Noted

Spotted by Dave on 7th outside Tompkins Square Bagels on Avenue A...

Time Warner Cable upate

NYC: East Village residents that have no flooding issues in the basement or underground should have services restored by Friday evening.

— Time Warner Cable(@TWCableHelp) November 9, 2012

This is what Time Warner Cable's recent East Village meltdown looked like

Remember back on Oct. 6, when a good chunk of the East Village/Lower East Side was without Time Warner Cable/Road Runner service?

OK, you don't have to swear.

Anyway, there's a post on at the Time Warner Cable Untangled blog.

TWC's director of digital communications, Jeff Simmermon, walks us through what happened... and how much of a mess it is to quickly repair... He starts by posting a photo of what you typically see under an NYC manhole (no snickering!), namely a mass of unmarked cables that belong to everyone from Time Warner to Verizon to RCN...

Here is the area where the fire happened that knocked out our service... the fire melted their fiber-optic cable...

...and here's an upclose look at the affected fiber cable...

This is what a healthy (unmelted!) fiber-optic cable looks like...

...and here's the cable after the Oct. 6 fire...

Per Simmermon: "It took the better part of the day to identify the problem, dig in, seperate the cable out and splice in a new piece of fiber-optic cable. Each of those hair-width fibers has to be reconnected to precisely the correct wire, or else the whole thing doesn’t work. Imagine re-connecting a severed ponytail and you’ve got the basic idea."

Oh, and the stuff in the top photos that look like remnants from a wig? Insulation for some of Verizon's cable.

All photos via Untangled. Thanks to EV Grieve reader Creature for the link.

[Updated] About that Time Warner cable outage in the Lower East Side

Is that end of today like 5 p.m. or 11:59 p.m.?

Previously.

UPDATED: 6:30 p.m. — Seems to be up and running. In time for "Road House" on AMC tonight.

h/t @pablo_escolar

Claim: Like no one seems to have cable

We're getting all sorts of reports of widespread (East Village) Time Warner Cable/Road Runner outage this morning... been out since last night around 11. Which meant we had to create today's posts via our Brother International SX-4000 Portable Daisywheel typewriter with Perfectype professional touch keyboard. Blame this guy?

Claim: East Village super holding Time Warner hostage for free cable

We've heard that some people in certain sections of the East Village are without Time Warner Cable/Road Runner service.

Last night, Adam called Time Warner and got a rather unexpected response. He documents what happened at Adam's Life. To an excerpt!

Finally, I connected with a service rep. He sounded young. Stumbled a little bit over the script he was reading. I assume he's new. This will be important in a moment. I asked him what the heck was happening. And he told me this:

The box that controls the cable, internet, pretty much everything else for Time Warner Cable in my area of the East Village is located in the basement of a building. In order to service this box, Time Warner Cable needs to contact the super of the building and be let in.

The super of the building, according to the service rep, REFUSES TO LET TIME WARNER INSIDE.

"Why is he refusing?" I asked.

"He wants free cable," the rep responded.

Apparently, Time Warner has tried to reason with the man, but he refuses to budge. Today, he's refused to answer the door or his phone. He's cut off all communication.

"It's a very unusual situation," the rep said.

To top if off, the rep gave Adam the super's address. Adam is mulling his next move. Read the whole post here.