Benjamin Kabak

The 59th St. Bridge isn't feelin' too groovy these days. (Photo by flickr user wallyg)

Immortalized in song by Simon and Garfunkel in the mid-1960s, the 59th St. Bridge will soon have a new name. As part of an effort to honor former New York politicos, the Bloomberg Administration announced yesterday that the Queensboro Bridge will be renamed for Ed Koch and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel for Hugh Carey. So now if there’s too much traffic on the RFK, you can jet down the Koch to get to Queens.

The former mayor was quick to embrace the honor that sees a 101-year-old bridge deprived of its rightful name. “It’s a workhorse bridge,” Koch said of the landmark. “And that’s what I am, I’m a workhorse. Always have been. I feel very compatible with it.”

Koch also praised former Governor Carey as well. “I’ve been trying to get something named for Governor Carey,” he said. “I think he was the best governor of the modern era and saved both the city and the state from default and from bankruptcy.

The current mayor was equally as magnanimous as the old. In a statement issued yesterday, he said that the Queesnboro Bridge, like Koch, is “icon of the city that’s been bringing people together for a long time.” It was a day for humility it seems.

Over the past few years, the state legislature has gone on a naming binge. We have the Joe DiMaggio Highway, the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the Ed Koch Bridge, the Hugh Carey Tunnel and the Jackie Robinson Parkway. Unfortunately, as famous names are appended to iconic and familiar roads, the names lose all meaning. It’s much easier to figure out where the West Side Highway, Triborough Bridge, Queensboro Bridge, Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and Interboro Parkway are than it is to give directions to these location-less named parts of town.

For city too, these changes aren’t free. At a time when municipal dollars are stretched thin, New York is going to have to come up with money for new signs. It cost the city $4 million to rebrand the RFK Bridge, and everyone stills just calls it the Triborogh Bridge. This time, the city is going to look for private donations to cover the costs. Perhaps Mr. Koch can fund his own bridge.

While the City Council seemed enthusiastic about the new names — “Over 40 years ago, the Queensboro Bridge had Simon and Garfunkel feelin’ groovy and today there is no one in our city groovier than Ed Koch,” Christine Quinn said — not everyone shared the joy. “To glibly rename things is very sad,” Bob Singleton, a Queensboro Bridge historian, said.

But tongue-in-cheek sarcasm aside, watching the state simply give away the names to these iconic structures raises some questions. Just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal pondered the role naming rights will play as cities look to close budget gaps. Public schools and parks may soon carry corporate names while transit systems in Philadelphia, New York and Chicago have begun to auction of the names of subway stations.

While it’s undeniable that naming rights can lead to dollars, many across the country have not been keen to embrace the intrusion of the corporate into the realm of the public. Do we sacrifice convenience and usability for the sake of money? In New York, we’re sacrificing instant name-and-place recognition for the sake of honoring historical figures, most of whom aren’t alive to appreciate the honor.

Maybe, then, naming rights aren’t the way to go without stringent guidelines. I’ve long believed that subway stations can append corporate names but shouldn’t replace geographical identifiers with place-less sponsorships. If Disney wants to buy the Times Square station’s naming rights, it shouldn’t be called Walt Disney Station; rather, it should be called Disney-Times Square. People need to know where they’re going.

But it’s too much to ask of our state legislature to keep convenience in mind. New Yorkers will still give directions to the Battery Tunnel and the Queensboro Bridge because those are the landmarks we know and that’s where the roads lead. When someone asks “How you doin’?” the answer shouldn’t be “lost trying to find my way to the Ed Koch Bridge.”

When: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at around 1:30 p.m.
Where: The back end of the Manhattan-bound platform at the 7th Ave. stop along the Brighton Line

This sad, neglected — and broken — pay phone has become a de facto trash receptacle. Someone, perhaps angry that they missed the train or annoyed with the caller on the other end of the line, smashed the earpiece off the headset, and the phone now dangles to the side. On top of the now-useless pay phone is an empty coffee cup, discarded earlier in the day because there are no nearby garbage cans. The pay phone is bound to remain broken for longer than the coffee cup will stay there, but at least the broken relic of another era had its morning joe.

Across New York City, various neighborhoods are noticeably lacking subway service. Stretches of Brooklyn and Queens far from Manhattan suffer from a lack of direct transit access while cross-Bronx service is non-existent and even Alphabet City, a locus of growth and gentrification, is a long hike from the nearest subway. As it takes far too many years and far too many dollars, the options for system expansion are limited, but that doesn’t stop people from trying.

Back in October 2008, after a pair of development conferences with planning experts from across the New York Metropolitan Area, the Regional Plan Association put forward a report entitled “Tomorrow’s Transit: New Mobility for the Region’s Core.” It highlighted numerous ongoing projects including the Second Ave. Subway, East Side Access, the 7 Line extension and our dearly departed ARC Tunnel, but its more intriguing sections propose subway extensions that expand service beyond the current capital campaign. Just imagine if money were no issue.

We start in Manhattan where the Second Ave. Subway dominates the day. Much of the RPA’s document focused around making use of a new Manhattan trunk line. Instead of terminating at East. 125th St. and Lexington, as current SAS plans propose, the RAP’s Second Ave. Subway would run west to intersect with the various subway lines along 125th St., terminating at the 1 stop along Broadway. That’s a common-sense proposal though that could happen if New York every found the money to do so.

In the southern reaches of Manhattan, the RPA’s plan involves some additions near and dear to our hearts but with some odd limitations. For Alphabet City, the RPA proposed the old tea-cup handle extension of the SAS along Ave. C in order to provide “widespread benefits for lower income areas,” a main thrust of “Tomorrow’s Transit.” Also for Alphabet City, the RPA proposed dropping a staircase at Ave. A and 14th St. to provide for access to the First Ave. L stop. I’ve been told in the past that the tunnel depth and underground space limitations preclude that plan, but it’s one that has long been an obvious exit point.

Further uptown, the RPA wants to explore extending the 7 line extension further south with a possible connection to the Canarsie Line. In Midtown, transit can be improved by adding light rail to Broadway. Remember: We’re living in Transit Fantasyland here.

In the Bronx, let’s send the Second Ave. Subway everywhere. The cost-prohibitive 3rd Ave. extension is designed to better server areas without very much subway service while the Metrolink Extension would use the Amtrak right-of-way to serve Co-Op City. The 3rd Ave. extension would replace the lost El train and connect across the Bronx to the 207th St. terminal area in Upper Manhattan. If anything, this routing is a bit haphazard and would raise capacity issues in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn suffers from the opposite problem: It’s proposed extension don’t do enough. In the southeast corner of the county of Kings, the RPA would advocate building out two stops along Nostrand Ave. and constructing the long-awaited Utica Ave. line. I recently explored the tortured history of these subway expansion plans, and I’d want to see something even more ambitious. Shoot for the ocean or at very last, Sheepshead Bay and Marine Park.

Again, the Second Ave. Subway enters the picture as well. Once East Side Access is complete, the RPA would convert the LIRR’s Atlantic Branch into a rapid transit line via the Second Ave. Subway. Say good bye to the Transit Museum as this plan would reactivate Court St. and the outer platforms at Hoyt-Schermerhorn. On another note, the one-stop spur on the L to Starrett City seems to be more trouble than it’s worth, and the super express J service has been debunked elsewhere.

And finally, Queens. The RPA would spur off the Queens Boulevard past Rego Park along Jewel Ave. to better serve the Kew Gardens area. Similarly, the Queens Bypass straight to Forest Hills would alleviate a lot of crowding along that Queens Boulevard line. The southeastern Queens extension would be a huge boon for that area as well.

Ultimately, these plans are nearly as ambitious as the old Second System proposals, and unfortunately, they’re just as likely to see the light of the day. While the RPA rates projects as long- vs. short-term and high vs. low capital on a spending scale, these exist only on paper for a time when money is abundant. If we could expand the system willy nilly without concerns for cost, this isn’t a bad blueprint for it, but as we look at “Tomorrow’s Transit” two years later, only the BRT aspects are finally come online. Fifty years from now, will New York City still be recycling the same old subway expansion plans?

For more on the RPA’s “Tomorrow’s Transit” plan, check out the report right here as a PDF.