Commuter Headache: Major Renovations Continue at E. 180th Street Station

Construction at the E. 180th Street-White Plains Road subway station will be
 finished this winter, according to the MTA. (Photo by Fausto Giovanny Pinto)

Editor's Note: this article was originally published in the July issue of the Tremont Tribune, out now.

By JEANMARIE EVELLY and FAUSTO GIOVANNY PINTO

The subway station at East 180th Street and White Plains Road, which serves the No. 2 and 5 trains, is undergoing “total rehabilitation” by the Metropolitan Transit Authority—a two-year project that has turned the site into a construction zone, to the distress of straphangers.

“We’re exposed to this asbestos and dust when we walk through here every day—you can smell it,” said rider Susie Martinez. “Then on the platform you have to walk on this little catwalk because there's only one stairway. It’s dangerous.”

The renovations, which started in 2009 and should wrap up this winter, are part of a $40 million project to repair the dilapidated station and make it fully wheelchair accessible. Construction has been aggravated over the past few months by an influx of extra passengers forced to stop at the station because of suspended No. 2 and 5 train service between East 149th Street-Grand Concourse and East 180th Street.

No 5 Train Service This Weekend

This in from the MTA: 5 train service will be suspended this weekend from 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 25 for track work.

Riders can catch free shuttle buses between Dyre Avenue and East 180th Street, or take the 2 for service between East 180th Street and 149th Street-Grand Concourse and the 4 for service between 149th Street-Grand Concourse and Brooklyn Bridge.

Bronx News Roundup, Sept. 7

A nurse at Calvary Hospital was flabbergasted to discover that her new patient was her long lost father, who vanished from her life some 40 years ago when she was just a baby. Sadly, the reunion is bittersweet because the father has terminal cancer.

The name of a 19-year-old Bronx man killed in Vietnam has been added to a war monument in Van Nest, after his friend noticed the oversight and did something about it.

1520 Sedgwick Ave., a high-rise near the Harlem River often called the birthplace of hip-hop, has been sold. Tenants and housing advocates are hopeful the new landlord will address many of building's housing violations. More on 1520 Sedgwick here.

State Senate candidate Gustavo Rivera is asking the Justice Department to send federal election observers to the northwest Bronx on Primary Day. He says he's concerned Espada may attempt to suppress voter turnout. As close followers of this race will have heard by now, lawyer Daniel Padernacht has dropped out and is now supporting Rivera. This morning Padernacht's making his endorsement official. (Espada is also unveiling endorsements today.) With Padernacht gone, the Daily News' Bob Kappstatter says Rivera and Espada are now "neck and neck." That and more in his weekly column.

Robert Schimmel, a Bronx-born stand up comic who's best known for his appearances on The Howard Stern Show, has died in hospital from injuries sustained in a car accident last month.

The owner of a Bronx nail salon faces a hefty fine after refusing to serve a disabled woman. "We don't take her kind here," the store owner allegedly said.

The city's public beaches and swimming pools have closed for the season. Roberto Clemente State Park's pools never opened to begin with.

In a Labor Day editorial, the NY Post bashes the modern day labor movement, which, it says, is partly to blame for the country's high unemployment rate. Not for the first time, the paper also goes after Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. who helped nix plans to turn the long-vacant Kingbridge Armory into a mall, after the developer refused to agree to a "living wage" requirement. 

The Times profiles the Ghetto Film School, a non-profit organization which runs an after-school program in Mott Haven.

A new program at Montefiore Medical Center has put cameras in the hands of seriously ill teenagers, to help them express their emotions.

The long disrupted express service on the 5 Train is being temporarily restored.

ShopRite, a supermarket chain, is considering opening a store on East Gun-Hill Road near Allerton Avenue.

A preview of the upcoming Bronx A boys soccer season.