Hello,
as Part 1 focused mostly on the commute, now some picture of the NY Subway (plus some more stuff
).
New York Subway
In NY I used the subway a lot to get around (I stressed my weekly passes a lot). Away from Manhattan huge parts of the network a above ground.
A Manhattan bound 7 line train on the Flushing Line:
.
The 7 line runs across Queen to the terminal at Main Street in Flushing. Flushing offers a second Chinatown and the Queens Botanical Garden.
A lot of name tags for the plant where written in English and in (Chinese?)characters. Apart from flower and trees in various shapes and there is the "Wedding Garden". You can rent it for weddings (chairs and arch included).
During my stay several weddings were conducted:
The train showed above is approaching "Mets – Willets Point" station. Right around the corner from the station is "Flushing Meadows" (A must for tennis fans) and the maintenance depot for the 7 line (Corona Yard).
As the morning rush hour had passed, a lot of trains where stored there. In the background the Center Court of the tennis stadium.
On another day I headed for Astoria in Queens to visit the Film Museum Moving Image. I used the time after the visit for some pictures of Astoria Line trains.
During weekdays N trains and Q trains run in the Astoria Line.
An Astoria bound Q train approaching "36 Ave" station
and a Manhattan bound N train.
Later I went to terminal station (Astoria – Ditmars Boulevard) for stroll around the neighborhood (and more importantly: the hunt for a coffee
).
The Astoria line is an elevated line running above 31st street. For years there have been plant to extend it to LaGuardia airport. Due to a lot of NIMBY protests by residents in along the planed line, the plans have been shelved.
The line has 3 tracks, but the center (express) track is not used revenue service (in contract for example to the Flushing line, where the center track is used for express trains run in the peak direction). The track is used in case of problems.
On my return my train switched to the express track and skipped several (local) stops. As I wanted to get back to Manhattan, no big deal for me, but a lot of other guys were less relaxed. The announcement by the conductor was met be a lot of "f"-word usage.
On another tour to Queens, 7 trains were not running to Manhattan due to track maintenance. So I used to E train to get to "Jackson Heights". There I wanted to change to the 7.
When I arrived at Jackson Heights the platform was crowded, because signal failure prevented trains Manhattan bound trains to run further than Jackson Heights. Trains terminated here. The trains used the center track to switch from the Manhattan track to the Flushing track and returned to Flushing.
As you can guess from the picture, there is a train a the next station, but t could not leave from there:
Customer Information
As for many transportation authorities customer information is not the MTA strongest suit. Departure boards the inform about the next trains are only slowly coming to the network (the MTA calls them countdown clocks.
The most outstanding departure board was at the Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue station - the station is the terminal station for 4 subway lines (D, F, N, Q):
Art
Several pieces of art around the system allow a glimpse at the golde age of the subway, e.g. at the "Brooklyn Museum" station
or these mosaic at 66. Street
My personal favorite: These bronze sculptures (I think they were at 14th street station on the L)
Let's go Giants
My brother I went to several sporting events (For fans it is easy to support your team, whatever sport everbody always shouted "Let's go $place_your_team_name_here$").
These events included a visit to the NY Giants football team at the Meadowland Stadium. The stadium has station why is served on events by the NJ Transit Meadowlands Rail Line trains.
Some of my prejudices on American sport venues were met: There were barbecues taken place in the parking lot and prior to game everybody stood up to sing the national anthem.
View from the stair cases: In the foreground is the station, in the background Xanadu. Xanadu was supposed to be a shopping mall, but the investor could not raise enough money during the economic downturn after the housing bust. Now it is just standing there and has been nicknamed "the ugliest building in New Jersey":
Our seats were in the last row (tickets for just a little more than 100 USD each). As the stand were relatively steep, so we were not far away as I would have expected.
The day was a lot of fun. As my brother and I did not knew much about football rules, we did a lot of guessing each time the refs interrupted the game. The Giants lost the game that day (and they deserved it), but in the end they won the Super Bowl:
Thats it for part two
Charly
as Part 1 focused mostly on the commute, now some picture of the NY Subway (plus some more stuff
).New York Subway
In NY I used the subway a lot to get around (I stressed my weekly passes a lot). Away from Manhattan huge parts of the network a above ground.
A Manhattan bound 7 line train on the Flushing Line:
The 7 line runs across Queen to the terminal at Main Street in Flushing. Flushing offers a second Chinatown and the Queens Botanical Garden.
A lot of name tags for the plant where written in English and in (Chinese?)characters. Apart from flower and trees in various shapes and there is the "Wedding Garden". You can rent it for weddings (chairs and arch included
).During my stay several weddings were conducted:
The train showed above is approaching "Mets – Willets Point" station. Right around the corner from the station is "Flushing Meadows" (A must for tennis fans) and the maintenance depot for the 7 line (Corona Yard).
As the morning rush hour had passed, a lot of trains where stored there. In the background the Center Court of the tennis stadium.
On another day I headed for Astoria in Queens to visit the Film Museum Moving Image. I used the time after the visit for some pictures of Astoria Line trains.
During weekdays N trains and Q trains run in the Astoria Line.
An Astoria bound Q train approaching "36 Ave" station
and a Manhattan bound N train.
Later I went to terminal station (Astoria – Ditmars Boulevard) for stroll around the neighborhood (and more importantly: the hunt for a coffee
).The Astoria line is an elevated line running above 31st street. For years there have been plant to extend it to LaGuardia airport. Due to a lot of NIMBY protests by residents in along the planed line, the plans have been shelved.
The line has 3 tracks, but the center (express) track is not used revenue service (in contract for example to the Flushing line, where the center track is used for express trains run in the peak direction). The track is used in case of problems.
On my return my train switched to the express track and skipped several (local) stops. As I wanted to get back to Manhattan, no big deal for me, but a lot of other guys were less relaxed. The announcement by the conductor was met be a lot of "f"-word usage
.On another tour to Queens, 7 trains were not running to Manhattan due to track maintenance. So I used to E train to get to "Jackson Heights". There I wanted to change to the 7.
When I arrived at Jackson Heights the platform was crowded, because signal failure prevented trains Manhattan bound trains to run further than Jackson Heights. Trains terminated here. The trains used the center track to switch from the Manhattan track to the Flushing track and returned to Flushing.
As you can guess from the picture, there is a train a the next station, but t could not leave from there:
Customer Information
As for many transportation authorities customer information is not the MTA strongest suit. Departure boards the inform about the next trains are only slowly coming to the network (the MTA calls them countdown clocks.
The most outstanding departure board was at the Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue station - the station is the terminal station for 4 subway lines (D, F, N, Q):
Art
Several pieces of art around the system allow a glimpse at the golde age of the subway, e.g. at the "Brooklyn Museum" station
or these mosaic at 66. Street
My personal favorite: These bronze sculptures (I think they were at 14th street station on the L)
Let's go Giants
My brother I went to several sporting events (For fans it is easy to support your team, whatever sport everbody always shouted "Let's go $place_your_team_name_here$"
).These events included a visit to the NY Giants football team at the Meadowland Stadium. The stadium has station why is served on events by the NJ Transit Meadowlands Rail Line trains.
Some of my prejudices on American sport venues were met: There were barbecues taken place in the parking lot and prior to game everybody stood up to sing the national anthem.
View from the stair cases: In the foreground is the station, in the background Xanadu. Xanadu was supposed to be a shopping mall, but the investor could not raise enough money during the economic downturn after the housing bust. Now it is just standing there and has been nicknamed "the ugliest building in New Jersey":
Our seats were in the last row (tickets for just a little more than 100 USD each). As the stand were relatively steep, so we were not far away as I would have expected.
The day was a lot of fun. As my brother and I did not knew much about football rules, we did a lot of guessing each time the refs interrupted the game. The Giants lost the game that day (and they deserved it), but in the end they won the Super Bowl:
Thats it for part two
Charly
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