Subway offenses

A group called New Yorkers for Safe Transit said harassment on subways was often overlooked.

I shudder seeing this picture, a reminder of my many years as a subway commuter. I do not miss it, at all.









November 20, 2009
Sex Offenses on the Subways Are Widespread, City Officials Are Told
By Jennifer 8. Lee

The peak times in which women report sexual harassment or assaults on the subways are the late morning rush, roughly 8 to 10 a.m., followed by the early afternoon rush, 4 to 6 p.m. One stretch of the subways — the crowded Nos. 4, 5 and 6 lines between Grand Central Terminal and Union Square — is a particular source of complaints.

People pack into the cars, and more try to get on. There is hardly room to breathe. Feeling someone up is easy, for the pervert who wants to do so.

And the average age of the men arrested this year for sexual offenses on the subways is 39.

Average?

These facts emerged Thursday during a joint hearing of three City Council committees — Transportation, Women’s Issues and Public Safety — and officials from the Police Department and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to discuss a problem that has struck a chord with many subway riders, who say they have been ogled, groped, flashed, harassed and even attacked.

Ogling; curious term.

“There is a clamor for more prevention and more enforcement,” said Councilman John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat, who is chairman of the Transportation Committee and the city’s comptroller-elect. Darlene Mealy, a Brooklyn Democrat, who is chairwoman of the Women’s Issues Committee, said that sexual harassment and assaults were very serious, and that society should “not take them as social behaviors that have to be condoned.”

First to testify on Thursday was James P. Hall, chief of the Police Department’s Transit Bureau, who said that sexual harassment was the “No. 1 quality of life offense on the subway.” Chief Hall reported that as of Nov. 15, there had been 587 reports of sex offenses in the subway system this year. “However, we strongly suspect this is a highly underreported crime,” he said.

The police have arrested 412 people for sex offenses in the subway so far this year. Of that number, 71 had committed prior sexual offenses and 14 were registered sex offenders. Five of the 14 were the most serious level of sex offender.

The average perpetrator is a 39-year-old man, while the vast majority of victims are women over 17. “It’s a crime that goes more to a middle-aged individual,” Chief Hall said. In contrast, other crimes in the subway generally involve younger men, from 17 to 25 years old, he said.

Interesting demographics of the criminal set.

Lois H. Tendler, the director of government and community relations at the transportation authority, said the authority last year started a public awareness campaign against sexual harassment that included ads, printed brochures and on-board announcements — an idea, Ms. Tendler said, that came from Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat and the chairman of the Council’s Public Safety Committee.

Announcements? Please do not grope, flash or ogle.

The advertising campaign ran for three months in 2008 and is running again through January, Ms. Tendler said. The on-board announcements, which have been running for six months, are recorded messages on newer trains but are read on the older trains.

Councilwoman Helen Sears, a Queens Democrat, questioned how effective the public announcements were, especially given the aging sound system. “They are not supposed to be a periodic thing,” she said. “I don’t think they should be an afterthought.”

Announcements on subways, many, go this way: mumble-mumble-mumble, and thank you for your cooperation.

Ms. Tendler said that they were part of a constant loop of recordings on the new trains, used on about one-third of the subway lines. However, other lawmakers wondered whether the messages were being read by personnel on the older trains. Mr. Liu questioned the state of the installation of cameras, which he believed would deter crimes and help catch offenders. Ms. Tendler said cameras were being installed under different programs. “We’re making progress,” she said.

In recent months, advocates have formed a organization to fight subway sexual harassment, New Yorkers for Safe Transit. The advocates support a bill, introduced this week by Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin, a Manhattan Democrat, that would require the police to collect data on sexual harassment in the subways.

“This is important because historically, harassment is overlooked by law enforcement authorities,” said Oraia Reid, a founding member of New Yorkers for Safe Transit who testified at the hearing.

Ms. Reid, who is also the executive director of RightRides for Women’s Safety, said another challenge was to get law enforcement to take the harassment more seriously.

She added, “It’s actually been very disempowering to report sexual harassment and assault.”

M.T.A. Sells Naming Rights to Subway Station

June 24, 2009
M.T.A. Sells Naming Rights to Subway Station
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Selling the name of a subway station has been a goal of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for nearly five years. But interest has been low, even for a piece of real estate so recognizable to the public.

So it was with surprisingly little fanfare that the authority announced on Monday that it had finally found a buyer.

If a $4 million deal is approved on Wednesday, the nexus of subway stops at Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn will add an additional name to its already lengthy title: Barclays.

This may seem odd, since Barclays is a bank based in London with offices in Manhattan, and the only Barclay Street on the city map is not even in Brooklyn. (It’s in Manhattan, in the financial district.)

There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center, the sports arena planned as the focal point of the Atlantic Yards project, and the developer, Forest City Ratner, has agreed to pay the transportation authority $200,000 a year for the next 20 years to rename one of the oldest and busiest stations in the borough.

This raises a few questions. An academic might talk of the intersection between public and private space. A straphanger may ask how all those names can fit into one announcement.

And if a company can pay to get its name on any station, a New Yorker might wonder what’s next: Coca-Cola Presents 59th Street-Columbus Circle?

The answer is maybe. Once upon a time, geographic relevance determined a station’s name, but now, the authority says it is open to any naming agreements that can raise revenue for its transit system, including ones not directly tied to location.

“It’s always a question of balancing our need for revenue and our stewardship of public space,” said Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the agency. Advertising may make the most sense for a company associated with a station, he said, “but we’re not closing anything out.”

And the Barclays deal has defenders on the authority’s governing board.

“It’s not like Taco Bell saying it wants Grand Army Plaza or something like that,” said John H. Banks III, a board member since 2004.

Would Mr. Banks oppose that idea?

“A year and a half ago? Yeah,” he said. “Tomorrow? No.”

Still, while selling station names could bring the authority revenue it needs, advertising experts say companies may not be as well-served.

“To be effective, the viewer needs to understand the relevance of the ad,” said Allen Adamson of Landor, a branding firm. “To rename the 59th and Lex stop the McDonald’s stop — it ain’t going to work. I don’t think it will stick.”

Indeed, other cities have tried this with little success. Boston, for example, tried auctioning off four historic stations a few years ago and received no bids. Though Citigroup paid $400 million to sponsor the new Mets stadium in Queens, the company refused to pay the authority to rename the stop nearby, which is now known as Mets/Willets Point.

To determine its asking price for the Brooklyn station, the authority studied a few successful efforts, like a monorail in Las Vegas named for Nextel, the communications company, and streetcars in Tampa, Fla., named for a local electric utility. And the popularity of the station — the second-busiest in Brooklyn last year — was taken into account.

“It’s grounded in reasonable business practices,” Mr. Banks said. “Obviously Van Siclen on a No. 2 is not going to be as valuable to a corporate entity as Atlantic Avenue.”

The station name change is scheduled for the opening of the arena, timed for 2012. The exact punctuation of the new station name has yet to be determined, the authority said, although hyphens or slashes are likely to be used. New signage would be paid for by Forest City Ratner, and the authority plans to introduce the revised name gradually in maps and timetables after the arena opens.

A few New York businesses contacted on Tuesday said they were not interested in a piece of the underground. Zabar’s, the Upper West Side food emporium, said it was not interested in the 79th Street station. Macy’s said a sponsorship deal at 34th Street was not in the cards.

And straphangers at the Atlantic Avenue station like Nick Desio, 53, a Citigroup employee who commutes from Long Island, said names were beside the point.

“They can call it anything they want, as long as my train’s on time,” he said.

Ethan Wilensky-Lanford contributed reporting.

Murder Suspect Has Witness: A MetroCard

Be careful where you go, and how you get there is the moral of this story.




James B. Dowd, a retired detective working for Jason Jones’s lawyers, found Mr. Jones’s MetroCard in jailhouse storage.

I don't miss this

An item in today's WSJ has this photo. The item is unimportant; the photo is important, as it reminds me of my subway days. Now that I'm working in the 'burbs I don't need the subway; thank goodness! I don't miss the bus either.


This looks, to me, to be a normal work day. Might be the IND lines station. The diversity of the people testifies to NYC's makeup. But the crowding is horrendous. People are stacked up like sardines in a can, in a narrow platform (barely twenty, or so, feet wide). During my commuting days I was in many such crowds. Standing at the edge of the platform could become terrifying, for the swell of the crowd at times felt as if it could toss me on the tracks. It could also feel as if I had no room to breathe; in this picture people are not wearing coats, so I can surmise it is spring or summer. As the temperature rose, such stations as this one became stiflingly hot. This is civilized society? Nah. Not for me. I came to detest it, loathe it, and to feel unwilling, and even unable, to handle it any longer.