HOW NEW YORK GOES TO WORK

Evening Star, Issue 20510, 14 June 1930, Page 10

HOW NEW YORK GOES TO WORK

THE BUSH HOUR , Most of New York goes to work every week day (writes.a correspondent of * The Times ’). Nearly all of the men do, and a largo proportion of the women. All tho children, except tho babies, are supposed to go to school. Tho population of 7,000,000 is dispersed over an .area of 32 1 square miles, to which must bo added a suburban area many times as great, largely inhabited by’ people who work in New York, though they live all over three sovereign States. All tho so-called “ gainful occupations ” of the city, including those which employ the white-collar brigade up to the rank of banker and broker, tend to bo concentrated geographically, each in a particular urban section. Therefore the chief problem of the daily life of New York is how to get the workers to work and home again afterwards —say, ted inftes away. Tho only people who escape the “ rush ” hours in morning and evening are tho night workers and the night school people, who move against tho current, and a few of tho fortunate leisured class.

New Yorkers got to work, first, by the subways and elevated lines of street railway, Tho ordinary man Who lives* in Brooklyn or the Bronx or Upper Manhattan goes back and forth to work by subway or “ L ” (elevated railway). The volume of this traffic for a year is reported to be a little short of three and a-half million passengers—a figure arrived at by the simple process of taking toll of the nickels or 5-cent pieces collected at booths and turnstiles. For an hour or more, morning and evening, the station platforms arc crowded until movement is difficult, tho people are horded along by tho guards like cattle and packed into long trains of cars for “ straphanging.” The doors of the carriages work automatically, and are usually unattended. They snap shut like a trap when the car can hold no more. . FERRIES AND TRAINS.

Next there aro the ferries. All Staten Island (tho borough of Richmond) has to cross the harbour by ferry and meet every day the view of tho skyscrapers of Now York that faces the transatlantic passenger from Europe. Many thousands who live in New Jersey, across tho Hudson River, must still use ferries, though the Pennsylvannia Railway' tunnels, the Hudson tubes, and tho .Holland vehicular tunnel under tho river account for other thousands. In 1927 tho Staten Island fei*ry (which is municipally operated) carried more than 26,000,000 passengers and about 1,000.000 automobiles and other vehicles. Commuters (season ticket' holders) come by railway from New Jersey, Gouhecticut, Westchester, and Long., Island, and a rush-hour train service at intervals from five minutes up is provided for them morning and night. This service roughly takes care of outlying regions .within a radius of fifty miles. The 1927 figur for commuters by rail and ferry—some are delivered by trains across the river—run to just under 274,000,000. Roughly, that is 400,000 a day each way, and this traffic is complicated by the handling of 135,000 daily visitors to tho city. As the railways which actually come into Manhattan Island deliver their out-of-town workers at tho two great railway terminals, tho Pennsylvania and the Grand Central, and pour the flood of them into the subway precisely at tho rush hour, the morning congestion, at' the latter point especially, is alniost more than the ,traffic or human nature can bear. Some'idea of tho’volupie of it may be gained from tho fact that about'loo,ooo,ooo nickels aro dropped in the coin boxes at tho Grand Central m the course of a year. New York railways do not charge by distance, as London lines do, so each nickel safely represents a passenger. New York also uses tramcars and omnibuses. . but not quite as London uses them. The trams, known locally as “ surface cars,” are credited with carrying 1,000,000 passengers in 1927. In the outlying boroughs thfey carry large numbers of workers long distances back and forth; even in Manhattan, where tramcars are being discouraged because they clog motor traffic, they' carry many thousands where they run on cross-town streets and meet the ferries. Tramcars also still assist the subways and elevated railways in ' tho task of getting tho masses of employees down town in the morning from Harlem and the upper reaches of Manhattan. But tho in: efficiency of this mode of public transport under New York’s peculiar conditions is generally recognised. OMNIBUSES. Omnibuses in New York are steadily increasing in number. The city has. undertaken to operate lines in the other boroughs and supplementary “emergency” eross-town lines in Manhattan, In the last feiv years various private interests have been scrambling for possession of these municipal lines, while private owners of street franchises have been at pains to show that municipally-run omnibuses aro illegal. : In any case and however; run, the-service of omnibuses' must be greatly expanded to take care of the increasing body of workers who come across town from other boroughs and not merely down town . and up again. The municipal omnibuses are cheap lines —“ nickel buses.” But the omnibus service in New York which bulks largest in tho visitor’s eye—tho lino of big double-deckers that ply on Fifth avenue and up Riverside drive—represents luxurious transport. The fare is ten cents, and, in consideration of the added nickel, no straphanging is allowed. If you get on, board at all, you get a seat. The conductors are usually Irishmen of very recent importation. They are always amazingly polite, which is unusual with New York conductors. If a conductor who is an exsoldier wears his service ribbons these have little metal tags stuck on. Tho legend on any tag will,be "Mr Patrick O’Brienor some name as redolent of the, peat sod. But the “Mr” is never omitted. White collar workers from the prosperous upper west side of Manhattan use these omnibuses regularly—they run far north on the island. But they go no farther south than Washington square, so that they do not reach the' down town financial district.

Indeed, this district is unpleasantly dependent on the subway and elevated lines. Even bankers, brokers, and corporation lawyers, coining in from their country estates or suburban homes in Westchester and Connecticut (north of the city) and dumped out . of their comfortable commuting club cars at the Grand Central Station, are apt for the sake of speed to join the crowd in tlie subway and fight for a strap with the rest. The run to Wall street, with three intermediate stops, takes between ten and fifteen minutes. There are also taxicabs. The official count of New York taxicabs is 22,000; at least, that is the figure given out by Air Grover Whalen soon after ho

added the duties of Head Usher of tho city to those of Police Commissioner. Taxicabs are massed in the shopping and theatre districts to such an extent that a great part of the delay and obstruction of traffic in the heart of Manhattan is duo to lines of vacant cabs cruising for fares. They must cruise because the law does not let them stand, and if it did there would not be space enough along the kerb for a tenth of the number that are needed at certain hours for shoppers, theatregoers, and people catching trains or keeping “dates.” Taking a cab during rush hours usually means taking twice as long to get there, especially if the distance is not great. For the main arteries north and south are clogged, tho intersecting cross streets are blocked, and with tho red and green traffic lights operating mechanically without reference to actual emergencies, progress on wheels is slower than on foot New York seems to hurry to work faster than London, But it is a sort of fever of movement. There is an obsession of “ getting there.” But after getting there nobody seems to lie in a hurry to get to work unless it is the sort of workshop that punches a time clock. There is precisely the same rush about' getting home. But there is no sign of a desperate hurry to get through the day’s work so that you can start liome.