Editorial
Figuring out 14th St. B A C K
Government credibility and integrity
is an enormous issue
right now. So it’s puzzling and
concerning to see what has been going
on with the plans for 14th St.
It’s not even a question of whether
we are in favor of the Transit/Truck
Priority lanes. Really, it’s this process
that has been, frankly, bizarre.
When the sky was falling and the “Lpocalypse”
was coming, and everything
was going to be utterly “unprecedented,”
we were told that a no-cars “busway”
was needed on 14th St. because,
with the L train out of service, tens of
thousands of displaced straphangers
would need this.
Then, earlier this year, Governor Andrew
Cuomo shocked everyone by saying
the L-train “shutdown” would only
be a “slowdown.” It appeared Andy Byford,
head of the New York City Transit
Authority, threw in the towel on the
busway, as did Council Speaker Corey
Johnson and Mayor Bill de Blasio.
But recently, the plan was resurrected,
though with a few changes. The
Truck/Transit Priority lanes would be
an 18-month-long pilot plan. Though,
as one member of the 14th St. Coalition
put it, usually a pilot is maybe three
months. Eighteen months sounds like
something permanent.
The reason for the T.P.P. plan, we’re
now told? The buses on 14th St. are
just, well, too slow.
Locals suspect there is more to it:
that turning 14th St. into a corridor for
faster-moving buses (though there will
be trucks in their way now in a single
lane) is about two things, “tourism
and Google.” Tourism meaning getting
people to the High Line, to the Whitney
Museum, eventually to Pier 55, Barry
Diller’s art pier. And Google meaning
the tech giant will have offi ces at Pier
57 and already has a solid line of buildings
stretching from Eighth Ave. to the
pier. The L train stops at Eighth Ave.
The implementation of Select Bus
Service — and dropping the Abingdon
Square loop — is a huge issue for West
Village seniors. Cutting the number of
stops on the M14A on the Lower East
Side is another nightmare for seniors,
though some stops were restored.
Then there are the bike lanes on 12th
and 13th Sts. It’s much safer biking in
them than the narrow ones on 9th and
10th Sts. Yet they take up so much of
the side streets. These lanes were put in
for the “L-pocalypse,” allegedly temporarily.
Now they’re permanent.
So the city is determined to make
14th St. an “experiment.” Residents
fear, understandably, their side streets
will be fl ooded with spillover traffi c.
As for why buses are losing ridership
and so slow on 14th St., let’s be real: It’s
the explosion of ride-hail app cars, like
Uber, Lyft, Via, etc. Let’s cut the dissembling.
Just give it to us straight.
Publisher of The Villager, Villager Express, Chelsea Now,
Downtown Express and Manhattan Express
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JOSHUA SCHNEPS
LINCOLN ANDERSON
GABE HERMAN
MICHELE HERMAN
BOB KRASNER
TEQUILA MINSKY
MARY REINHOLZ
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MARCOS RAMOS
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F L A S H
Peter Obletz on the High Line, in a Jan. 7, 1982 Villager article.
BY GABE HERMAN
The front page of The Villager
on Jan. 7, 1982, featured a
profi le of Peter Obletz, who
for years advocated to save the High
Line from demolition and reuse it
for transportation and recreation.
At the time, the elevated freight
rail line was abandoned and overgrown.
Train use for transporting
goods had declined starting in the
1960s with a rise in trucking.
By the ’80s, train traffi c on the
High Line had ceased completely.
The southernmost part of the High
Line, between Spring and Bank Sts.,
was demolished in the ’60s, and calls
grew into the ’80s for the remainder
of the structure to be razed.
But Obletz told The Villager that
he wanted to save the viaduct. One
of his ideas was for a sleek railroad
car that would make leisurely trips
to a new railroad museum, while
passing community gardens and
concession stands along the High
Line. Another was for a trolley car
that would make regular stops along
the line, for use by local Chelsea and
Village residents.
Obletz saw his schemes as helping
address transportation needs in an
area undergoing development.
“These ideas are not for any
crackpot sentimental or historical
reasons,” he said, in the article by
Elizabeth Weiner.
The train enthusiast was a West
Chelsea resident. The Villager article
described him “sitting in his
renovated stationmaster’s quarters
under 11th Avenue, with his two
vintage private railroad passenger
cars sitting on the tracks outside like
faithful guardians.”
Obletz, then 35, had been a consultant
to the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority and Sweet 14,
a local development corporation for
E. 14th St., and was chairperson of
Community Board 4 in the 1980s.
He was also a partner in a private
luxury rail tour company backed by
American Express. Obletz told the
newspaper that his personal interest
in trains “became so intermeshed
with the political and economic development
of Manhattan that I had
to get involved.”
His efforts to save the High Line
included forming the West Side Rail
Line Development Foundation in
1983, and buying the High Line for
just $10 in 1984, which was eventually
overturned in court. Obletz died
in 1996 and didn’t get to see the
High Line park.
“He was the fi rst saint of the High
Line,” Joshua David, a co-founder of
Friends of the High Line, told The
Villager in 2013 about Obletz.
Another article, on Page 3 in the
same issue, described problems on
Bleecker St. from excessive truck
traffi c, largely stemming from the
Abingdon Square intersection.
The problems began in 1957, according
to the article by Carol Hall,
when Manhattan’s two-way avenues
were changed to one-way arteries.
At the busy Abingdon Square intersection,
which includes Bleecker and
Hudson Sts., and Eighth Avenue,
“traffi c that once whizzed past now
veered from southbound Hudson
onto Bleecker,” the article said. “The
result was a greater number of accidents
and increased congestion on
an already bustling street.”
Ads in the issue included The
Candle Shop, at 118 Christopher St.;
Garber’s Hardware, still in business
today; and the new fi lm “Raiders of
the Lost Ark,” showing at the 8th St.
Playhouse at Sixth Ave.
12 June 6, 2019 TVG Schneps Media
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