Here’s an intriguing announcement that came out of today’s MTA Board committee meetings: Transit is restoring bus service through the MetroTech complex in Downtown Brooklyn for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001. The agency press release notes that “due to security measures adopted by the New York City Police Department following 9/11,” Transit had to reroute the B54 around the MetroTech Center, but now that the tenant that “required these security measures” is vacating the area, the B54 will resume service through the center.
The new routing will remove the B54 from the Flatbush Ave. extension and Tillary St. and send the bus down MetroTech Walk instead. The MTA believes this change will “improve reliability and provide a more direct route” for those traveling to the subway. The stops along Jay St. at Tillary St. and Mrytle Ave. will be discontinued, and the B54 will stop at MetroTech walk and Lawrence St.
Speaking of the subway, The Brooklyn Paper speaks with Transit officials this week about the upcoming renaming of the Jay St./Borough Hall subway stop. When the extensive renovations are finished within the next few months and the Lawrence St. R stop connects with the A/C/F station at Jay St., the complex will be renamed Jay Street-MetroTech. “The Jay Street station is much closer to MetroTech than it is to Borough Hall,” Deirdre Parker, Transit spokesperson, said to the paper. “So the entire complex, including Lawrence Street, will be called Jay Street-MetroTech when the project is finished.”
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The name change makes sense. Borough Hall is a couple of blocks away on foot and across a busy thoroughfare, and we happen to have another station more aptly named “Borough Hall”.
It’s a good change.
I always thought that stop should have that exact name. Makes so much more sense. And great news about the B54, that route change following 9/11 always seemed to be a bit arbitrary and capricious.
My guess is that you have NYSE to thank for this. I used to work for them, and they had a fairly large data center in 2MT which ran a lot of the trading engines for their markets. They were also pretty paranoid about security. Supposedly after 9/11 they made several businesses in the ground floor of the building close down, and over protective security guards would occassionally yell at tourists for taking pictures in front of the building. For the past several years though they’ve been in the process of migrating their equipment to a new facility in Mahwah, NJ and pulling staff and equiment out of 2MT. Maybe they finally finished.
There’s also a FDNY command center and a Secret Service field office in the same complex, and NYC OEM isn’t too far away. So who knows.
Having once worked in DC, the NYSE is not alone. The DoD and their security requirements are a continual force for suburbanization. After 9/11 the requirements for buildings, land around the buildings, and security only increased. And that increase covers not just DoD and their infrastructure, but most DoD contractors. You want a piece of that very lucrative pie? You’d better be prepared to have a building in the middle of nowhere surrounded by parking lots.
The Park Row closure in Lower Manhattan is a prime example of the destructive forces security requirements can have on a vibrant urban life.
I had no clue that there was pedestrian access to Park Row at all. I just always turned around when I saw a security checkpoint, even though I had to go out of my way.
Yes It was the NYSE data center that moved to NJ due to the high NYC taxes. A data center is a 20 year asset and the official statement said that the unpredictable tax situation was a major reason. Another bunch middle class jobs gone. DTC corp is also moving from 55 water street to NJ as well. My neighbor sold his house this summer to follow the job. The middle class is under assault in this city. The socialist nut cases in albany and the city council wont quit to the last middle class person is gone. We are bending over backwards to attract more poor. As every day passes we are NYC breaking into two classes rich/professional(doctors/Lawyers) and the poor who needs services we can no longer provide thus raise some more taxes.
There are few if any jobs for starter white collar jobs such as call centers and IT data centers due to the rising taxes. Forget about blue collar jobs, the labor unions have succeeded in chasing most of them away. Take a look at the abandoned stella dora cookie factory. Those workers have no where to turn for a job that pays half what they were offered ($18 an hour plus benefits) for watching a machine pack cookies
I think it’s sad that Jersey is seen as a low-tax haven. But the same thing happens in reverse – at least on blogs, I’ve seen conservatives from Jersey complain that their state’s high taxes are why all the offices are in New York and Pennsylvania.
The entire US is middle-class-free, really. While New York is the most unequal region in the country, the difference between it and other cities isn’t that large. Its Gini index is 50, and those of most other major cities (including ones with a pro-business, pro-middle-class reputation like Atlanta) are in the 45-47 range. It’s Euro-socialist cities that have Ginis beginning with a 3 or a 2.
Blaming the move of the data center out of NYC on taxes is naive at best. After 9/11 a lot of tech businesses could not recover due to data loss, as their data centers were located in WTC. The data center (like many other companies are doing) was relocated out of NYC as a disaster aversion measure. I don’t know this as a fact, but this has been the typical strategy for most NYC based tech companies.
Now, having said that, you can discuss the merits of why NYSE chose a location in Jersey as opposed to NY State, or even CT, but it’s definitely not the primary reason.