, Columbia University, and the MTA. Watch the press conference here:
The Greenpoint Ave G train station will experience a series of service interruptions this winter starting Nov. 30, the MTA announced on Wednesday.
December will see the most interruptions for the Greenpoint Ave G train station, which is scheduled to close during weekends, and weeknights 9:45 p.m. – 5 a.m. from Dec. 3 through Dec. 24. Southbound G train service is also suspended from the station Nov. 30 through Dec. 31, but northbound trains will run.
The closures are due to the upcoming L train reconstruction and the ongoing $23.4 million MTA project to make the Greenpoint Avenue G subway station compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act by installing three elevators, powered gates, and braille signage amongst other upgrades.
Construction on the elevators commenced in September and is estimated to wrap in spring 2021. The southern end of the station will have elevator access on the East side of Manhattan Avenue between Greenpoint Avenue and Kent Street. Two addition elevators will be installed for the north and south G train platforms. Continue reading →
In fact, the MTA announced on Saturday, The L train will not run between Manhattan and Brooklyn for 15 weekends between now and April, when the agency plans to usher in L-pocalypse.
While North Brooklyn has been aware of, and preparing for, April’s planed 15-month suspension of service through the Canarsie Tunnel with a litany of enterprising, madcapsolutions, commuters were entirely unaware of the MTA’s pre-show closure countdown.
Now, purveyors of L-ternatives will have to fire up their tanks earlier than expected, because the first of the 15 weekend closures will take place this weekend (from 11:30pm Friday, August 10 – 5am Monday, August 13th).
The other 14 weekend closures will take place throughout October, November, February, March and April.
Good morning, Greenpoint! It’s Friday, and time for the Hook-up. Sometimes, I think we should just rename this column “Another Week, the Same MTA,” since it seems that most of the things that get a line here are subway-related. That’s true as ever this week. Punch, Pepper-Spray, Hardware and High School are all, in their myriad and sundry ways, subway stories. So, step in, stand clear of the closing doors. Continue reading →
This post from one Greenpoint Henry to another was found via Craigslist:
From one Henry to another Henry – m4w (New York)
Hello, My name is Henry. I live in Greenpoint, off the G train. I am looking for a man named Henry who is in love with a woman named Samantha. “Henry and Samantha 4ever.” I see it written on subway posters. I see it written on formerly wet cement. I even found it printed on a deflated heart shaped balloon the day after valentines day. Look, I am happy for you Henry and I know that your Samantha is not my Samantha. But, my Samantha left years ago and soon the MTA replaced all of our “Henry and Samantha 4ever” posters. The bathroom walls were over crowded with hate talk and our declarations were written over. It strange for me to see a new “Henry and Samantha 4 ever” taking over the neighborhood. I hope you are both happy but please keep it to yourselves. -Henry
Happy December, Everybody! Despite the glorious lights on Manhattan Avenue, it seems not everybody is in the holiday spirit. In fact, there has been some gross nonsense going on around here: on November 21st, a man began masturbating outside The Lot Radio coffee shop (17 Nassau Avenue) while staring at a 20-year-old female employee. Then, he entered the shop and attempted to raid the cash register. This whole episode went down before noon, proving that it’s never to early to be a creep.
Unfortunately, the crime wave continued this week. On Tuesday, a Greenpoint woman was the victim of a violent robbery. The 63-year-old woman was punched in the face in the lobby her building; the assailant made off with her purse and cellphone. The NYPD asks the public’s help in identifying the perpetrators in both these crimes. If you have information about either case, call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS or for Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
New York living would be way too lonely without our furry friends by our side, who provide us cuddles and kisses not only when we refuse to leave our apartments in the dead of winter, but also increasingly commonly at work. Dog friendly offices are totally on trend right now, but with crowded subways and a recent backlash on “fake” service dogs, bringing your pup to and fro around the city is becoming more of a challenge. Especially if you want your dog bag to match your personal sense of style.
Longtime North Brooklyn resident Tennille Teague was frustrated at the lack of stylish options to tote her lovable daschund Mo to and from work every day. Dogs need to be in a carrier of some type if you take them on the subway, ferry or in a cab—and most of the available doggie travel bags at big box retailers or online come in rather obnoxious colors or patterns, and don’t really fall in line with the fashion forward sensibility of hip New Yorkers. And aside from looks, there were other features Tennille wasn’t able to find in a doggie travel bag—a well-designed pocket for accessible poop bags, detachable straps, a leather bottom with metal feet, or one end open for the dog’s head to peek out, for example. And even if a bag had one of those traits, it didn’t have them all.
So after more than a year of design and production exploration, Tennille is ready to unleash Jaxx Hound onto the NYC dog scene. Jaxx Hound’s cleverly designed bags, collars and leashes will be produced nearby in Jersey, in production by the end of the year and ready to ship out in early 2018, if she meets her Kickstarter goal of $39,000. To support Jaxx Hound with a $25 pledge, you can rock the McGolrick dog run with a cute “Pup Culture” tee which features illustrations of dogs reimagined as celebs: Billdog Murray, Meryl Sheepdog and Bernese Sanders. And if you’re dying to get your hands on one of the bags, a pledge of $225 will get you one in classic black, grey, navy or olive green. And while that might seem like a lot to some, in the realm of locally-made and ultra-stylish dog fashion (with 5% of proceeds going to NYC shelter Animal Haven) the price makes sense. Your best friend and daily companion is worth whatever it costs. The Jaxx Hound Kickstarter ends in a few weeks; hook up your pup with the chic-est way to travel, before everybody else is doing it.
What’s the plan for the 2019 L Train shutdown? Do we have alternative transportation options? Tonight’s the night to voice your opinion and talk with community members about the upcoming L Train closure. The DOT and the MTA are hosting a series of community workshops, and NOW is the time to get involved before it’s too late!
What’s the plan for the 2019 L Train shutdown? Do we have alternative transportation options? Tonight’s the night to voice your opinion and talk with community members about the upcoming L Train closure. The 
