The $60 million Houston Street Corridor Reconstruction started in the fall of 2010... with a scheduled wrap date of next spring.
But!
DNAinfo learns that various complications have added another year to the project — pushing the expected completion date to the summer of 2014.
Per the article:
The news came as an unpleasant surprise to many Lower East Side and East Village business owners, who said the work from the Bowery to the FDR Drive ... has turned the street into a nightmarish obstacle course for drivers and pedestrians, driving away customers and hurting their business.
The franchise owner of the Subway sandwich shop in the Red Square shops "said he's considering closing the location after losing about 50 percent of his customer base because of the narrowed sidewalk, obstructed crosswalk and other construction headaches outside his door."
The article focuses on business owners and drivers... how about residents who live along here? Anyone with any construction horror stories?
Previously on EV Grieve:
Coming soon to East Houston: Construction, hell, rodent control stations
Long-threatened East Houston reconstruction starting this month
[An EVG East Houston file photo]
7 comments:
funny i was just noticing the other day that there seemed to be a crazily unusual amount of construction around houston st
This may only be a *potential* horror story, but the Houston crossing at Ave. D gives you approximately 5 seconds to make it from one side to the next. Can't help but feel it's a class/income thing, as the crossing time at Broadway gives noticeably more time for all those Soho shoppers to get across safely...
I'm not surprised, but it still sucks. The intersection of A and Houston, where 1st st begins, is still a pedestrian nightmare. Drivers aren't sure where to go which slows down the intersection so that someone eventually ends up flooring it through a red light. A couple months ago I saw a big truck take out one of the construction barriers. As for Subway's decline, I have to imagine the fact that there's now 40 other Subways in walking distance means some of your customers probably live closer to the competing stores.
The only good news on that block is that last week there were about 20 workers insider of the (eventual) future Union Market. Stop teasing me!!!
I dont know what part of it is going to take till '14, but it seems like the sidewalks are done between a/b, at least.
challenging to walk around. inevitable that some poor pedestrian will get hit by a passing car. i don't wish that to happen but i just have a sixth sense about disasters...
Cycling across Houston at A is a weird dash-now-and-hope-for-the-best exercise...mostly because cars don't know where to go most of the time, so bikers are left to dodge.
Isn't it strange how city construction projects take so long? I mean, they built the whole Empire State Building in way less time than this.
blogger needs a like-category topology feature that automatically groups similar postings into a hierarchical tree like structure -- add a dash of ajax so you can move the things around with your mousy. tada! you can rule the blogger world
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