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.

Bronx News Roundup, Feb. 23

Here's some Bronx-related news from the past few days:

The city has nixed plans to move a controversial charter school into Alfred E. Smith High School, which is being phased out. See here and here.

A teenager from the Philippines is recovering in Montefiore Children's Hospital following 18-hours of spine surgery, aimed at helping him walk again.

Residents of Edgewater Park and Silver Beach Gardens, two communities in the East Bronx, are defending themselves against allegations that they tried to stop black families from moving in.

On Sunday night, police in Melrose shot dead a mentally-disturbed man who they say was attacking his mother with frying pan.

The wife of a Fordham man shot dead by police in December 2008 is suing the city for $285 million. Police say Alex Figueroa, 40, was wielding a baseball bat and refused orders to drop it. Sandra Rodriguez disputes this account. She says her husband was confronting a group of men who had harassed their daughter, but that he never threatened the cops.

Two Bronx subway stations, 161st Street-Yankee Stadium and 3rd Avenue-149th Street, are to be renovated.

Police are hunting for a Bronx woman following a hit-and-run in Brooklyn early Sunday morning.

Assemblyman Nelson Castro and Hector Ramirez, a district leader who's expected to challenge Castro in September's Democratic primary, are both after Democratic party boss Carl Heastie's support. If joint turkey giveaways are any indication, Ramirez's already has Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.'s backing.

A subsidiary of Montefiore Medical Center has received $5 million in federal stimulus money to train 1,350 health care aides.

St. Barnabas Hospital has scrapped plans to relocate a health clinic of theirs despite numerous problems with the building, including the presence of lead and asbestos. (The article in Spanish. To translate, copy and paste into here.)

The Cross Bronx Expressway is home to the worst bottleneck in the country.  But there's good news too: vehicles' average speed has increased from 9.8 mph three years ago, to a not-quite-so-sluggish 11.4 mph.