Big Apple is about to ‘sleep’

“New York is definitely ready for the word of God.”

—Billy Graham

By Alex P. Vidal

BASED on what I witnessed yesterday (March 17) when I took a quick trip to the grocery store for my food supply (good for one week), I can say that “the city that never sleeps” is finally about to start or has started “sleeping.”

Because of the rising number of New Yorkers infected with the coronavirus (more than 100 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in New York City over the course of March 17, with officials expecting an exponential rise in the coming days), our movements have been “restricted.”

Employers have suspended some works if not lessened the duty hours.

There are fewer passengers in the subway trains and many major establishments and malls are almost empty.

Restaurants, bars, and other establishments in the five boroughs—Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island—were no longer allowed to accept sit-in customers except “take out” orders.

There are currently at least 923 confirmed COVID-19 patients in the city, up from 814 reported cases earlier Tuesday.

Will the Big Apple go to bed finally? 

New Yorkers reportedly get an average of 6.8 hours of sleep per night, about the same amount as New Orleans, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, and many other U.S. cities. 

Las Vegas gets the least sleep—only 6.5 hours per night, but rumors that the city never sleeps have reportedly been exaggerated.

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Despite the misconception that anything and everything is available around the clock in New York City, many people around the globe continued to be mesmerized by the Big Apple For being “awake” 24/7, and so it seems.

Comprising of five boroughs sitting where the Hudson River meets the Atlantic Ocean, New York City has Manhattan at its core, a densely populated borough that’s among the world’s major commercial, financial and cultural centers. 

Its iconic sites include skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building and sprawling Central Park. Broadway theater is staged in neon-lit Times Square.

As of March 17, New Yorkers have been briefed about the latest development in as far as the battle against the coronavirus is concerned.

Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature have an agreement on a bill guaranteeing job protection and pay for New Yorkers who have been quarantined as a result of novel coronavirus. 

The bill also includes the permanent comprehensive paid sick leave policy.

The governor signed an executive order directing all schools in New York to close by Wednesday (March 18) for two weeks ending April 1.

Casinos, gyms, theaters are closed until further notice.

Bars and restaurants are closed, but takeout can be ordered during the period of closure.

Strongly advise only services and businesses that are essential stay open after 8:00PM: groceries, gas stations, pharmacies, and medical facilities.

All local governments must reduce their workforce by at least 50 percent. Non-essential state workers are working from home.

New York State has waived all park fees in state, local and county parks.

Testing is free for all eligible New Yorkers as ordered by a health care provider.

Local health department is the community contact for COVID-19 concerns. 

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The news that shocked everyone on March 17 was that more than 100 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in New York City over the course of Tuesday, with officials expecting an exponential rise in the coming days.

Mayor Bill De Blasio boomed March 17 night: “It’s unbelievable how rapidly this crisis is growing right now.”

Residents have been exhorted to prepare for an unprecedented “shelter-in-place” order to contain the coronavirus. 

It is expected that there will be as many as 10,000 cases of the disease in the Big Apple by next week.

The mayor added: “I didn’t even know by the time I got to your show there would be 100 more people, but what I said earlier today is this is moving very fast. We should all be very concerned about how we find a way to slow the trajectory of this virus.”

The idea of shelter in place has to be considered now and it has to be with between the city and state working together, stressed the mayor.

De Blasio and Cuomo actually sparred over whether such plans were in the works, with the governor dismissing the idea during a TV appearance.

“If New York City says, ‘Well you can’t come out of your house, all that will do is cause you to stay with your cousin in Westchester,” Cuomo said, adding that he’s working on coordinating restrictions with Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut.

“There’s not going to be any quarantine,” he explained.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)

How I ‘escaped’ New York City’s power outage

“If it weren't for electricity, we'd all be watching television by candlelight.”
--George Gobel

By Alex P. Vidal

I WAS inside the Manhattan-bound Q train from Brooklyn at past 7 o’clock in the evening July 13 unaware that New York City’s worst power blackout since 1977 occurred in the midtown Manhattan and parts of the Upper West Side.
The subway train, one of the world’s oldest and most efficient public transit systems, halted operations momentarily within these areas.
The train moved again after about 30 minutes, and I immediately transferred to N train upon reaching the Union Square station (instead of the Times Square station on 42nd Street which I normally do everyday).
N train brought me straight to the Queensboro Plaza station, a plaza overlapped by elevated subway tracks and straddling the western end of Queens Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens, between 21st Street and Jackson Avenue/Northern Boulevard.
The train was full and it was a Sunday.
That’s when I learned that a five-hour power blackout had hit the heart of “the city the never sleeps.”
Broadway shows were cancelled, including Jennifer Lopez’s concert at the Madison Square Garden.
In the Philippines, power blackout is a normal event.
In America, it’s a matter of life and death for many residents as they rely heavily on electronic life; they can’t probably exist and survive without electricity.

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New Yorkers in midtown Manhattan were confused and inconvenienced. Some stranded train commuters took the cabs on their way home.
Since it happened in the Big Apple, it’s a major event.
It became a headline story in the US and other parts of the globe.
New York Governor Andrew Coumo expressed outrage and called the blackout “unacceptable.”
“You just can’t have a power outage of this magnitude in this city,” Coumo boomed. “It is too dangerous, the potential for public safety rick and chaos is too high, we just can’t have a system that does that, it’s that simple at the end of the day.”
The governor expressed relief nobody was harmed or killed unlike in 1977 when pandemonium broke loose and stores were looted after New York City experienced a blackout that lasted for 25 hours.

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New York City mayor Bill De Blasio, who was chided by Coumo for being absent in New York City during the blackout (the mayor, a 2020 presidential candidate, was on his way from Iowa where he campaigned) said federal authorities had confirmed "there was no evidence whatsoever of any nefarious activity in this situation."
Earlier, Con Edison CEO John McAvoy assured that all customers should have their power restored by midnight.
A flash of lights came on, and people in the street cheered as he spoke in midtown.
The outage started about 6:47 p.m. with an "event" that will be the subject of investigation, according to McAvoy, who claimed that summer warmth, which can overload power grids with energy demand, was not the source.
"It does not appear related to excessive load," he said, quoted by NBC New.
The outage disrupted life for thousands in the Big Apple.
The city's transit authority tweeted that multiple stations were not operational and were being bypassed.
It came on the anniversary of the citywide blackout of 1977, which led to rioting and looting. That outage started July 13 and ended the next day.
A senior city official with direct knowledge of the matter said it appeared that the outage was caused by a transformer fire. The New York City Fire Department tweeted it was at the scene of a transformer fire on West 64th Street.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)

Scared of Lincoln Tunnel

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”
--Corrie Ten Boom


By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Of all the tunnels I have crossed, it’s the Lincoln Tunnel that doesn’t only give me cold creeps but also a dyed-in-the-wool goosebumps.
When I first crossed the tunnel three years ago, I had an eerie feeling; it’s like entering a hole with no assurance to see a light at the end.
The phobia was similar when I was “trapped” for about 12 minutes in a stranded 7 train from Queens to Manhattan in fall of 2017.
I felt like being locked inside a calaboose. I could pass out had the train was delayed for another five to 10 minutes.
The feeling revisited me again when the van I was riding before the Holy Week had to spend some 20 minutes doing detours in the dizzying Weehawken roads to avoid traffic before finally reaching the mouth of the tunnel.
It normally takes the rider a good five minutes before emerging from the tunnel.
The 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) Lincoln Tunnel, opened to traffic for the first time in 1937, connects Weehawken, New Jersey to Midtown Manhattan.
If we don’t take a ferry boat or train, we pass through this tunnel, much heralded as the next great engineering triumph, from New York City to New Jersey City vice versa.

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The tunnel is 95 feet underwater at its deepest point, and cost about $1.5 billion to build, reportedly adjusting for inflation.
It reportedly sees upwards of 120,000 cars passing through every day on the average, making it one of the busiest roadways in the United States.
Its separate bus lane sees about 1,700 buses every morning, primarily bringing its 62,000 commuters to the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Manhattan’s 42nd Street.
This was the second tunnel funded by the New Deal’s Public Work’s Administration in 1934, fresh off the success of the northern Holland Tunnel, the first mechanically ventilated underwater automobile tunnel to be built under the Hudson River.
A second tube was built shortly after the Lincoln Tunnel’s first, with a third requested due to increasing traffic built in the late 1950s.
The three tunnels service hundreds of thousands of cars and buses coming in and out of New York City to this day.
I find it more relaxing to take the train or bus when I travel from New York to New Jersey vice versa.

Don't die in a New York City subway

"Terrorism has no nationality or religion."
--Vladimir Putin

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- I may sound corny to some people, but every morning before I take the subway train to Manhattan, I pray.
A short prayer is good like, "Lord, please take care of me and my loved ones today, and guide me until I reach my destination."
I am a regular subway train commuter.
Every Monday, I load $32 in my (Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) MetroCard for a seven-day unlimited ride.
This budget load can bring me to the Big Apple's 472 stations in five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island anytime without limit for seven days. (Because it lacks a rail link with the subway system, the Staten Island Railway, by the way, is not officially considered part of the subway. Passengers traveling to another borough can take a ferry or bus; however, free transfers are allowed to the New York City Subway and the MTA's bus system.)
I am aware that the New York City Subway, being the largest rapid transit system in the world, has always been a potential target of terrorist attacks.

IMMIGRANT

Which exactly what happened at past seven o'clock in the morning on December 11, 2017 when 27-year-old Bangladesh immigrant, Akayed Ullah, detonated a homemade pipe bomb strapped to his body in a crowded subway passage between Times Square station and Port Authority in Manhattan.
Anybody in the wrong place at the wrong time could die when the likes of Ullah strike unnoticed.
The incident disturbed me a lot and made my mind juggle the words "what if."
What if I was one of those walking alongside or near Ullah?
What if Ullah had detonated or "accidentally" detonated the bomb while he was sitting or standing beside me inside the running train?
Without knowing it, I could have sat or stood beside the likes of Ullah inside the train in the past. I hope and pray there will be no more Ullahs taking the subway train in the future.

WORRY

Like other anxious passengers, I also worry a lot because when I take the subway train, I always fall asleep if I get lucky to sit down during a long trip.
I can't count how many times I disembarked on the wrong station, mostly way past the station I was supposed to arrive because I slept with my earphones on to boot.
I could die if the likes of Ullah attacked while I was in dreamland.
The only consolation is that if I could fight off drowsiness inside the train, I looked around and observed every passenger's demeanor and body movement. The devil doesn't choose the place where to inflict a mayhem.
I realized, however, that just the same: if a neurotic or a determined terrorist happened to be in the running train, he could send everyone to the Kingdom Come if he suddenly unleashed an explosive device or any deadly instrument.
In a subway train, no one is safe. In terrorism, the damage is always intended "to whom it may concern." Help us God.

I love you, New York City Marathon

"The marathon can humble you."
--Bill Rodgers

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- My coverage of the 47th New York City Marathon on November 5 was the most thrilling.
I became a sports journalist and spectator rolled into one.
As soon as I saw Shalane Flanagan emerge in the lead pack escorted by two motorcycles and a Ford vehicle carrying a flashing time (2:20:34) in the Central Park's Fifth Avenue,  I yelled.
The itch to cheer the runners as they were about to complete the 42.195-kilometer race was irresistible for someone who witnessed the tight race as it happened. 

KAMWOROR being chased by Kipsang.

Seeing the runners being egged and cheered by the crowd evoked past memories when I myself was running in the Nike and Milo Marathons in the Philippines in the 80's.
I chose that area, some 800 meters away from the finish line, because it's a picture-perfect camera ambush, and  because only a handful of fans were comfortable or brave enough to wait in that isolated route.

LEAD

I was surprised to see a Caucasian leading the women's race alone. In the past when I covered the same event on the same spot, I saw African runners dominate the distaff side.
The white lady turned out to be Flanagan, who became the first American to win the race at 2:26:53 since Miki Gorman accomplished the feat in 1977.
Flanagan bested three-time champion and recent London Marathon champion Mary Keitany of Kenya by a minute (2:27:54). 

FLANAGAN 

Using a Samsung Galaxy S6 edge cellphone camera, I captured Flanagan, Keitany, Ethiopia’s Mamitu Daska (2:28:08) as they struggled and barreled their way to the final 800 meters of the biggest and most prestigious marathon on earth. 
What made the race so special was Flanagan, who crossed the finish line crying and yelling, ended United States' drought in the New York City Marathon.
Rounding out the women's top 10 were: Edna Kiplagat (2:29:36), Allie Kieffer (2:29:39), Sara Dossena (2:29:39), Eva Vrabcova (2:29:41), Kellyn Taylor (2:29:56), Diane Nukuri (2:31:21) and Stephanie Bruce (2:31:44).

VICTORY

Flanagan's victory was big. She foiled Keitany's attempt to equal the record of Grete Waitz to become the second woman to win the New York City Marathon four times.
It came five days after the bike path terror attack in Lower Manhattan killed eight and raised questions about security for Sunday's event.
That hit home for Flanagan, a Massachusetts native who completed the 2013 Boston Marathon shortly before a bomb went off at the finish line, killing three and wounding more than 260 others.
The men's category also pulled a lot of drama. When the lead pack arrived on the area where I positioned myself, Kenya's Geoffrey Kamworor was in front being chased by countryman Wilson Kipsang.
In a mad dash to the finish, Kamworor held off Kipsang by three seconds. He logged 2:10:53 against Kipsang's 2:10:56. Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa finished third at 2:11:32.
Rounnding out the men's top 10 were: Lemi Berhanu (2:11:52), Tadesse Abraham (2:12:01), Michel Butter (2:12:39), Abdi Abdirahman (2:12:48), Koen Naert (2:13:21), Fikadu Girma Teferi (2:13:58) and Shadrack Biwott (2:14:57)
It was one of the smallest margins in the New York City Marathon's history, it was learned.

8 killed in Manhattan terror attack

https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-least-6-die-in-lower-manhattan-incident-1509483701

NEW YORK CITY -- Police said people were killed while dozens were injured when a lone suspect mowed down bikers and pedestrians Tuesday (October 31, 2017) afternoon.

The driver shouted “God is great” in Arabic when he got out of his truck and was confronted by police, a law-enforcement official said.

Officials called it a “cowardly act of terror,” the deadliest attack in New York City since Sept. 11, 2001.