The estimable Glenn Fleishman complains about mass transit to the Javits Center. Sez I:
As a New Yorker who both drives and takes mass transit, I feel your pain about the Javits Center. Some comments:
Your fond reminiscences of taking the T to the Boston MacWorld are, well, mis-remembered. The World Trade Center is nowhere near a T stop, and Bayside is a long lemming-like walk from JFK. Maybe putting the show at least partly in Hynes (is that what it’s called?) is one answer, but it would still be a pain to get from a Green Line stop to a distant Red Line one.
OK, Javits. First of all, you’re dead right about transit access to it. For what it’s worth, there’s a plan on the board to extend the 7 train, which runs east-west from Queens to Times Square, to Javits. The Mayor likes the idea, but the funny thing about transit in New York City is that the Mayor has no say; the MTA is the Governor’s thing. Take into account that even underground, Manhattan is built incredibly densely, that there are Important Things in the way between 7th Ave and 42nd Street and 11th Ave and 36th Street, and that the bedrock that makes skyscrapers possible make digging a major pain — well, it’ll be a while.
But wait, there’s more. For the last eight years, Mayor Giuliani wanted a baseball stadium to the south of Javits. The Mayor controls the rail yards that are there. But the Governor, who controls Javits, wanted to extend Javits over the rail yards. Standoff. There’s some land to the *north* of Javits that was for sale, but some developer’s bought it. It’s not entirely clear what the next step is.
The latest thing is that the City wants to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. To do so, it would be nice to have a stadium south of Javits after all — and to extend the subway there, since this is envisioned as a Mass Transit Olympics. So it may happen. But not by next year.
