Transit Authority
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Q: Does the subway escalator by the Food Emporium at Union Square ever work?
A: Your exasperation is shared by Ann Marie Mannino. She is an assistant property manager at Maxwell-Kates, Inc., the company that manages Zeckendorf Tower, which owns the escalator on the northeast side of the station. Unlike most of the escalators in the subway system, which are operated by New York City Transit, the one below the Food Emporium is owned and operated by the 652-apartment condominium. The developers who built the tower offered the escalator as a concession to the public, in exchange for being able to build over Metropolitan Transportation Authority property in 1987, Ms. Mannino said.
It seems the private-public partnership needs some fine-tuning. The escalator works fine, according to the management company, it just doesn’t work for long. “It’s not because they don’t work, it’s because they’ve been abused,” Ms. Mannino said, referring to miscreants who shove garbage and other items into the moving stairs, leading to the escalator’s automatic shut-off until a station agent calls the management company, which dispatches a technician to flip the switch that restarts the escalator. Though it doesn’t take long before the scenario repeats itself, it may take hours before someone makes the call needed to send a technician back to the scene. Ms. Mannino said the escalator usually works for five minutes before getting gummed up again. Technician are sent to switch it on about three times a day.
Therefore, the answer to your question is: Yes, the escalator works 15 minutes a day. When it works, however, is anybody’s guess.
Q: First, cameras watch our license plates. Now we have surveillance in the subway. At what point do cameras in the subway violate my right to privacy?
A: Generally speaking, there is no penal law that prohibits videotaping in public. The threshold you speak of is an ambiguous one, which is why the New York Civil Liberties Union voiced opposition but threatened no legal action in response to the recent installation of 121 video cameras in stations on the N, D, and F lines in Brooklyn. Proponents have said the cameras deter criminal behavior.
