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MAKING TRACKS - Vol. 2, No. 4 - Fall 1996
Entire contents of MAKING TRACKS is copyright © 1996 by Village Crosstown Trolley Coalition,
but may be reproduced either in whole or in part with a clear acknowledgment of the source.
Please report any errors to us at VCTC. Thanks.
Inside this Issue
Kmart on 8th Street
NYC's Pedestrian Streets are Popular
Letters to VCTC
Oops ...
Letter from the Editor
By William K. Guild
Kmart Corporation, the nation's second largest retailer, will open its second Manhattan outlet in November on the site of the former Wanamaker department store at 8th Street and Fourth Avenue. Opening barely a month after Kmart's first Manhattan entry, at 1 Pennsylvania Plaza, the new megastore will be located in the heart of the Village Crosstown Corridor and will depend almost entirely on transit access and walk-ins for its customer base. While straddled by two north-south subway lines, the site can be reached from the East or West Village most easily by the M8 crosstown bus. VCTC's plan to convert this transit corridor to light rail in a pedestrianized street would be a tremendous boon to business at this site and in the surrounding area.
At a public meeting on September 4th, organized by Arlene S. Koenig, energetic President of the East 8th/9th Street Block Association, top Kmart executives discussed plans for the store and attempted to allay community concerns about traffic, noise, crowds and other neighborhood impacts. The company claims to have spared no expense in preserving and restoring the historic structure, built in 1904 by John Wanamaker & Co.
Kmart will occupy 145,000 square feet on three levels of the massive 15-story, million square foot structure. The main entrance will be at the corner of 8th St. and 4th Ave. directly on VCTC's proposed pedestrian corridor, with Wanamaker's original Astor Place subway entrance restored directly below. Existing businesses will remain at street level on the Broadway side and on the upper floors of the building. Internal loading bays along 8th St. have been enlarged to accommodate Kmart trucks, which will make "sequenced" deliveries between mid-night and 6:00am. Store hours are not yet set, but will be "competitive" with other neighborhood businesses.
The new store will carry a wide range of general merchandise, both brand-name and private label, and will include departments for women's fashions, men's and boy's clothing, home furnishings and even a photo studio. A restaurant above the main entrance will afford a panoramic view of Cooper Union and the Astor Place area. The 400 employees needed to staff the store are to be drawn mainly from the local community. Kmart's executives insisted that their outlet would enhance the neigh-borhood and complement existing retail operations rather than drawing business away from them.
The new Kmart site is within a structure occupying the entire block between 4th Avenue and Broadway from 8th to 9th Streets It was built as an annex to the Wanamaker store on the block just to the north. That magnificent five-story Italianate edifice was built in 1862 for A.T. Stewart on the original "Ladies' Mile" and stood for nearly a century. The huge Christmas trees erected annually in the central atrium of the old store are remembered fondly by many, including this writer.
Stewart's "Marble Palace," actually the largest cast iron structure in the world, was sold when the Astor Place neighborhood became less fashionable, but was acquired in 1896 by John Wanamaker of Philadelphia, who soon required even more space for his New York emporium. The huge fifteen-story monolith which he erected contains almost as much space as the 102-story Empire State Building. It was connected to the original store at basement level and by a bridge over 9th Street. Abandoned and sold in 1954, when Wanamaker's retreated to center-city Philadelphia and to various suburban shopping malls, the original building was destroyed by a spectacular fire in 1956, while awaiting demolition for the luxury co-op now on the site. In the last forty years the subdivided annex has housed everything from American Express to the Traffic Violations Bureau.
Wanamaker's was served superbly by both subways and surface transit. There was direct access from the basement level to the original IRT Astor Place station, which is now being restored after 42 years, and to the Broadway BMT. A branch of the Hudson Tubes was planned across 9th Street from Sixth Avenue to Astor Place, enabling New Jersey shoppers to reach Wanamaker's directly, but this never got beyond the tunnel headings visible today at the PATH station under Balducci's. Streetcar lines just outside the Wanamaker store radiated to all parts of Manhattan and even Brooklyn. Broadway routes from South Ferry and City Hall ran to 125th Street and beyond, with branches on Lexington, Lenox, Seventh and Columbus Avenues. One Fourth Avenue route, from Park Row, ran up Madison Avenue to 135th Street, while another linked Grand Central to Havemeyer Street in Brooklyn. Astor Place also served as a downtown terminal for streetcars serving the Second and Madison Avenue routes.
Last but not least, two important lines plied the 8th Street corridor: the river-to-river crosstown from Christopher to East 10th Street; and the Seventh Avenue line from Central Park South to Delancey Street. The latter, which shared the 8th Street tracks from Greenwich Avenue to Avenue A, functioned off-hours as a "shoppers' special," with Astor Place and Wanamaker's the downtown terminal. As late as 1930 the two 8th Street routes were carrying some 20,000 daily riders, with many thousands more using the other adjacent lines. Conversion of these routes to bus operation in the mid-'30s foreshadowed the demise of Wanamaker's and loss of other retail businesses in the years following World War II.
The subway lines which served Wanamaker's are still in place, but the extensive network of streetcar lines centering on Astor Place, alas, is gone. Buses today operate over some of the old routes, but these are hardly adequate even for residents and businesses already in the neighborhood. With virtually no parking space available in the area, few Kmart shoppers will be arriving by car.
The Village Crosstown Trolley proposed by VCTC will go a long way toward filling the transportation gap. While not as extensive as the streetcar system abandoned 60 years ago, a crosstown light rail line would provide features which were simply not available in the 1930s. Low floor LRVs are increasingly the cars of choice for urban light rail systems and have been urged by VCTC since its inception. In addition to their obvious advantages for the elderly, the handicapped and those travelling with young children, these vehicles can be a godsend to shoppers with bulky packages. Modern LRVs also are roomier than their predecessors and much more comfortable than the buses they would replace on 8th Street.
With the free transfers to other transit modes proposed by VCTC (and promised by the MTA to begin next July), the Village Crosstown Trolley will offer a one-fare trip from the front door of Kmart or any store on the 8th St. corridor not just to the East and West Villages, but to any station on the entire transit system. Even New Jersey shoppers will at last be able to reach the former Wanamaker's site quickly and easily, simply by hopping the Village Crosstown Trolley at the Christopher St. PATH station.
While we are always concerned about truck deliveries, merchants located on transit or pedestrian malls in other cities, and even in Brooklyn, Queens and lower Manhattan, have accommodated quite easily to restricted schedules or other arrangements to receive and ship their goods. Almost without exception, such merchants find that increased walk-in business more than offsets any inconvenience and they would not think of going back to the congestion which prevailed when their streets were unrestricted motor vehicle thoroughfares.
There is even less cause for concern, at least from a traffic standpoint, over the arrangements Kmart has made for its own deliveries. Trucks will arrive and leave only in the wee hours of the morning, when crosstown trolley service is least frequent, and they will be completely off-street during actual loading or unloading operations. With no through motor vehicle traffic on 8th St., it will be possible for such trucks to access the loading docks from either direction, minimizing noise and other inconvenience to residents of the neighborhood.
According to Kmart, the 8th St. location is at the center of the most densely populated 1 1/2 mile radius circle in the country. Yet it is difficult now for those living near the Hudson and East Rivers to reach the center of that circle. The Village Crosstown Trolley will enable thousands on the perimeter to reach the center of the circle quickly and easily. Kmart's presence will secure a stronger, more reliable ridership base for the light rail line, which will in turn provide convenient, more reliable access for Kmart's customer base. This symbiotic relationship can benefit not only Kmart and the trolley, but also the residents, businesses and other institutions already established along the Village Crosstown Corridor.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether Kmart will live up to the "good neighbor" standard its executives have set, and local residents will no doubt be watching their performance closely in the coming months. We are cautiously optimistic that the more mature shoppers likely to be attracted to Kmart will tend to balance the younger clientele of the sneaker shops and record stores which have sprung up in recent years and that this will have a healthy and stabilizing effect on the neighborhood. In any event, entry of this large retailer into the very center of the Village Crosstown Corridor is all the more reason to move forward with improvements to the local transit picture, beginning with the Village Crosstown Trolley.
By George Haikalis
Auto-free streets are alive and well, and prospering in New York City. The Village Crosstown Trolley Coalition (VCTC) and Auto-Free New York recently completed a reconnaissance of pedestrianized shopping streets in Brooklyn, Queens and--NYC's newest--Mulberry Street in Manhattan. Businesses lining these streets are quite pleased to have them closed to traffic. Clearly many locations in NYC have the density of pedestrian traffic to be developed as auto-free streets. VCTC strongly believes that the Christopher St./8th St./St. Marks Pl./E. 10th St. Crosstown Corridor is a good candidate, especially when the trolley is included as part of the enhancement.
At the behest of dozens of restaurant owners and merchants on Mulberry Street, in the heart of Manhattan's Little Italy, the City closed the street to vehicular traffic every weekend during the summer. Hundreds of tables and chairs were placed on the sidewalk, and pedestrians used the auto-free street as a promenade. According to Miles Barker, Executive Chef of Sal Anthony's S.P.Q.R. cafe and one of the area's most enthusiastic advocates, pedestrian traffic has doubled since the street closing was put into effect on Memorial Day weekend, and business is booming. City officials are happy too because each outdoor cafe pays the city $100 per weekend. Mulberry St. is closed to traffic from 6pm to midnight on Friday Evening, and from noon to midnight on Saturdays and Sundays. The last weekend of the season will be Columbus Day weekend. Try a pollution-free meal at an outdoor cafe!
Across the East River in Downtown Brooklyn, the Fulton Mall pedestrian and transit street continues to thrive as a retail center, especially during midday hours. The three-quarter mile long Mall was built largely with Federal transit funds in the early 1980s. Jill Kelly, the upbeat Executive Director of the Fulton Mall Improvement Association, notes that the Mall has become especially busy during lunch hours thanks to the completion of the nearby MetroTech office complex. There are no plans to reopen the mall to auto traffic. Instead, some downtown interests are considering a streetcar to replace the buses in the crowded transit mall.
However, some important problems remain. There are few theaters and little nightlife in Downtown Brooklyn so the Mall is essentially a daytime-only facility. Merchants must cater to two different markets--bargain-hunters with limited income from the close-in residential neighborhoods and office workers shopping at lunchtime. Only recently have merchants discovered the rich architectural detail on many of the historic mercantile buildings covered by years of ill-advised modern facades. While the Brooklyn Borough President's Office and the Community Board actively support the Mall, there is no community-based organization focused on promoting the mall and encouraging cultural activities on Brooklyn's main street.
In Jamaica, the 165th Street Mall has been a busy shopping area for many years. The Mall stretches about a quarter of a mile from Jamaica Avenue north to 89th Avenue, and includes a bus terminal serving many Queens and Nassau County routes. Just two months on the job, Derek Irby, Executive Director of the 165th St. Mall Association, has big plans to improve the Mall's environment. He encouraged the Mall's biggest retailer, the Coliseum, to open seven days a week, boosting pedestrian traffic on Sundays. A craft show will be held this fall. Irby has brought in gospel music shows to help encourage a diversity of shoppers to visit the mall, and moderate worries about teenagers hanging-out while changing buses after school. The mall is closed to vehicular traffic from 12 noon to 6pm every day of the year. Merchants are happy with the auto-free mall, built in the 1980s, and have no plans to reopen the street to cars.
Several other streets made into auto-free pedestrian malls in Downtown Manhattan have been notable successes. The Nassau St. Mall was created by Mayor Lindsay in 1970 as a temporary lunchtime experiment. Flooded with pedestrians from the day it opened, it has never reopened to midday car traffic. Fulton St. and several other streets at the South St. Seaport were permanently closed to traffic as part of a commercial historic district theme park. Popular with suburbanites and foreign visitors, this former arterial street now hosts pedestrians on its cobblestone pavement. Cafés and shops flow out onto the street. Truck deliveries have been reorganized away from the mall. New buildings were constructed and historic buildings refurbished in a coordinated way.
This was possible because the entire project was developed under unified management. While perhaps lacking the spontaneous nature of much of New York City, South St. Seaport shows how an auto-free precinct can work. Recently the City experimented with closing Fulton St. further west from Broadway to Gold St. This lunchtime closing is popular even without urban amenities like benches or fountains. In its May/June 1995 NY Streetcar News, the Committee for Better Transit proposed an auto-free Fulton St. as the northern leg of a Lower Manhattan light rail line--the "Liberty Loop".
While each of these pedestrian streets is a success, the city has done little analysis to quantify the economic benefits of such street closings. To make the case for our Christopher St./8th St./St. Marks Place/E. 10th St. pedestrian and light rail corridor, we hope that area universities and the city DOT will undertake such studies. But the combination of restoring the 8th St. crosstown trolley and improving the pedestrian environment is without precedent in NYC. Researchers will have to look to other cities in the U.S. and Europe to document these success stories.
Letters to VCTC
Hi, I like your Web Page and the trolley idea. As a person who has visited Greenwich Village many times, I have an interest in seeing a trolley line established. The benefits of trolleys, or streetcars, far outweigh any drawbacks. We have had streetcars since they were introduced back in the 19th century and we still love them. Keep up the good work!
Mike Lofquist, Toronto, Canada (by Fax)
I like trolleys and would like to see them return to the NYC area. NYC needs more crosstown transit at it is and many people, myself included, refuse to ride the bus in favor of the subway. I think with an adequate transfer system at the Sheridan Square [Christopher St.], West Fourth Street, 9th Street PATH, 8th Street BMT [at Broadway] and Astor Place IRT subway stations, the riders would come out in droves. The 42nd Street Trolley, 2nd Avenue and Hudson/Bergen LRT are interesting prospects as well. I can understand your point about modern low-floor LRVs being most practical but the PCCs are just so cool. Witness San Francisco's success with the Market Street Railway's F Line. Keep up the good work!
David Pirmann (by Web Questionnaire)
[Mr. Pirmann maintains the NYC Subway Resources web site (a link at VCTC on the Web).]
Oops ...
"Trolley Topics" in our Summer issue erroneously reported that the Mulberry St. Mall would operate weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day. As noted on page 1 in this issue, this popular Little Italy feature will continue appropriately through the Columbus Day weekend.
Letter From the Editor
With this issue, MAKING TRACKS returns to NYC after a visit to Dallas in the previous issue. In November, a new Kmart store will be opening on 8th St. on the site of the former Wanamaker's department store. Details about this new megastore in the heart of the Village and how VCTC's proposed crosstown trolley corridor fits into the picture begin on page one. Our other cover story is about pedestrian streets elsewhere in the city and their growing popularity. Thanks for reading!
Michael Goodman, Editor
NY Today
TimeOut New York
CitySearch New York
