A 42nd Street of dreams

Shutdown, streetcar among proposals

by amy zimmer / metro new york

OCT 25, 2006

MANHATTAN — Imagine 42nd Street as a car-free boulevard dotted with greenery, cafes and a sleek modern-day streetcar stretching from river-to-river.

That’s what the New Yorkers behind Vision42, a group led by architect Roxanne Warren and civil engineer George Haikalis, are pushing for. They’ve spent the last seven years researching, planning and advocating for this change and, yesterday, the group released a study they hope will convince government officials to back their idea. The project’s estimated economic benefits to the city and state would total more than $1 billion, they say.

Warren was inspired after sitting for more than half an hour on a crosstown bus from Third to Eighth Avenue.

“The streets are a mess,” she said. “The buses are slow as molasses and they’re noisy and smelly and even though you have some low-floor, clean-fuel buses they’re still terrible to operate in such traffic.”

It would also make the street’s edges more accessible, Warren said. “Right now, we have a beautiful new ferry terminal on W. 42nd Street that the convention center turns its back on, and NY Waterway spends half of its operating costs just on buses for ferry riders.”

But where will the funding for this project — which in 2004 was estimated to cost up to $510.4 million — come from?

“The money is going to come from the fact it has potential to generate new taxes,” Warren said. “It still costs one-tenth of subway construction, and we’re finding money to build new subways.”

The city’s Dept. of Transportation, however, isn’t convinced.

“We’ve met with the institute to discuss its proposal in the past and we’ll review the economic studies they recently released,” spokeswoman Kay Sarlin said in a statement, “but our focus is on the extension of the No. 7 train to increase mobility on 42nd Street.”

Vision42 remains un-daunted.

“This could only be the beginning of a pedestrian-friendlier city and wherever we have a string of subway stations we could make them auto-free areas,” Warren said. “Only 23 percent of homes in Manhattan own cars. Let others park their cars outside and enjoy a walk into the auto-free zone. We just have to get the mayor behind it and that’s what we’re working on.”

Businesses’ thoughts

John McFadden, who owns the Pershing Square restaurant across from Grand Central Terminal, called it a “terrific” idea.

“Deliveries will always be a problem in Manhattan,” he said. “New York City needs more open space and more pedestrian malls like Rockefeller Center and Fulton Street.”

Rena Siwek, the PR director for B.B. King Blues Club & Grill thought it could help the “killer traffic” around Times Square, but she wasn’t sure if closing off the street would hurt warehouses near Eleventh Avenue.

“It would be cool if 42nd Street could be like the Bourbon Street of Manhattan,” Siwek said. “Even I would take the subway to Times Square just take a stroll.”