Aaron Short on the link between the Greenpoint homeless shelter and the publicly-traded company with a not-so-savory history of influencing public officials. That history includes a large fine for bribing two State Assembly members.
Wealthy & Stealthy
NYCs TV Production Surges to Record Level
One of New York’s (and Brooklyn’s) thriving industries is film and TV production. Even the LA Times has taken notice of the upsurge in productions happening here instead of there. (Who knew Mildred Pierce was filmed in NY?)
East River Ferry Capacity Limits
Free ferries are a popular commodity. So popular, in fact, that the East River Ferry has huge lines at just about every stop, and the boats are running on what can only loosely be described as a “schedule” (in fact, during off-peak hours, they’ve abandoned any pretense of a schedule, and are just running the boats on a continuous loop). Clearly, things will get better after next week, once the free ferry ceases to be free. But until then, they’ve issued this service advisory.
(Even with the crowds and the long lines, it’s nice to have ferry service back on the East River, and even nicer to be able to go directly to the Northside.)
How Many Flea Markets Does Williamsburg Need?
Good question.
Pies n Things
CityMaps is a new interactive map site that seeks to be “a one-stop shop for hyper-local and real-time information about neighborhood places”.
Based on the attached, I assume they are still in beta.
NEWSFLASH: Bedford Avenue Station is Crowded
The MTA has released its station ridership figures for 2010. As always, this was a big day around Brooklyn11211 (and at Second Avenue Sagas).
The big news – which should be a surprise to absolutely no one – is that the Bedford Avenue station continues to add riders. In fact, we broke 7,000,000 riders in 2010 – 7,418,203 to be exact. That makes Bedford Avenue #46 overall in the system (it was #66 in 2007), and the busiest station on the L line outside of Manhattan. (14th Street/Union Square, 6th Avenue and 8th Avenue are all busier, but they serve multiple lines; 1st Avenue and 3rd Avenue carry fewer passengers).
Over the past four years, Bedford Avenue is the 13th fastest growing station in the entire system, with ridership up 29% between 2007 and 2010 (vs. a 3% increase for the system as a whole over the same period). Bedford is not the fastest growing station on the L line over that period – that honor belongs to Morgan Avenue, which has seen a 39% increase over four years. New Lots and Livonia are also higher at 31% and 30% respectively. But those three stations are starting from a low number – combined they carry fewer passengers than Bedford Avenue, with Morgan Avenue being the busiest of the three, and ranking #224. Of the 100 fastest growing stations in the system, Bedford Avenue is by far the largest, with over 7,000,000 passengers (1st Avenue is a close second, with 6.9 million passengers, up 24% since 2007).
As you might expect, the entire L line is busier. Ridership on single-line (non-transfer) stations on the L line is up 21% since 2007, and ridership for the entire line (including transfer stations) is up 10%. Just about every station along the line (transfer and single-line) has seen double-digit growth – the exceptions being Union Square, 6th Avenue, 8th Avenue and Broadway Junction.
With most of the growth focused east of Bedford, and the huge increase in riders getting on at Bedford, it’s no wonder that the morning commute is such a nightmare. And with development picking up again, it’s not going to get better anytime soon. Something to think about tomorrow when you’re squeezing onto the fourth train to come into the station.
