NYC NOW - December 22, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

New Jersey's Division of Civil Rights investigates alleged racism in Clark Township's police and municipal leadership. Manhattan's Upper West Side experiments with "Smart Curbs" to optimize curb space, seeking public input. On WNYC's “On the Way”, Stephen Nessen and Sean Carlson discuss the city's vintage trains.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Junae Pierre. We begin in New Jersey, where the Division of Civil Rights is officially opening an investigation into a slew of alleged racist incidents by police in one Union County community. Attorney General Matthew Placken says they've alerted Clark Township of their new probe. A November report from Placken's office found racism, sexism, and poor procedures carried out by officials in the town's police department. Plaquen says the investigation will not only look into potential wrongdoing, but will also determine if the town has taken appropriate corrective action.

On top of this investigation, the mayor of Clark also faces charges for allegedly running a private business out of City Hall. Now to New York City, where the state health department is ordering Mount Sinai to stop shutting down services at Beth Israel Hospital in downtown Manhattan. The Health Department sent a letter to Beth Israel's CEO this week saying the hospital could face fines of $2,000 a day if it continues to close beds and services without written approval. Mount Sinai announced in October that it's planning to close Beth Israel by July of next year

because the hospital is losing money. The hospital has also announced plans to close some services by the end of this year due to safety concerns. A spokesperson for Mount Sinai says the Health Department letter is under review. Up next, we learn about vintage New York City trains. That's after the break. Our weekly segment on the way brings New Yorkers transit news. This week, WNYC's transportation reporter, Stephen Nesson, talks with my colleague, Sean Carlson, about vintage trains. So we're heading into Christmas weekend.

It is the busiest travel week of the year. It's also holiday nostalgia train season. Tell us about that. So every year, the New York City. Transit Museum, which preserves old train cars, takes out its R1-9s. These are incredibly well-preserved trains that actually started running in the 1930s. They used to run on what's now the AC and E line, and you can identify them because they have the exposed light bulbs, the ratin seats, and old tiny ads that the museum tries to get

just right from the time period. And commuters can ride them every Saturday in December. No need to pay anything extra. you just swipe your $290 fee and get on. But the thing is, you do need to know the right time to get on one. So between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on the 23rd and 30th, the next two Saturdays, they'll be leaving from the 2nd Avenue stop, heading uptown on the F line, and then it heads south leaving from 145th Street on the downtown D line. Now, these trains are more than 80 years old.

You got a behind the scenes look at how the Transit Museum prepares those trains. for this time of year? What did you learn? Well, I was really surprised to learn that they're inspected and ready to run any time. Whoa. The museum says they never know when the MTA will call them into service for like an anniversary or a special event. And there are actually about two dozen people trained to operate them. I met with Mark Wolladarski.

He's a line superintendent for the subways, but he's also responsible for running this vintage museum fleet whenever they go out for what he calls a quote, excursion. And he describes operating one like the different. between driving a Tesla and a Ford Model T. Interesting. So, like, new trains, the brakes are based on all electronics. The train cars actually know how many people are in each car nowadays. Whoa.

So when the operator hits the button, the train will automatically compensate. Like, if half the train is really full and half the train is empty, it knows how much to break so that you get to the stop, you know, relatively smoothly. The old trains don't have that. Sure. The operator needs to know intuitively how long it's going to take to break to get to the end of the platform just right and smoothly, so everyone's not, you know, falling all over themselves. So these trains, they really are, like, stepping into a time capsule when you're on one of these things. What does the MTA do to keep that look and feel of the old-timey vibe?

Well, for me, like, one of the first things I noticed is the incandescent bulb, the exposed light bulb up there. Another funny thing I learned is that the MTA is stockpiling these bulbs. Wow. Because as you may know, everyone's switching to LEDs. The incandescent bulb, less environmentally friendly is sort of going out of service. Yes, sir, right. So they're stockpiling them for a rainy day. They are discussing, possibly switching over to LEDs, but that would cause its own sort of technical issues

because it's a different electric current that they use. And then there's the seats, which are really a sight to behold. They're ratin. It's sort of like a woven-looking fabric. And it's made of a material that you definitely don't see on trains anymore. And there's a diminishing number of people that can actually repair them.

The Transit Museum recently sent over 100 seats to be upgraded to a guy in Connecticut who can do them. And you can't just send him a train to repair. So they actually had to take out piece by piece each seat that needs to get upgraded. Here's Jodi Shapiro, curator at New York Transit Museum talking about how these seats are actually filled with horsehair, felt, and spring. And here's what goes into fixing the Ratan tops. Retan sheets have a canvas backing. And that is good. So the retan is glued to the canvents.

then it's shalacked, it's left to dry, and then it's wrapped around this wood and spring and horsehair felt assembly, and then it comes back here and gets carefully put back into the seat where it was taken from, because the other thing is, even though this all looks uniform, every one of these seat cushions has some sort of quirk, so it's got to be put back where it came from. Now, it would not be a true on the way segment if we didn't talk about congestion pricing. What do we have this week? So the MTA filed papers this week in what's probably its most robust defense of the program yet.

This is in response to Governor Phil Murphy's lawsuit in which he claims the MTA didn't involve New Jersey in the process. But documents filed this week show that, in fact, four New Jersey agencies had been involved with congestion pricing from the beginning four years ago. During that whole time, the MTA says they didn't really bring up any concerns. certainly none of the ones they're complaining about now in the lawsuit. Now, speaking of congestion pricing, surprise, surprise, one of our curious commuters this week has a question about it. This person asks, I live in Queens and work in New Jersey. So I take the Queensborough Bridge to the FDR North to the George Washington Bridge. After congestion pricing is in place, will I be forced to pay $15 or can I take that same route without pay?

In short, yes, you'll have to pay on this route. In fact, there's no way to cross any of the four. East River Bridges or the Queen's Midtown Tunnel without being hit with the congestion toll. It's kind of the point. It's a way to make sure no one is toll shopping looking for a cheaper route. And it's essentially a way to toll the East River Bridges and Tunnels. That was WNYC's Stephen Nesson talking with my colleague, Sean Carlson, on another edition of On the Way. Before we go, a quick note.

All next week, we'll be running one episode a day while the team takes some time off for the holidays. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Quick shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutage, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, and Wayne Schoemeister, with help from all of my colleagues in the WNYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the folks at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrado.

I'm Jenae Pierre. Happy holidays. We'll be back next week.