Arthurs to Close

The Girl Scout troop serving girls in the city’s homeless shelters that captivated New Yorkers last year will be selling cookies again in Union Square this week.

Troop 6000 will hold its cookie sale at Kellogg’s NYC Cafe, where members had their successful inaugural sale last year. Long lines quickly formed as news spread about the troop, and the girls ended up selling 36,000 boxes.
This year, the troop has a goal of selling 60,000 boxes. The girls will be at the store from 1 to 6 p.m. on April 22 to April 26.

The troop started at a homeless shelter in Queens in 2017, but grew to include hundreds of girls at 15 shelters across the five boroughs, the city announced last year. The troop is led by women and mothers also living in homeless shelters and holds meetings every week at the participating shelters.

Next week (April 22 to April 26), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors inside the building. We will be work on the new sidewalks around the building as well.

The following week (April 29 to May 3), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, April 20th for interior and sidewalk activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.

According to this NY Times story:

The city’s Department of Transportation has declared its pedestrian plaza on the north side of Union Square, the fourth such major street revamping along Broadway, an out-and-out success, despite some early qualms from residents.

The redesign, implemented about a year ago, banned most cars from the block of Broadway north of Union Square, between 17th and 18th Streets, and closed a traffic lane on Union Square North. Tables and chairs were placed on the closed-off areas, and the neighborhood’s green market was able to expand.

The idea was to simplify a particularly tricky intersection where a confusing jumble of traffic signals and two-directional car lanes had resulted in a string of pedestrian injuries.

But the plan initially met stiff opposition from residents and businesses in the area, who complained about traffic jams on residential streets and problems for delivery trucks. A raucous community board meeting resulted in outcry and a mass walkout from protesters.

One year later, the city’s traffic engineers say that the improvements, for cars and pedestrians alike, have been palpable. (Here’s a pdf link to the report.) And no businesses or store managers appear to have registered complaints with local officials.

Radar samples found that about 12 percent of cars on Broadway between 20th and 19th Streets were now exceeding the 30 mile-per-hour speed limit, down from 28 percent of cars before the changes. Pedestrians can navigate a shorter crosswalk at the north end of Union Square, and they are waiting a shorter time for a “walk” signal.

Bicycle riders, who benefited from an additional protected lane along East 17th Street, also appear to be enjoying the changes: the agency found a 16 percent jump in cyclists in the area on weekdays, and a 33 percent increase on weekends.

Still, automobile drivers now appear to be avoiding the stretch of Broadway south of Madison Square, where the street was reduced to a single lane of car traffic and the direct car connection through Union Square was severed.

The number of cars traveling on that stretch has dropped by about half since the plaza was installed, the report said. Some of those drivers may be choosing to take Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue South for southbound trips through the area, slightly slowing those routes. The average speed of taxis along Fifth Avenue fell slightly after the plaza was installed, and southbound trips on Park Avenue South took longer.

But the Transportation Department noted that average speed along West 18th Street, where residents were most fearful of jam-ups, rose by about 14 percent, to 7 m.p.h. from 6 m.p.h. And average speeds on Park Avenue South stayed relatively unchanged.

The Union Square Partnership, the neighborhood’s economic development group, conducted a door-to-door survey of area businesses, and 60 percent of those who responded said they were happy with the new traffic configuration. About 35 percent had no opinion.

Still to be determined: some illegal left turns at the always-dangerous perpendicular intersection of Union Square West and 14th Street. (Initially, the agency had hoped to close off parts of Union Square West entirely, but some businesses objected.) The city said it was working on new street adjustments to tackle the problem.

As the new multimillion-dollar condos at 15 Union Square West continue to develop, it’s fun to look at this great 19th-century photo of what the Tiffany Building looked like in its prime. Note that some of the people on the street have been added later by an artist.

After all the posts here about the imminent 14th St. Busway project, it died, perhaps because residents made such a fuss.

Next week (June 10 to June 14), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors inside the building. We will be working on the new sidewalks around the building on 13th st. Additionally we will be working on the roofs of the building.

The following week (June 17 to June 21), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors as well as sidewalk work.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, June 8st for interior, roof, and sidewalk activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.