Subway City

While we’re all buzzing up and down the avenues of New York, commuting from place to place, the vast network that makes up the NYC subway system is tirelessly twirling below us.  Weaving in and out of the 468 stations, it transports millions of passengers per day.  It’s practically a city under a city, so to speak.

The 4/5/6 line, which services the East Side of Manhattan, carries 1.3 million people per day, alone.  To provide some scope, this is roughly the total number of riders of the subway systems in Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago, combined.

And for this very reason, New Yorkers have been anxiously awaiting an additional, 2^nd Avenue subway line, to gain more access to the East Side, and free up traffic on the “green line”.

And boy have they been waiting.  Plans for the 2^nd Avenue line have been under discussion since 1929!  But in the past four years, tremendous progress has been made, and we’re on our way.

In Spring of 2007, Phase I of the project began with a tunnel between 63^rd street and 96^th street.  It was completed just last month.  Online magazine, UntappedCities, got the opportunity to tour the tunnel, and their account is pretty fascinating.  Click here for the full write-up, along with a ton of impressive photos of this underground forum.  It’s hard to believe this is all going on under the streets!

In December 2016, Phase I, in it’s entirety, should be finished.  And, even though it’s a long haul, the 2^nd Ave. subway line is yet another example of achievement in this great city.

Going Green…Underground.

We’ll now take you from function to entertainment.  Online magazine, Curbed, recently reported on a new community project for a park, called Delancey Underground.  The City has a great deal of parks already.  The difference with this one?  It’s underground.

Yep, that’s right.  The project plans to transform currently vacant spaces under Delancey Street, on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, into an eco-friendly, subterranean common.

The Curbed piece is here, and is worth checking out for the mockups of the park, alone.  One extra cool piece?  The plan is to harness natural light, “through a process that concentrates rays of sun through fiber optical cables and redistributes it to new locations.”

NYSee Tours legitimately hopes this park comes to fruition, as it would not only refresh the LES hood, but would bring something innovative and unique to the city, as a whole.

We hope we haven’t taken you too deep into the underground; we aimed for just below the surface.  But as always, we strive to give our friends a native New Yorker’s taste of the city.  We hope we’ve succeeded.