Entries tagged with “traffic” from Patell and Waterman's History of New York

SIGNS OF THE TIMES



Taken at 21st and 2nd Avenue at about 8:30 a.m., January 5.

I've been encountering these ambivalent traffic signals rather too often lately in the Union Square / Gramercy Park area. Should we see in it an allegory of the times? A sign of the decay of our infrastructure? A message from a higher power?

Bravo to Mayor Bloomberg for his Broadway Boulevard plan! According to The New York Times, work has begun "without formal annoucement" on an "esplanade" that will run from 42nd Street to Herald Square, "chang[ing] that section of Broadway from a four-lane to a two-lane street." It's scheduled to open in mid-August. Stymied by Albany in his effort to reduce traffic in Manhattan through "congestion pricing," Bloomberg is looking for ways to take reclaim areas of the borough for pedestrians.

Jane Jacobs would be proud! You can read more about the project here.