Enter: Staten Island

Most people have a gripe with Staten Island, calling it names from "isolated rock" to "the dump". I get disheartened because people like this have no idea what Staten Island has to offer. As a regular visitor of Staten Island since I enrolled in college in 2009. Staten Island has become my second home. I love exploring different parts of the city, and that includes Staten Island.

Back in April I was assigned a project for my class to take photos of what we see in our eyes what makes Staten Island the way we see it. Instead of going to Arrochar to take photos of the bridge, I went to take photos of the abandoned North Shore Line trestle in Port Richmond and the abandoned overpasses in Todt Hill that, until last month, have been standing unused over the Staten Island Expressway since the 1960s after Robert Moses' failed attempt to build a highway through the Staten Island Greenbelt. These have since been taken down, therefore erasing Momses' failed attempt to destroy the neighborhood and the Greenbelt for good. I was glad I had the chance to go check out the abandoned overpasses before they were taken down. As for the trestle in Port Richmond, I had the chance to walk up on the trestle but had no time to kill so I vowed that I would go back at a later time. Thankfully, there's no mentioning of tearing down any unused trestles along the North Shore of Staten Island at the moment.

Here are the photos of the spots that I went to. I went a few weeks apart between Port Richmond (first three photos) and Todt Hill (last four photos) due to time constraints.

Hope you enjoy the photos. Getting up on the trestle in Port Richmond was a since. Getting to the abandoned overpasses in Todt Hill, however, required more work but I had a lot of fun getting to them.

Enter: Bowery and Canal Street

Hey everyone, back on this blog again. My first post of 2012 and I'll make it a good one by presenting to you my visit to Bowery and Canal back in December. Nothing really special, but it was interesting nonetheless. The platforms are dusty as hell, and the wall is like a canvas with all the graffiti tagged all over it.

Good to see that some remnants of the subways' past is still alive in some way, such as the 'W' and the Brown 'M' which went the way of horse and buggy in June 2010. Can't believe it's been just about two years since the cuts. But whatever.

I want to go back to this place one day, but I heard they boarded up Bowery and they also added sensors at Chambers Street from what I heard. There goes my chance of looking at the relay track the 'J' train uses on the weekends.

I'm figuring out where to go next, but in the meantime, enjoy these rather crappy cell phone shots. Thanks for reading.

Enter: The M8

On Tuesday, March 1st, 2011, a milestone was reached in railroad history. The M8, the newest railcar on MTA property, entered service after months of rigorous testing. At 10:30 a.m., the eight-car consist bound for Grand Central Terminal departed Stamford, Connecticut, and would eventually leave at 2:10 that afternoon from GCT to Stamford.

A lot of my friends had already received the details the night before...gotta give them credit for the goods. Within hours as the day started, photos of the new railcars already started surfacing the web. On my facebook page, M8 talk was sweeping across my wall feed as if the cars were already due or retirement (ha!). All in all, we all waited, and the wait was indeed worthwhile. I was caught off-guard alright, but hell, let the foamers have their fun, life is short so what the hell?...

here's a schedule you guys should find useful:

• The train will depart from New Haven at 6:24 a.m. and arrive at Grand Central Terminal at 8:06 a.m. (It won't be stopping in Darien, but if you commute from Stamford, it's the 7:16 a.m.)
• Next, it will make an empty trip to Harrison, N.Y. and return to Grand Central again at 9:15 a.m. The train will stay there during the day for the railroad to train engineers and conductors in its use.
• Finally, it will leave Grand Central at 4:07 p.m. and arrive in New Haven at 5:54 p.m. (passing through Stamford at 4:52 p.m.).

The 4:07 p.m. train out of Grand Central Terminal to New Haven today was an M8. Tomorrow and Friday will be the same. For those who haven't gotten their photos of the M8s in their first day of service, you can settle for the next best thing and acquire photos of the M8s in their first week of service by heading to GCT tomorrow. Since I didn't have time to get my photos of the M8s on Tuesday (and also to avoid foamers), I'll be heading to Grand Central terminal tomorrow afternoon with a friend of mine to get my photos in.

(Here's a link to an article where I collected my data from.)

I guess this makes my first post for the ETU Blog. Sad to mention though...I haven't even bought the domain for my website yet...oh well, not to worry. I'm definitely gonna get on top of that next week, that's for sure. Until then, I'll post the photos to my photobucket page and link them here. Thanks for reading!

--ETU