I haven't been to NYC in a while.

Took the train down from Albany yesterday. We did some shopping, walking around and had dinner at Ian's resteraunt. The UN is in session so the street the resteraunt is on is all but closed off to nothing but cop cars and black Tahoes. One side of the street are orange cones every three feet, that's the "express lane" for UN cars to shoot past the curb at about 50mph, bypassing protesters.

Ian says they want to make it harder to drive in the City so some of the four or five lane streets are narrowed to three and the two lanes left are made into small parks. They covered the area with a gritty textured surface, plunked down tables, chairs, umbrellas and potted plants; Viola! Park. I was impressed. If you have to eat Street Meat, you might as well be comfortable.

This is a view from one of the pocket parks.

<----- counter about to hit 7 days

sorry for that totally unrelated post. is there something more than just a standard height curb protecting the patrons of these new-age park settings from getting whacked by a meth'd up cabbie?

So, a city with some of the worst traffic and they take away lanes to make it worse? Sounds like living there is basically because you're a glutton for punishment?

If you live there, you don't drive. I have an aunt and uncle who live in Manhattan. They don't own a car and have no desire to. If I lived there, I wouldn't own one either.

I'm with Type Q. If I lived there I'd sell all my cars. There's no point in Manhattan.

I'm going to move there (hopefully - the job market might not be good there for financial guys right now). I plan on selling one car and keeping the Mazda. The place I plan on moving to has a parking spot in the garage under the building for each resident. You need a car in New York, but not to get around in New York - driving other places and playing at the track still does require an automobile.

Type Q wrote: If you live there, you don't drive. I have an aunt and uncle who live in Manhattan. They don't own a car and have no desire to. If I lived there, I wouldn't own one either.

I have an aunt who moved there in the mid 50's. Around 1970, she moved to San Francisco.

She has never DRIVEN a car!

Nice picture of the Flatiron Building.

The city is most assuredly not car friendly - this coming from somebody who commutes across it every day. By car. It is very pedestrian friendly, however. We just spent part of last weekend in town, and have found the best thing is to park the car in a park and lock garage on the west side and use mass transit. We went everyplace from Governor's Island to Radio City (saw the Fab Faux) for $8.00 with no hassles.

AngryCorvair wrote: sorry for that totally unrelated post. is there something more than just a standard height curb protecting the patrons of these new-age park settings from getting whacked by a meth'd up cabbie?

Right now most of them have Orange rubber barrels and green paint. At some point they plan on putting in planters, ofcourse that was before the cities tax base went out of business. Perhaps they could line it with former Wall St brokers waving flags.

Glad to see he got a job. Hopfully everything s going well. Is he working near the UN?

The UN Screws up everything this week, I had buses running late until I left at 11pm. Everytime the president of (Insert piss ant nation here, we have them all) wants an ice cream cone streets have to be closed to let the motorcades through. The UN should really be in a corn field in the middle of nowhere rather than bringing an entire city to a stop for a week. The only good part is seeing The President come in. If you have never seen a President come to town, the show that goes on is pretty impressive, although thankfully he doesn't come as often as Clinton did.

Yeah he works at The Palm about two blocks away; 'Burbans have taken over the street. He's having trouble throttling back from the big corporate mind set to a small family owned black & white tile floor place like Michael Corleone shot that cop in. He says his job so far is standing by the bar and look good, next thing you know someone is slipping cash into his hand.

Cool.

Some would argue that eliminating lanes could make traffic better...it would push congestion over the edge, and many more people would just give up and take mass transit.

Having driven in NYC on a Friday before a holiday weekend, I can safely say that I've experienced some of the worst traffic EVER. The Major Deegan Expressway, too, that ungodly 5-ish mile road across the center of Manhattan Island. I was in a posh '07 Cadillac DTS with air-conditioned seats, and I still wanted to kill myself.

I'm looking forward to a weekend downstate next month. We (my fiance and me) will be staying with her family in middle town. Thankfully her uncle Carlos ENJOYS driving down into the city, so that wont be a problem.

I'm from NYC, worked for my father in lower Manhatten right next to FIT from 1995-2000'ish. I never drove, always took the bus. Parking would have depleted my paycheck - and it was right next to my dad's business :)

I go to visit my family who still live in NYC (Long Island and other parts) and I hate it. Although with EZ-Pass it's less painful now than when I didn't have EZpass. I remember heading back to my sister's house in NJ they had EZ we did not. They got home about 45 mins before us. LOL.

My parents knew all the short cuts while we were growing up. We hit a traffic jam my father knew routes all over Long Island/Manhatten.