The local paper for the Upper East Side IMMERSED IN ART AND IDEAS ◄ P.12
WEEK OF JUNE
4-11 2019
SUBWAYS: AN UNDERGROUND UPDATE TRANSPORTATION We love it, we hate it, we can’t live without it. Here’s the latest about the system we all depend on BY STUART MARQUES
It’s raining hard and you race down the slippery sidewalk and into the subway — only to find it’s pouring down there, too, through cracks and gaping holes in the ceiling. It’s the dog days of summer and you head into the subway in search of an airconditioned car. Just your
Photo: Steven Strasser
luck, the temperature on the crowded platform is 100 degrees, and the AC isn’t working in the car you squeeze into.
You’re in a subway and the train is hurtling through a tunnel. It suddenly comes to a stop — often due to signal problems or congestion —
and you’re trapped for 10 or 15 minutes, which seems like an hour. Such is the state of our 115-year-old subway system, riddled with outdated equipment and notoriously underfunded, at least partly due to political gamesmanship. “Two years ago, the subway system was in crisis,” said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group that helped push for a congestion pricing plan that could generate up to $2 billion a year to help fix the subways. “It’s slowly getting better. Unfortunately,
it’s much more complicated to fix an old system than to build a new one.” Here’s a quick look at some of the issues that affect riders most: CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION: There’s no denying the need to upgrade tracks, signals, cars and crumbling stations. In the two years since Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a subway emergency, the MTA has gone into hurry-up mode to carry out its current $33 billion capital construction plan, about $15 billion which goes to the subways.
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BOOK CULTURE ON THE BRINK BUSINESS As the end looms for the popular bookstores, their owner says government should offer small businesses the same kind of support it provides to corporate giants like Amazon BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM
Book Culture owner Chris Doeblin thought his business had adapted to a market
place dominated by Amazon. In fact, Doeblin has been dealing with the corporate giant since his store’s inception: both companies began at about the same time, Amazon in 1994, Book Culture in 1995, and both initially focused on academic textbooks. For a while, with the support of Columbia University students and faculty, Book Culture was a success. Around 2000, though, Amazon started having a serious and damaging effect on Doeblin’s business. Revenue declined — and has continued
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on that trajectory ever since. But Book Culture adapted, and even expanded. It offered more new releases, literature, poetry and travel books as well as non-book goods. It created cozy spaces for children and parents to gather and read, and hosted events and readings. “We’ve had some time to adapt to (Amazon) and I think to a certain extent we’ve caught that boulder,” Doeblin said. “It’s very unpleasant to have it around us, the boulder being Amazon, squashing us. To some ex-
Crime Watch Voices NYC Now City Arts
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INSIDE NYC PRIDE MARCHES ON The 2019 Pride March drew more marchers and spectators than ever before, P. 9
QUICK, DOCTOR — PASS THE HONEY! The new science behind an ancient remedy, P. 18
GHOST STORY BRINGS GRAND CENTRAL TO LIFE Lisa Grunwald discusses the role of New York City, history and the supernatural in her new novel, P. 21
MUST-SEE TV FROM THE TIMES The Weekly is a great new show about the craft of journalism, P. 8
Chris Doeblin started Book Culture in 1995, not long after Amazon was launched. Photo: Courtesy of Book Culture
tent, we almost say that we’ve weathered that.” In fact, though, they haven’t. Book Culture’s four locations
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(three on the West Side and one in Long Island City) are on the brink of closing.
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