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New York City - 2016 December 20 - 29

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Subway
Harry Beck designed a diagrammatic map of the London Underground back in 1931. But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority sticks doggedly to this approximately geographical format. Points to note: it has been rotated about 30° anti-clockwise from north-up so Manhattan is straight up and down and Central Park looks unnaturally wide because of stretching needed to show the detail in Midtown.
I also found this even more complicated map dated 2010 June in their archive.
2016-12-23 11:30:04 Fr:16C075 Sq:23113004
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Getting about NYC is generally quite easy with their boring grid system of streets and avenues. But one trap to catch the unwary is that you can have separate subway stations with the same name. There are three stations called 103rd Street in Manhattan at least a kilometre apart from each other and another in Queens. This is 103rd Street served by the 1 train.
Those parts of the subway which are actually underground were mainly built by cut-and-cover. Here we are looking up at the sky. Up top these are just metal grilles in the cetral reservation of Broadway.
2016-12-26 11:05:32 Fr:16C236 Sq:231134
The guard rides in a tiny cubicle midway down the train. These monitors, I think at 103rd Street for the 1 train, enable them to check the state of the closing doors
2016-12-25 09:47:17 Fr:16C184 Sq:231140
Monster vacuum cleaner! Do we have these on the London Underground?
2016-12-25 10:10:14 Fr:16C185 Sq:231142
Automated display on the 7 train. Lights on to show where it has yet to stop - important because the <7> train does not stop at certain stations.
2016-12-24 11:04:59 Fr:16C120 Sq:231143 2016-12-24 11:04:59 Fr:16C120 Sq:231143 2016-12-24 11:04:59 Fr:16C120 Sq:231143
South Ferry
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South Ferry station is the downtown terminus of the 1 train. It is built on a very tight curve - you can only get out from the first few cars and they have these extending platforms to cover the gap. These three imaages show the platform extended - note two yellow strips and …
2016-12-27 11:37:46 Fr:16C303 Sq:23121018
here is the platform retracted.
181st Street
2016-12-25 19:37:48 Fr:16C234 Sq:231240
An hallmark of the New York subway is the lines of pillars close to the platform edge arising from they way they do cut-and-cover. This is Fulton Street station on the J and Z lines.
2016-12-28 12:21:22 Fr:16C345 Sq:231244
An exception to the cut-and-cover construction had to be used at Washington Heights which include the highest natural point in Manhattan at 81 metres (265 feet) above sea level. So the platforms here at 181st Street station on the 1 tunnelling construction was used. The line is reached by "three massive elevators" and and we have a wide space free of pillars.
2016-12-28 12:19:51 Fr:16C343 Sq:23124502
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Clearly the subway builders were not familiar with deep tube building techniques. There was a fatal accident during construction in 1903 and in 2009 an eight metre long section of the brick lining collapsed.
2016-12-28 12:22:48 Fr:16C346 Sq:23124514
And even here, if we look in the opposite direction along the platform, they have reverted to their beloved pillars.
2016-12-28 12:28:45 Fr:16C347 Sq:23124518
But by the time we get to Dyckman Street the subway has become overground.

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