Category: This just in

110th Street (Columbia University area) Multiple Stabbing

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 110th Street

I was up at Columbia this afternoon, and heading to the train on my way home.  I happened to be closer to the 110th Street station, so I headed in that direction (versus the 116th stop).

Quickly, realized that was a bad idea.  The place was crawling with NYPD and rescue.  From the look of it, I thought for sure there was a jumper or something.  People standing around said there was a fight.  Looked like there was way too many cops and EMT’s for a simple fight.

So I went back to 116th thinking that the train would at least roll by 110th where I could get a better look. Well it did roll by…without stopping.  The police had closed the stop.

So I went home not really knowing much more than that.

Just moments ago, I found out the real story thanks to Newsday.  It turns out that there was a multiple stabbing that involved three teens.

The kids started fighting at 59th Street/Columbus Circle.  The fight eventually spilled out onto the street at 110th.  Two of them ended up stabbed or slashed.  The other was beaten with a cane.  (Are kids carrying whipping canes these days?)

I love this quote from a witness:

“This is a grassroots problem,” said Shira Dicker, 45, of Morningside Heights. “Anybody who rides the rails knows that the kids are a real menace.”

The AP reports that non-caned were slashed in the face.  Sweet, at least that will build future “street cred.”

However, there were no arrests made, which seems a little odd.  Perhaps there’s more people involved that didn’t get catch the business end of a blade…or cane.

(Editor’s note:  I know 110th isn’t technically Columbia.  However, if you are familiar with the area, then you know that from 110th – North is definitely college territory.)

Surf the Web — Not the Train

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Words of wisdom from the MTA that escaped some dude recently.

AMNY Tracker reports that today’s morning Q train snafu was due to a subway surfer.  No, not some idiot riding inside the train pretending to surf down the middle of the isle.  No, instead it is usually a rider on top of (as in the outside) the train or clinging to the side.

This practice is discouraged, hence the MTA Subchat campaign pictured above.

Who in the hell would actually do something like that?  Well, just last month, SUBWAYblogger posted a video clip of an entire train’s worth of idiots riding on the outside of the train.  Of course, that was a different country, but you get he point.

It took 45 minutes to get the guy off the top of the Q train which stopped between stations.  If I were stuck on that train, it wouldn’t have mattered if the guy got off alive because I would absolutely killed him anyway.  He would have had a better shot at surviving the trip on the roof.

“It’s happened before and usually when it happens, the person gets killed,” said Transit spokesman Charles Seaton.

Uhhh…yeah.  No shock there.

For that matter, do kids that live in New York have any right to complain about being bored?  I mean are these kids that bored out of their minds that they have to train surf for entertainment?  You essentially live at the center of the modern universe, yet you cant find anything better to do with you time than this kind of crap?

Pre World War II Train Hits the Rails for a Spin

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To celebrate the 75th Birthday of the A line, the first line owned by the City, the MTA strung together a train of old pre-WWII train cars, and took them for a spin.

atrain.jpgYou could have been riding a train like this one pictured on the left (click for full image / NY Times). Yes, that’s right. Those are seat cushions and ceiling fans. I do believe that trains in 1932 were waaaaay more comfortable looking than our current models. However, ours now have air conditioning. The old cars did not, hence the ceiling fans. Still, a padded seat looks nice.

Also, these cars are museum quality now, so they are meticulously maintained. In the real world, they might not have been quite as nice.

Anyway, the vintage A train took a spin down the entire length of the original line, down and back. What was funny is that it made all the stops just like a regular train! Many passengers didn’t know what the hell was going on.

The old cars are dark green, and very tank like. Obviously, the interiors are way different too, complete with old advertisements…including cigarettes! So many passengers were rightfully suspicious. It reportedly did not take them long to find out why they were riding a living time machine. Word spread fast though the train at each stop.

MTA Boss Man, Elliot Sander, and crew were also on board. Rumor has it they were handing out free MetroCards!!

The joy of camera phones means that many people took pictures. I found this photo stream on Flickr containing many pics of the old train in action. Very cool.

The NY Times article published today also has a great account of the voyage. Only wish I could have been there too!

Friendly Fire in Subway Cop Shooting

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So it seems that the NYPD needs to spend a little more time on the firing range working on aim.   Ok, just kidding.

However, it turns out that at least one of the shots Officer Annmarie Marchiondo took the other night came from the gun of another police officer.  The wound her foot was determined to be friendly fire.  It is still unclear if the other two shots came from officers or the suspect they were attempting to take into custody.

Marchiondo was still in the hospital today.

Newsday reports:

After the officers took [Juan] Calves off the train at the 176th Street station and began searching him, he grabbed Marchiondo in a head lock and pulled out a stolen 9mm gun, police said. When she broke free, he opened fire on the other officers; they returned fire and killed him.

Hey, one less crazy, repeat felon on the streets.

And the MTA Said, “Let the subway have doors.”

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This just in, the 7 line extension will have platform doors!

NY1 has learned exclusively (wtf?  Is it a secret?) that the 7 line extension will have doors on it’s subway platforms.

What the hell those?  Platform doors are sliding glass doors at the edge of the subway platforms.  They create a floor to ceiling barrier between the platform and the open tracks.

What for?  They not only provide a safe barrier from people ending up on the tracks, but they also save cooling energy.  By keeping the platforms sealed off from the tunnels when trains are not in the station, hot air cannot fill up the platforms.  Therefore, the stations are kept cooler, and energy is saved.  See what they could look like HERE.

The platform doors are estimated to cost $2 million per station.  However, the cost is made up in energy savings.

Perhaps the 7 line extension will clear the way for doors on the 2nd Avenue line to have the doors as well.

Police Shoot and Kill Armed Suspect in Subway. Officer Wounded.

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Officer Annmarie Marchiondo NYPD

Crazy story. So crazy it sounds like something out of a movie.

Suspect Juan Calves, 51, was detained by by plainclothes police officers when he and another man were spotted riding between train cars. The officers removed him from the train onto the downtown 4 train at 178th Street in the Bronx.

All of a sudden, Calves allegedly went nuts, and put Officer Annmarie Marchiondo into a headlock. While she struggled to get free, Calves apparently pulled out a stolen 9mm gun and started firing shots at the platform.

The other two officers returned fire, killing Calves. The officers fired 13 shots (here comes Al Sharpton). Officer Marchiondo was shot in the foot, ankle, and just under her bulletproof vest. She is in stable condition.

Why nutcase Calves was on the streets is another issue all together. He’s apparently a career criminal. According to the AP:

Calves was freed on parole from prison two years ago after serving time for manslaughter, robbery, and attempt to promote prison contraband. The manslaughter conviction involved the killing of a fellow prison inmate at Attica Correctional Facility, police said.

That’s a pretty crazy story. The officers must not have had a chance to frisk him yet. They usually don’t do that until they get a suspect off the train.

The truly scary thing is that each one of us probably rides the train with someone like Calves every day. Thanks to our justice system, there are people with manslaughter and multiple other felonies standing right next to us on a crowded train. Maybe they aren’t doing anything wrong…but how are we supposed to know that they aren’t just a ticking time bomb?

(Photo from the NYPD of Officer Marchiondo)

MSNBC Claims JFK AirTrain is Free?

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Hmmm. Maybe I’m missing something. Isn’t it $5.00 to ride AirTrain to JFK? That’s what I’ve always thought. However, this caption on a new MSNBC.com article says differently.

Further down in the article, it then says the AirTrain costs $5.00…so which is it?

Sounds like George Hobica, Aviation.com, didn’t check all his facts.

I combed the AirTrain website and couldn’t find anything about free rides. I thought perhaps you only had to pay in one direction, but couldn’t find anything like that.

Anyway, the article itself is a list of the Top 10 Easiest U.S. Airports to get to. Allegedly, JFK is in the top 10. Don’t know that I believe it though. Is it really that easy? I guess technically, it’s not that hard. It’s just a looooooong ride on the subway only to then have to get on the AirTrain. You could conceivably have to take a bus to the subway, then transfer from one line to get on the A, E, J or Z train, ride waaay out, then get on the AirTrain.

Easy? I guess, but it will take forever. For example:

From W 72nd Street, HopStop says it will take 1 hour 28 minutes to get to JFK. It says to take the 1 to 59th Street, then take the D to Rockefeller Center, then take the F to 71st in Queens, then take the E to Jamaica. Why not just stay on the 1 train to Times Square and catch the E there? That will add 10 more minutes to the trip, according to HopStop.

From the East Side, same time. From E 23rd Street is going to take 1 hour 26 minutes.

So think about the overall time frame we’re talking about here. Let’s say you have a 7pm flight out from JFK. They say you should be at the airport 2 hours ahead of time. Then you need to factor in the hour and a half you need to navigate the rails. That means you need to leave your Manhattan apartment at 3:30pm to catch your 7pm flight! If you’re flying out internationally, they say to be there 3 hours early, so that means you would have to leave at 2:30!

Yikes. Easy, maybe. Convenient? Uhhh…no.

Animated subway construction map timeline graphical wondery

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That headline’s a mouthful.  Anyway…

Second Avenue Sagas stumbled across a nifty little animated gif image of the NYC Subway map.  One by one, it reveals the segments of the system in the order they were built.   It’s pretty cool.

As Ben points out, most people don’t appreciate that there was a time when the subway was very limited.  As a matter of fact, it was quite segmented.  There were short stretches of stand-alone lines. 

There were short, little segments out in Brooklyn that went basically nowhere.  There was also a time where there were no underwater crossings. 

The system has come a long way in the last 100 years.  Let’s hope the drive that got it built in the first place continues to keep the system up and running. 

What a kick in the nuts

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So how’s this for bullsh*t…

My hosting account was deactivated today because there was allegedly “adult content” posted on my server. 

There’s actually many websites that are hosted through my account.  A domain that I owned years ago, and have since sold, was for some reason tracked back to this account.  That old domain is now being hosted as a porno site, but I haven’t had anything to do with it forever. 

Somehow, the site was associated with my site somewhere in the Internet ether. 

So they shut down my account.  Of course, they never tried to contact me or anything…they just shut it off.  So that was fun.  Then trying to explain that I don’t own the domain any more was a whole other issue that was not being understood by them.

Anyway, thanks for being patient!  We’re back, and porno free.