The new Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital planned for East 13th Street may be shorter than initially planned due to newly-discovered unused space at the adjacent New York Eye and Ear facility, representatives announced at a sparsely-attended Community Board 6 meeting ...
"We discovered that there was more property available inside the New York Eye and Ear building, which allowed us to reconfigure what we’re going to do with the new building on 13th Street," said Brad Korn, corporate director of community affairs for Mount Sinai Beth Israel. "We're not changing any of the programs or promises we made on beds or anything like that, but it just makes it a little easier and will be a little less intrusive in the new build-up."
"The findings of the report were that many balconies have cracks and pieces of concrete sticking out and when the concrete is tapped, it becomes dislodged and falls out. There is also a lot of visible cracking from the underside of balconies. As a result of these findings all seven Village View buildings were filed as 'Unsafe.' This means that we are required to put up scaffolding around the five remaining buildings as soon as possible. (Buildings 6 and 7 already have scaffolding.)"
Line for the L train. Things are going great New York! #mta #nyc pic.twitter.com/pAkGr6XIU3
— Eric Yearwood (@EricYearwood) April 27, 2019
Officially a slowdown. #LTrainSlowdown pic.twitter.com/W2mblzsr97
— Edgar Sandoval (@edjsandoval) April 27, 2019
For many of the city's regular L riders — a group that numbers 400,000 on a normal day — the reality underground was a far cry from the governor's description of "service that would still work." In Union Square, crowds were penned in along barricades on the mezzanine level, in some cases waiting to board an open train that wouldn't arrive for close to an hour. Transit workers, stationed across the system in large numbers, practically begged customers to make use of the increased service on the M, G, and 7 lines, or the free transfers on the M14A/D and Williamsburg Link buses.
Those who did stay encountered extended waits not only inside stations, but on unmoving trains as well. The dwell times seemed especially bad at Union Square, where the MTA's interlocking system means that Brooklyn-bound service must wait for a passing train to arrive before switching over to the shared track, in order to avoid the construction area between 3rd Avenue and Bedford.
"It's worse than I thought," said Alfredo Fernando, a dish-washer at a restaurant near Union Square.
“[We] are aware of how critically important it is to have that smooth transition so that at 5 a.m. we can start back in service,” said Ronnie Hakim, the MTA’s managing director, during a trip along the L line on Sunday. “We do this. We know how to do it. It’s a function of working out all the kinks.”
Look how many buses are trapped on 14th Street! Ugh.
— Thomas DeVito (@PedestrianTom) April 27, 2019
Seeing it in person just makes me more 😡 that a few cranks in the West Village almost succeeded in dictating the policy response to the #LTrainSlowdown
Now let’s activate this busway, please. #Peopleway @TransAlt pic.twitter.com/NU3hXxu9v6
"I went in there a few days ago to ask when their closing date was, and the employee told me they're no longer closing, they're just downsizing. So I asked why everything was still on sale, and she said she didn't know."
