Tag: nyc

Riding to a Summer Job

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By Joseph Morales

It is an 80-degree summer day in Bayside, Queens, and 16-year old Christina Kramer is waiting for a train at the Bayside LIRR Station. These days were her favorites, warm enough to catch summer vibes but cool enough not to melt away in the Northeast humidity. She really enjoyed taking public transportation since it gave her a chance to explore communities more personally. Specifically, Christina felt like walking and being in a public vehicle allowed her to see and hear more than she could in the metal box of a vehicle. She absolutely adored the freedom transit gave her when she lived in Downtown Brooklyn. There, the number of subway lines available made her feel like she lived in an international airport with flights to different parts of the city instead of different continents. Christina would take countless adventures going practically anywhere. This included the electric zoo of Times Square, the cosmopolitan streets of Jackson Heights and so many other places.

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The Interborough Juror

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By Joseph Morales

*In real life, Marble Hill Playground is owned and operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Carmen Gonzalez is a nurse at the Moses Campus of Montefiore Hospital in the Norwood section of The Bronx. Her husband, Andrew, is a curator at the American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They have been married for 40 years and share an apartment in the Marble Hill neighborhood, overlooking the northern tip of Manhattan Island. The couple bonded over the ambition they both have in their unique crafts and a desire to do the best they can for the people they serve. For Carmen, that means racing around the hospital floor ensuring that all of her patients are as pain-free as possible. Meanwhile, Andrew’s time was spent doing endless research and making constant phone calls to meticulously gather a set of artifacts for immersive exhibits about the history of the universe.

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Cranberries in Crotona Park

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By Joseph Morales

It is a hot and humid summer day at Crotona Park in The Bronx. The date is Friday, July 3rd 2026, and it is the start of Fourth of July Weekend along with the middle of a historic heat wave. This Friday is only the second time since 2012 that it has hit 100 degrees in New York City. The last time it was this hot, Robinson Cano was the best player on the Yankees and many of the modernist buildings that are visible from the Cross Bronx Expwy didn’t exist yet. Though much has changed, the things that make a summer day in The Bronx special have not. Dozens of people from all age brackets are lined up on Fulton Ave, anxious for some time to cool off in the olympic-sized Crotona Park Pool. The jingle of Mister Softee combined with the roar of the Metro-North Railroad and Cross Bronx Expressway make for a track more distinctive to the West Bronx than any hip hop mix created. Vendors known as piragüeras or piragüeros, pace the sidewalk hoping to sell their homemade piragua, filling the air with an ambrosian smell no other treat can match.

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Is College Point’s Transportation Infrastructure Ready for New Housing Development?

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By Joseph Morales

College Point is a residential neighborhood in Northern Queens located just west of the Whitestone Expwy(I-678). This area of the expressway is often known as the Van Wyck Expwy, which is also the official name for I-678 south of Northern Blvd. The community is known for its urban-suburban blend that offers larger homes and still includes access to a variety of amenities. Shopping strips on both College Point Blvd and 20th Ave offer residents the ability to run errands without leaving the neighborhood. 20th Ave includes popular grocery and big box stores including Target, ShopRite and BJ’s. On the other hand, College Point Blvd hosts more of the small businesses you would typically expect on a NYC commercial corridor.

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Could This NYC Summer Destination Get a Ferry Stop?

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By Joseph Morales

   City Island in The Bronx is one of New York City’s top local tourism spots during the summer. People from across the region come to enjoy the city’s largest concentration of seafood restaurants or board a fishing boat from one of the island’s piers. The island is located across a bridge from Pelham Bay Park and is not far from Orchard Beach.

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Major Protected Bike Lane Extension Coming To Upper Manhattan

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By Joseph Morales

Dyckman Street is one of the busiest commercial streets in Northern Manhattan. Its assortment of retail offerings from national chains to smaller businesses attract shoppers from throughout Upper Manhattan and The Bronx. In addition, the corridor is home to several restaurants including ethnic offerings like Cachapa y Mas and Chinito Latino Hibachi Fusion. The street also has a dense residential population and sits in between the Inwood and Washington Heights sections of Manhattan. Dyckman Street is served by the M100 bus route along with the 1 and A trains. The street is also connected to the Henry Hudson Pkwy and Harlem River Dr along with the greenways that accompany those highways. There is also a protected bike lane on Dyckman through its commercial core from the Harlem River Dr to Seaman Ave. 

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Multiple New Programs Will Make E-Bike Use Safer and Easier in NYC

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By Joseph Morales

  Electric bicycles and scooters have rapidly become popular mobility devices in New York City since becoming legal in 2020. A report from FOX 5 New York says that 65,000 e-bikes were being used in NYC in 2023. E-scooters have been similarly popular. A pilot e-scooter share program had 150,000 users in the East Bronx alone between August 2021 and August 2023. Many use these mobility devices as a convenient means to get around without the hassles associated with driving or mass transit. In addition, a large number of delivery workers use e-bikes due to their lower costs and ability to operate at speeds of 20-25 mph. Others use the bikes for pure recreation, especially in New York’s plethora of vast green spaces. 

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CitiBike Expansion Set To Change Micromobility in Eastern Brooklyn

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By Joseph Morales

First started in 2013, CitiBike has grown immensely popular throughout New York City since its inception. The bikeshare program, owned by Lyft, serves over 1,000 cyclists daily with 25,000 bikes from over 1,500 stations across four boroughs and parts of New Jersey. CitiBike has been substantially used everywhere it has been implemented with many using it to go to work, run errands or just have fun. Lyft even has an “Explore NYC” page on its website where it has the names of some popular spots to ride and includes the phrase “See the sights. All of ‘em.” This indicates just how much CitiBike can truly be used for recreation. 

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Hunter College Subway Station Now Fully Accessible

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By Joseph Morales

The 68th St-Hunter College station on the 6 train is one of the busier subway stations on Manhattan’s Upper East Side(UES). The station is the primary station serving its namesake Hunter College and its tens of thousands of students and faculty. Outside of the college, the station is within walking distance of several important destinations such as the Central Park Zoo, the Asia Society and Museum and the Hospital for Special Surgery. The station is also located in one of NYC’s most populated and congested residential communities. In addition, data from the NYC Department of City Planning shows that only 30% of UES residents own cars. This coupled with the various destinations the station serves leads to 20,000 riders relying on it daily based on MTA figures. 

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More Bus Lanes Are Coming To The City’s Busiest Bus Route

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By Joseph Morales

  The M15 Local/SBS is the busiest bus route in Manhattan and all of New York City. MTA statistics show that this route has ranked number 1 in ridership for five straight years. The M15 has also had at least three million more riders than the next busiest route in each of the last two years. This is no surprise as the M15 is the only form of transit serving the entirety of Second/First Avenues in Manhattan, which is considered by many to be due for a full length subway line. The route runs from East Harlem/125th St at its northern point, to South Ferry in the Financial District.

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