The MTA's Optimistic Video Report On Construction Of East River Tunnel

In 1971, the MTA produced a video progress report documenting the excavation and construction of the East River Tunnel at 63rd Street, from March 1970 to June 1971. Work on the two-level tunnel, extending to Queens under the East River and through Roosevelt Island, then called Welfare Island, began on November 25, 1969. The project was budgeted at 69.5 million dollars. "A monumental MTA project," the video informs, "carried out with care and precision. By 1976, it will be in daily use."

After years of delays, the upper level finally opened in 1989, and was dubbed the 'Tunnel to Nowhere' "because all it did," Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney wrote, "was bring passengers one stop into Queens." It ultimately cost nearly 1.5 billion dollars to complete, and the lower level has never been used for train service. That lower level is now being planned to extend all the way to Grand Central Station, at a reported cost of 6.3 billion dollars. Watch the MTA's 1971 "Film Report" on the 63rd Street tunnel project, below.

Chorus Of Straphangers Perform "Lean On Me" In Lexington Avenue Station

New York City's subway systems are pretty lively spaces. And they're not always so stressful and crazy, filled with rats and physical violence. Sometime people break out an impromptu song and dance. The video below, wrote the YouTube user who uploaded it, "might just be 'The Feel Good Video of the Year.'" Uploaded last week, it captures a lone subway performer singing Bill Withers' Lean on Me at the Lexington Avenue & 53rd Street station, with what looks like two dozen, teenaged straphangers joining in.

28 People Trapped Inside A Crowded Subway Elevator (Video)

The 181st Street subway station on the 1 line in Washington Heights—the same station where the roof collapsed in 2009—has no stairs, leaving elevators the only means into and out of the tunnel. This past Friday at 8:35pm, one of those elevators stopped working and trapped 28 people inside. Here's what happened...

Subway Ratdemic Continues: Large Rat Rides A Train™ (Video)

A very large rat scurries about an A train recently in New York City

Hey, guess what? Rats on the Train™, again. A commuter recorded video of a very large rat running around an A train.

Seems like just last summer when Zita Allen, at the District Council 37 of American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, was making a fuss about the massive reductions in City employees battling the rodent population—and the resulting increase in rats and other pests sure to follow. And it seems like just last week that amNewYork continued ringing the alarm. In reality, we're all a bunch of slobs, unwitting rat benefactors, which no amount of labor could ever remedy. As Chris Rovzar wrote at Daily Intel, we long ago lost the war when it comes to rats. "We've already seen it all," he lamented. The Rat Zoo they inhabit downtown, the attacks launched against commuters, the committed relationships they have formed with some of us. So this rat nearly as big as a kitten, running around an A train, is just another ho-hum reminder of our crushing defeat.

Woman Assaulted And Robbed On Subway (Video)

In video shared today on YouTube, a subway commuter at the Avenue X stop in Brooklyn recorded the tail end of an assault and robbery taking place in the next car over. (On the F train?) Still recording, he left his car and walked toward the scene. An agitated man, possibly the perpetrator, passes him on the platform. "Is that the guy?" he asks someone off camera who confirms, "Yah." The victim, bloodied in the face from the assault, is already on the phone reporting the incident. "The man attacked me, he punched me," she yells into the phone. "He pulled out a knife at me."

Subway Fight Erupts After Passenger Objects To Spaghetti Eating

Details are scant on this one but we know a few things. A woman riding a crowded subway was unabashedly eating her spaghetti out of a large styrofoam container. A passenger sitting nearby objected, politely inquiring: "What kind of animals eat on the train like that?!" You can imagine how the situation progressed from there. Despite the calm interjections of another passenger for maturity, things really went downhill around the 2:30 mark, when the gastronome threw her spaghetti at the other woman.

What Subway Is The Village Voice Riding In?

Though you can't immediately tell from the photo at left—an advertisement in The Village Voice plugging their Twitter account—the subway car pictured does not appear to be a New York City subway car. For one thing, it has large plastic partitions at the end of seats. I'm not sure if any of our trains are modeled that way. So whose city does this car belong to?

Related: Anyone ever ride in an R110A subway car?


» Follow NYC The Blog on Facebook and Twitter. Photo credit: Paolo Mastrangelo/NYC The Blog

Man Enthusiastically Makes Out With Rat On The Train (Video)

You're not the only one who wants to live in New York City. Rats live here too and they have their own lives to lead. That includes affectionate displays of PDA. I mean, we've seen them in every other conceivable circumstance. Rat Zoos, rat funerals, rat attacks and rat hunts. We've even seen Rats on the Train™. Soon we'll see rat Reality TV stars. And now, once you watch the video below, you'll also be able to say you've seen a man awkwardly yet enthusiastically make out with a rat on a train.

Naked Man Masturbates On Subway (Video)

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Rats Win: Two More Rats on the Train™ Videos!

Everyone it seems, wants to share in the bounty of rat video news. "I don't really WANT to publish another rat subway video this early on a Monday, " Gothamist's John Del Signore explained yesterday, after they shared video of a *pet* rat on the train, "but that's the world we're living in." Indeed. But you know what? Pet rats don't count as the New York Ciy rats that nightmares are made out of and are certainly not part of the Rats on the Train™ brigrades currently at war with the New York City subway system.

Real Rats on the Train™ scurry about frightening commuters and attacking people. "Rat-video king" NYC The Blog, "the World Star Hip Hop of the subway system," has these videos. And today there are two new ones to share.

Lack Of 'Proper Subway Arm Etiquette' Leads To Fight

A morning commute on the L train last week was interrupted by two men fighting over a very serious matter on the New York City subways: personal space. Details are vague on this one, but the description informs: "Things got heated on the L train when two passengers couldn't agree on proper subway arm etiquette. The man in the silver jacket then explodes." Likely not surprising to some, it was a woman who first stepped and cooled the situation down. As a commenter here pointed out in a previous post: "Notice that it's only ever women who break up these fights." Video below contains strong language.

Frightening Assault On Subway Platform Draws Intervening Crowd

Paul Kurti of the Upper West Side videotaped an alarming assault between a man and a woman on the platform at the Columbus Circle subway station on the afternoon of January 29. Surprisingly, other commuters were concerned enough to physically intervene and restrain the aggressor, holding him, ostensibly, until police arrived. But by the time the commuter who filmed the scene left five minutes later, the police "still had still not come," he wrote in the video description. As he boards a train to leave, you can hear the conductor call the fight in over his radio. No further information was available at this time. The video below contains strong language and violent behavior.

UPDATED: MTA's Elusive 'Sick Passenger' Caught On Video; Vomits All Over

What more can you say? Except it appears this poor girl riding the E train already vomited on herself before vomiting on the EMT. Silver lining? We finally have documentation of the rarely seen "sick passenger" in the train ahead of yours. Interestingly, a report a few years ago said most sick passengers were "dieters who faint from dizziness." And an analysis of data from 2005 to 2006 by AM New York found an average of 395 delays each month were caused by sick customers. We know there's been at least one this year.

Video below. For those with vomit fetish, skip right to the 48 second mark.

More Rats on the Train™ (Video)

Rats on the Train™are now a part of life in New York City so you better get used to it. As seen in video below captured by Vasily Zinchenko and uploaded to YouTube this afternoon by his friend who was with him at the time, 30-year-old Bensonhurst, Brooklyn resident Uladzimir Taukachou, this commuter rat was videotaped in 2008 on a D train near the Grand Street station in Manhattan. "I saw how rat jumped in the train," Taukachou told NYC The Blog. "People were seating with their legs on seats. They were afraid that rat could bite them. Kids were so exited. It was fun." Then someone killed it.

Is This A New Dance Move Or Did Someone Just Smash Their Head Onto The Subway Ceiling?

Everyone has seen good subway entertainers, the dancers, musicians, cartoonists and others who ply their trade underground. Those kids who do dance routines on the train always seem to flirt with physical harm, to themselves or a passenger. Just one errant foot could spell trouble. Speaking of, have you ever seen one dancer flip another straight into the subway ceiling? You have now: 

Welcome To New York And Rats On The Train (Video)

Its officially a hot new trend in New York City: rats on the train. Fire up the Facebook page and notify the press. Following recent video of a subway rat waking up a sleeping man that was seen all over the world, new video filmed on Tuesday shows yet another subway rat riding the train. And unlike the nonchalant passengers in the former video, these commuters responded appropriately—by screaming and jumping up on their seats. Watch below: 

Video Of Subway Rat Nets Videographer $3,850 And Counting

21-year-old Jeff Forde (seen at left) was traveling on the 4 train through Brooklyn earlier this week, dozing off at 2am, when he heard a woman scream. He opened his eyes and saw a rat on the train. The video he subsequently took, first posted reported on NYC The Blog, has now been shared across the world wide webs. What's more, Jeffery told NYC The Blog, if you saw it on a local news broadcast or website, chances are they paid for it.

Subway Riding Rat Wakes Up Sleeping Man By Crawling Up His Face

It was only a matter of time before rats started riding the subway with us. Some units have already annexed a park. This one, on the 4 train near Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn on Tuesday, played out everyone's worst nightmare by running up the leg of, and attacking a sleeping passenger! It is obviously part of rat ranger reconnaissance team looking to take a subway car. They can have it.

New Yorker Has A Message For F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller: Deprogram Your Cult

This in the know New Yorker is wise to the quickest way to get a message to Robert Mueller III, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; via security cameras in the subway stations. You can just imagine Mueller's expression as he sat in a security bunker in a Virginia mountain reading the sign this woman held, exposing the C.I.A. cults on every corner, "...from Mt. Vernon to South Ferry." See her other message below.

Did Jet Blue Encourage Employee Steven Slater To Open Emergency Door And Exit Down Emergency Chute?

Steven Slater, the Jet Blue employee who berated a passenger and grabbed some beers before making his exit down the emergency chute, appears to have been following Jet Blue's own advice. In an ad campaign now running in New York City subway cars, Jet Blue wants you to remain: "True to removing barriers and opening doors." The accompanying video explains: "We're looking to open doors and explore new things and we can only do that by saying yes. Yes I should take this risk, yes I'm gonna open this door and see where it leads."

Steven Slater obviously agrees. Reached by telephone, Jet Blue Corporate Communications had no comment, except to refer to a statement posted online on Tuesday. Watch the appropriately titled ad—that potentially encouraged Slater to make his dramatic exit—below.