The always cash-strapped Transit Authority missed an opportunity to make some money off the incident -- their efficient employees wiped the graffiti off the wall. It's been estimated the brick it was on could have been sold for an estimated $10,000.
For more than a century, the Belmont Special carried throngs of thoroughbred lovers, inveterate gamblers and people who just craved a festive day in the Belmont Park grandstand to the doorstep at one of the grand palaces of American horse racing.
The Belmont Special has been losing ridership for years — a sign of a sharp decline in racing attendance across the nation. Railroad officials say that made it a logical choice to cut. “We’re talking about 100 customers a day, on average,” said Joe Calderone, a railroad spokesman.
On weekdays, the train carried 30 to 35 people last year; so far this spring, the shuttle has carried 7 to 9 passengers a day, Mr. Cook said.
It is a far cry from when train service to Belmont began, on May 4, 1905, the day the park opened. Forty thousand people journeyed to see the inaugural running at the track, most traveling by train in a “pall of soft-coal smoke,” The New York Times said, adding that “when the trains were full the throng had to stand wherever it was when the gates closed until fresh trains could be run in.”
Racing association officials, who lobbied against the elimination of direct train service, estimate that the park will lose more than $5 million this year because of the cut, while the authority says it will save about $112,000.
While the New York Racing Association (NYRA) recognizes that the MTA needs to balance its budget, no other proposed service cut so directly affects one business, one employer, one industry as does the proposal to eliminate LIRR service to Belmont Park (except for Belmont Stakes day).
For more than a century, the railroad has brought fans to Belmont Park, a 445-acre landmark on the Queens-Nassau County line, bringing patrons from the most mass-transit dependent population in the nation to one of the best known sporting venues in the world.
Too bad when I get to New York the city will be a bankrupt Gerald Ford-era dystopia.
THANKS MTA.
Actually, this means the Lower East Side and the E Village might even be fun again.
More than 100 bus riders urged the MTA Saturday to keep the crosstown M8 rolling, calling it the "lifeline" of Greenwich Village.
"I take it to my senior center, I take it to go shopping, I take it to the theater," said Teresa Hommel, a 64-year-old East Villager who has trouble walking. "I wouldn't be able to do any of these things without the bus."
The MTA plans to scrap service on the M8 and several other bus routes in order to help plug a $1.2 billion budget deficit. It links the East Village to the West Village.
First, I can’t believe you reported this story about this absolutely absurd space cadet who cost the city, literally, several thousands of dollars because she couldn’t get it together, after several years of having a too-large ring, to have it resized.
Second, and then you report the entire ridicu-blog. She sounds more like a high school kid.
Third, I find it hard to believe she graduated from Penn. Just doesn’t fit the known facts as we see them here.
Heartwarming this story was not. She needs to be reprimanded by a grown-up.
No kidding. How hard is it for this ditz to have her ring re-sized?
Maybe she should go back to Pennsylvania. I hope someone in the Con Edison accounts billing department sends her an invoice for her stupidity.
As a New Yorker, an Asian American and an Ivy Leaguer (Columbia University), my opinion is that Jean Hsu is definitely a pain in the butt. Unfortunately, NYC does continue to attract absolutely clueless individuals like her.
But how is my uplifting story TWISTED by the cynical and narrow-minded people of the heinous Internet!!?! I am some stupid moron ditz who was practically asking for my ring to fall in a grate just so I could see how many people would be willing to come running to my beck and call. Wasting both time and money. WRONG, FOLKS.
Can I just first mention that for a reporter and editor of the New York Times, he wrote a completely disappointing and pointless blog. I know that my own blog is pretty pointless at times, but I also don't often think my writing or opinion is worthy of being published in the New York Times. And I write it to humor my friends who GET ME. And my pointlessness. But Mr. Roberts could DEFINITELY have done a better job in getting the ACTUAL POINT ACROSS about my story. Or at least formulating his own opinion about the situation.
Before I depart, I wanted to take a moment to thank all my friends for being supportive, enjoying the story like they were supposed to, and ensuring me that all aforementioned haters have no lives and will be probably be really busy calling into WCBS tomorrow while listening to my radio interview. HI HATERS.
I remember seeing this one in the subways, and at the time it was very appropriate. As you can see above, the ad plays on the MTA’s notoriously unreliable public address system. Fifteen years, the MTA swore they were working to improve the PA system. Based on what I hear on the trains and in stations every day, I’m guessing that the PA overhaul is one project not quite there yet.
