Tag: Manhattan

George Washington Bridge Bus Station

As previously mentioned in a Sights by Sam blog entry, the George Washington Bridge forms an important conduit between New England and the Mid-Atlantic States. In conjunction with the Great Gray Bridge, there exists another unsung hero of New York’s transportation system in the immediate area. Built in 1963, the George Washington Bridge Bus Station services commuters coming into Upper Manhattan via the bridge.

Constructed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) to get buses off of the streets of Washington Heights, the bus station was built by Dr. Pier Luigi Nervi, who designed the Olympic Stadium in Rome. Although it made innovative use of poured concrete (poured in 26 sections) and won accolades for its use, it has not had much love from the local population or commuters for its design. The station itself takes up two city blocks and has direct ramps on and off of the bridge. New Jersey Transit, the main public transit authority in the Garden State, is the main tenant. Other smaller providers and van services that ply between Upper Manhattan and Jersey City also call on the station. Today, the 15 berths at the terminal service buses coming from Upstate New York and New Jersey. The PANYNJ is also in the midst of a multimillion dollar renovation project that will add retail and hopefully bring more people into the station.

While the bus station is not quite the destination that most people think of, it does have great views of the George Washington Bridge. It also has direct access to the A train and is within an easy walk (or another quick city bus ride) away from the High Bridge, Sylvan Terrace, and the Morris-Jumel Mansion, among many others. This is the type of information that you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Pizza in NYC

It is not surprising that since New York has people from all over the country and world, our food would match the uniqueness and variety of the city. The cuisine of the city consists of dishes and snacks like hot dogs, General Tso’s chicken, bagels, and coffee—among many others. Perhaps the quintessential New York dish is pizza. Owing to its status as the major entry point for many Italian Americans and as a major center of culture in the United States, pizza spread from New York in the late 1800s and throughout the country.

While there is dispute as to which great American city has the best pizza (Chicago and Detroit come to mind), New York has a style typified by a thin crust, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese. This type of pizza is also often cooked in a coal-fired oven. It has been said that the water in New York has unique properties that make the pizza dough tasty, although this has not been conclusively proven. In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi founded Lombardi’s Pizza, considered by historians and pizza enthusiasts to be the oldest pizzeria in the United States. Many pizzerias descended from Lombardi’s. One of the most prolific but unrelated pizza restaurants in the city is the preponderance of “Ray’s” locations throughout the city that are seen and patronized by natives and visitors alike.

For individuals looking for a New York experience, there are dozens of different and great options for pizza in the city. Some of the best pizza joints originated on Staten Island, but good pizza can be found throughout the other boroughs as well. To experience pizza the proper New York way, it is customary to fold the pizza slice inward and consume. Food tours can be requested through Sights by Sam tours, where you can eat and learn many things on a special request tour.

601 Lexington Avenue

Known for its former name as the Citigroup Center, 601 Lexington Avenue, a 915’ tower, is most famous for its bright white color and angled roof. Initially meant for a solar panel, this feature makes the building distinct in the Midtown Manhattan skyline. The building was designed by Hugh Stubbins and Emery Roth and Sons and completed in 1977. The building is also more narrow at the base compared to its higher floors, requiring a mass damper in the angled roof. The skyscraper is also famous for another towering mishap that could have been.

The flaw of the building was literally in its nuts and bolts. After the tower was completed in 1977, a student and professor at Princeton University discovered that the building contained a massive design defect. When initially constructed, the joints in the angled top were welded instead of bolted in order to cut costs. The Princeton University team found that because of this, if a sheer wind hit the building in excess of 70 miles per hour, the building could literally rip apart. While a hurricane typically hits New York City every 50 to 60 years and was considered unlikely to occur, crews worked for months at night to weld the joints together. The building’s design defect was corrected and has been safe since 1978. What is even more astonishing is that this incident remained largely a secret until the mid 1990s.

In addition to being a notable feature of the skyline and having quite the story behind it, 601 Lexington Avenue was also built around a (redesigned) St. Peter’s Evangelical Church, which had been at this site since the early 1900s. The building also contains 1.3 million square feet of office space. This is the type of towering information that you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Farley Post Office

On Eighth Avenue sits the general post office building for New York. Designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, and White and completed from 1912 to 1914, this structure was named after the 53rd Postmaster General of the United States, James A. Farley. The post office covers eight acres. It is most famous for its monumental message by Herodotus (from commenting on the Persian Empire’s postal system): “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”.

The post office was built over the railroad tunnels made for the Pennsylvania Station. Like similar main post offices in Washington, DC (no longer used) and in Cincinnati, the general post office was sited on a railhead to help move mail into and out of the city. Before mechanization and computerized sorting, thousands of people worked around the clock inside its vast walls. Until 2009, this post office was the only mail counter in New York that accepted letters and packages 24 hours a day, seven days per week. The interior of the building that most customers see is quite ornate and includes the seals of the United States and other countries in the early 1910s (the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Kingdom of Greece are pictured, though no longer in existence).

In recent years, there has been a movement to replace the underground (and arguably unloved by many New Yorkers) Pennsylvania Station with unused space in the Farley Post Office. This proposal is known as Moynihan Station—named after the famous New York Senator, Daniel P. Moynihan (who also grew up in the neighboring area of Hell’s Kitchen). Converting the station will cost nearly $2 billion and will accommodate Amtrak and Long Island Railroad service. The Farley Post Office is a great place from which to send a letter to friends and family about your great Sights by Sam tour. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Commuter Rail– A Primer

New York is a major magnet for people coming in to work and visit. As I have mentioned before, Manhattan has a daytime population of over 4 million people. While the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bus and subway services carry millions of people around the city, thousands come into the city by train from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut every day. Although some consider the Port Authority’s PATH trains to be commuter rail (this system is covered in another Sights by Sam blog article), this post will cover the three main commuter rail systems converging on New York City: the Long Island Railroad, Metro North Railroad, and New Jersey Transit railroads.

Carrying over 350,000 people into the city every week on 12 routes, the Long Island Railroad was founded in 1834 and is one of the oldest railroads in the U.S. (it is believed to be the oldest railroad retaining its original name). The railroad helped to develop Long Island and led to the increased settlement of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. While the Long Island Railroad was once an affiliate of the Pennsylvania Railroad, it is now an arm of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The railroad terminates at Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan in addition to major terminals in Brooklyn and Jamaica, Queens. In the next decade, the Long Island Railroad will begin to serve Grand Central Terminal as part of the massive “East Side Access” tunneling project.

Bringing commuters from Upstate New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the Metro North System carries over 300,000 people into the city daily via three lines fanning out from Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan and two additional lines that go into Upstate New York (going through New Jersey and terminating at the Hoboken Terminal in nearby Hoboken, NJ). Metro North service has been improved in recent years with new rolling stock. Before being taken over by the MTA, Metro North services were operated by the New York Central Railroad and other services. This commuter system is known for its ornate terminals at Grand Central and Hoboken Terminal.

The third major commuter railroad serving New York comes from New Jersey. The New Jersey Transit system, carries 240,000 people into New York daily on ten of its 11 lines (one rail line goes from Philadelphia, PA, to Atlantic City, NJ). Commuters arrive from all corners of New Jersey through Penn Station. Other services arrive at Hoboken Terminal or terminate at the massive Secaucus Junction. New Jersey Transit, headquartered in Newark, NJ, was formed in 1979 and unified rail services previously run by other operators and the bus services of the Public Service Enterprise Group (a major electric company in the Garden State).

These three systems help to bring thousands into the city daily. Due to the high price of land and housing in New York, these commuter rail systems allow people to work in Manhattan (or in the outer boroughs) while living further afield. While these railroads help people come into the city and take thousands of cars off of the street, they are under increasing strain from high use and aging infrastructure. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam Walking Tour, with major rail stations of the city being shown on tours of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Hudson River

Meandering from New York to the Adirondack Mountains for 315 miles, the Hudson River has formed a pivotal role in the history of New York City and New York State. The river is prominently featured on the state flag and seal and named after the first European to travel it—Henry Hudson. The river has formed an important link to the city and other communities in the state and led New York City to become the largest and richest city in the country.

The Hudson was important to the first humans in the region—the Native Americans living in New York used it for transportation in addition to hunting the wildlife around the river and harvesting fish from within. In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed up the river to where Troy, New York, just north of Albany, is today. The river became important to trade as it linked New Amsterdam (New York City) and Fort Orange (Albany) together and would remain important through the Colonial and Antebellum Eras. During the Revolutionary War, the Hudson would form a strategic choke point to cut off the British from splitting New England off from the rest of the American colonies (the Americans used a large chain strung across the river to stop the Royal Navy from conquering the area). This choke point is now the location of the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY. Before the dominance of railroads in the later 1800s, several canals were built by the federal and state governments to enhance transportation, making New York City a major port for inland goods in addition to goods from abroad.

Industry would spring up along the river after the Civil War. This would lead to many large factories positioned on the river. Companies such as IBM and General Electric would build facilities on the Hudson and ended up polluting the river. The unclean waters led to the death of many fish that made up the local ecosystem. Since the 1980s, there have been many remediation efforts to restore marine life to the river. With the change in manufacturing and transportation, the volume of shipping on the Hudson has also decreased significantly—as evident by only passenger cruise ships, pleasure craft, and barge traffic on the once busy Manhattan waterfront. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

The Cloisters

Far up the coast on the west side of Manhattan (some would say, “cloistered away”) is the dramatic Cloisters. This extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the full description of this facility is in another entry), is in Fort Tryon Park with dramatic views of the Hudson River and George Washington Bridge. In its walls are valuable works of art from the Middle Ages. In addition to the art inside, the building itself is a classical work of art.

Commissioned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. after he acquired a large quantity of Medieval art, The Cloisters was eventually built on a parcel of land 4 acres in area in Washington Heights. Rockefeller even bought land on the New Jersey side of the river to preserve the somewhat rustic view of the area from the museum. The building itself The Cloisters is housed in is from four different abbeys in the south of France built in the Middle Ages. There are additionally three chapels located in the museum that were once situated in France and Spain. The structure was completed at the end of the 1930s and houses nearly 2,000 pieces of art from the Middle Ages.

The Cloisters has a collection that includes stained glass windows, rare tapestries, and religious objects from the Medieval period. There are also many illuminated manuscripts and even one of the only known complete sets of playing cards from that era on display as well. The admission to this museum is “pay-what-you-wish” and can be combined with a visit to the main Metropolitan Museum of Art campus on Fifth Avenue for a same-day visit (linked by the MTA’s M4 bus). This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam walking tour. A tour of the building, nearby Fort Tryon Park, or other attractions in the neighborhood can be done through Sights by Sam.

TriBeCa

In the shadow of the Financial District to the north is the Triangle Below Canal Street, more commonly known as TriBeCa. While famous for high end shopping and residences, the area bounded by the Hudson River, Canal Street, and Chambers Street was originally an industrial area for much of the city’s history.

Once the landholdings of the Bleeker family, the area known as TriBeCa was primarily known for shipping, lofted buildings that served as factories, and the Washington Market (which is the precursor to the Hunt’s Point Terminal Market in the Bronx). Over the years, the neighborhood also played host to “Radio Row”, a district for electronics, from the 1920s until the 1960s. As development projects such as the World Trade Center, the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, and changes in freight and shipping took hold, TriBeCa began to decline and the many lofts became abandoned. After the Lower Manhattan Expressway was cancelled, the lofts became occupied by artists, writers, and other creative types looking for inexpensive living and working spaces. The area began to become hip and achieve a certain cache in the minds of New Yorkers. As more people moved in and services improved, the original artists were forced out by high rents. Today, the area is host to many well-to-do people such as movie stars and bankers.

For native New Yorkers, the neighborhood is associated with high end shopping and the annual TriBeCa Film Festival. Tour TriBeCa and neighboring areas such as the Manhattan Civic Center or SoHo with Sights by Sam. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam walking tour.

One World Trade Center

Towering above Lower Manhattan (and the entire city), One World Trade Center symbolizes the resilience and rebuilding of New York after the September 11th attacks. Designed by the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, the building was constructed between 2006 and 2014. The structure has deep symbolism for the city and the country as a whole—rising to a patriotic 1776 feet tall and built with materials and components from all 50 states and many friendly countries.

The plans for a tower at the World Trade Center site were first conceived as early as 2002. Daniel Liebskind was selected as the architect, but the design was changed due to security concerns brought forward by the NYPD and due to concerns from other project stakeholders. Construction of the reinforced concrete base alone took two years. While the original name of the building was the Freedom Tower, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey changed the name to One World Trade Center in 2009. The building also has several pioneering safety features to ensure the survivability of the structure in the event of a catastrophic event, such as pressurized staircases and filtered air systems. The final price tag for the building was around $4 billion, then the most expensive structure ever built. It encompasses 2.6 million square feet—slightly more than the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the American Museum of Natural History.

Today, the building is most famous to visitors for its observation deck, allowing for panoramic views of New York City and beyond. Major tenants include the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the State of New York, and Conde Nast Publishing. One World Trade Center is one of the many highlights of the “Foundation of New York” tour by Sights by Sam, which covers Lower Manhattan.

City Government, A Primer

New York City is by far the largest city in the United States. Overseeing hundreds of square miles of territory and providing for the safety of over eight million people is no small task. The city has a budget of well over $70 billion and an army of over 300,000 municipal workers (including but not limited to police, firefighters, sanitation workers, and park workers) to help maintain the city. So how does the city work?

The mayor is elected every four years by all of his citizens of the city and is responsible for executing their laws. The mayor is the nominal head of 32 city agencies and sits as a board member on 29 cultural attractions in town. Since the 1930s, the mayor has often delegated power to deputy mayors in an effort to run the city smoothly. If the mayor is unable or unwilling to perform his duty, the public advocate, a citywide elected position which functions as an ombudsman, would take that role. All city voters also elect a comptroller who is the chief financial officer of the city.

In terms of legislation, New York City residents are represented by 51 councilmembers. Each member has a district containing over 150,000 residents. The council is divided into several committees and passes legislation for the city. The council elects a speaker to act as the body’s leader. Like in the federal House of Representatives, bills are sent to the mayor for signature to become law. The council can also override a mayoral veto.

Because New York is made up of five boroughs, both the city and state of New York have courts in each of the five boroughs. The voters of each borough elect a district attorney. Federal courts are located in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. Each borough also has an elected borough president (who in turn has an advisory committee made up of council members and community members). While these offices are ceremonial, the borough presidents can introduce legislation in the city council and work as cheerleaders for their respective borough. Each neighborhood in the city is also part of one of 59 community boards that meet periodically to discuss local issues and recommend action, but are merely advisory in nature.

This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour. See where the city government meets on our “Foundation of New York” tour.