World Trade Center site as of September 2011

The World Trade Center site has undergone some rebuilding during the 10 years after the attacks on the Two Buildings 10 years earlier. I took a visit to that site early this month. Here are some of the images taken from my digital camera. (I think I need a new one soon, but anyways enjoy these for now).

The Freedom tower (One World Trade Center) in the ongoing construction of the complex will be the tallest building when completed and memorials of where the original one and two World Trade Center buildings stood will be placed at the footprints of the towers.

As of this posting, the Freedom tower looks more than halfway done.

And here is the World Financial Center. The buildings visible are Two World Financial Center (round top) and Three World Financial Center (triangular top)

That's all for now.

long hiatus

Sorry for the long hiatus on this blog, I have been very busy with plenty of things this year. I'll get you up to date on what has gone on this year.

1. New York City has had a 13 day heat wave (I think it was that long)
2. Some parts of the city had to evacuate due to a Hurricane in late August, (flooding did happen in some parts of the city.

Anyways, I do apologize again, short entry, but at least it's better than nothing.

Buddy Operator Continued.

Your commute just becomes more fun when you have a friend behind the controls operating a train or bus, or at least a friend conducting the train movements. For me it is fun. You learn a lot from the transportation employees that you "hang out" with.

Last year I made over 30 friends working in the NYC Subway, and 20 people who operate buses in New York City. I feel like it's more than just to commute but in order to learn about the city and life around it, conversing with these workers would simply be the best option. Greeting your bus operator, train operator or conductor every time you board their train or bus with a simple hello would be a good way to start. That is how I started making friends with the workers. I don't get to do this all the time though because the bus/train operators may be busy helping with the other customers/commuters, or what ever you call them, movers.

The MTA of New York employees over 33,000 workers in New York City. Of course I can't be friends with all of them. That's a lot of employees. I don't expect my buddy operators to know all of them either, they can be anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City.

Buddy Operator

I have not written a blog entry here since August of last year.

2010 has been quite interesting for me in my travels. While I have been riding some buses and subways for fun, I have noticed a trend early in the year where some "commuters" were riding the bus or train with the same operator/conductor. I thought that was rather interesting. My first train operator buddy was a guy named Miguel who I met three years ago on the ravo line. He was operating a R-40 slant at the time from 145th Street to Brighton Beach. He kept his cab open as I watched him at the controls. That was a lot of fun.

December of last year, I had a B/O friend named Dominick who worked the bus route. I later bumped into him while taking the from school and he invited me on his (X29) bus to Manhattan.

Before this year, I had three T/Os and two B/Os as friends. This year I have about 30 RTO personnel as friends, with 20 of them working as train crew members, (15 of them as T/Os) I also have 10 bus operator friends who I tag along from time to time, mostly working on the express bus routes.

My train operator and train conductor friends that I have now work the and lines. While I live near the Brighton Beach Subway station, I also live around 15 minutes away from the Neptune Avenue station along the Culver Line and 20 minutes from the Coney Island Stillwell Avenue and station.

This year I have averaged at least one "tagging" trip per week with one train/bus operator friend, usually on the and lines, since they come by my area of residence, but I have also tagged along on the and the now defunct lines, as well as over 15 different bus routes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In the summer, the most tagging trips per week was five in which some people criticized me as doing it "too excessively" in which they were right.

While tagging along with what I call them "buddy operators" or "buddy conductors" is fun and exciting, it's best not to do it too much because these "buddies" aren't going to be in a good mood all the time. Lots of things can stress them out such as traffic problems. I have seen them become agitated sometimes too.

Having these "buddy operators" brings in many advantages. They know you personally and they can assist you in many ways, not always in transit but in other areas of life like school, sports, family, etc. While this isn't my first year in having buddy ops, I'll say this is the best year since I made plenty of them.

Nothing makes commuting more exciting and fun than having a friend behind the controls of a train or bus. It has been for me throughout the year.

November is here.

Yes November is here and it's that time of year. Thanksgiving is around the corner. Major cities are having parades across the United States. The weather is becoming quite colder nowadays, since the sun goes down earlier. Oh right, Daylight Savings Time has just ended November 7th, a week before this past Sunday. The World Series ended in November with the Giants beating the Rangers four games to one.

That is all I can think of now, sorry if this entry was short.

Hopefully I'll have time for a longer post.

Sorry it's been so long

Sorry it's been so long since I last blogged but here it goes...

It's been a week since my 23rd birthday just passed and I took five new baseball caps, two from the Twins, one each from the Nationals, Brewers, and Reds. I'll say they are very pricey, over $33 each, but it was worth it.

In other transit related news, two subway routes have been sliced and also 25 bus routes. About 50 of other routes have been altered, some cut on weekends, some diverted into outer roads, and some routes cut short.

The new subway map of NYC looks rather interesting, with a shadow underneath each line. You can see it right here.

I live in southern Brooklyn. This is my bus services in Southwestern Brooklyn.

I live in southern Brooklyn. This is my bus services in Southwestern Brooklyn.

B1 and B64 swapped routes north of 13^th Avenue

B2 is only a weekday only route

B3 doesn’t stop south of Avenue U and East 71 Street.

B4 terminates at Avenue Z and Coney Island Avenue with peak hour service extended to Knapp Street in Sheepshead Bay, no service via Neptune Aveune anymore.

B8 to Bay Ridge 95^th Street, nightime hours only, all other times only to VA Hospital in Bay Ridge.

B23 is discontiued entirely.

B37 is gone entirely, partially replaced by B70.

B64 terminates at Bensonhurst and Harway Avenue, no longer serving Coney Island.

X29 via Coney Island Avenue and X38, super express to the X28 are discontinued entirely!