Eyes on the Street

On a broiling hot day, the McBrooklyn blog spotted a half dozen people standing motionless at the corner of Smith St. and 2nd Pl. in front of a small news stand. Was it performance art? A zombie invasion? A protest over out-of-scale development?

The debate is over, and as of today the Ninth St. bike lanes are swiftly becoming a reality.

Grove Street, Manhattan. Photo by Aaron Donovan.

It seems each year the number of people bicycling to Coney Island's annual Mermaid Parade grows. This year was particularly bike plentiful with thousands of bikes locked to poles, fences, signs, and over a dozen blocks of the boardwalk railing. Even bikes locked to other bikes!

To accompany Clarence Eckerson's StreetFilm, here are some images from the first annual Make Music New York event...

A tipster sends along this snapshot of the parking lot... I mean, sidewalk, outside the High Bridge Recreational Center prior to the meeting last night to discuss plans for the revitalized High Bridge. The talk inside, she says, "was much more encouraging" than the government employee parking situation outside.

Ian Dutton of the Houston Street bike safety initiative snapped these photographs of yet another never-before-seen street design feature here in New York City. This is what's called a "Bike Box" at the  intersection of W. 9th St. and Sixth Ave. Bike boxes allow cyclists approaching the intersection with a red signal to position themselves at the front of the line of vehicles. This makes bike travel faster and the right turn onto northbound Sixth Avenue safer.

The Shuttle, as seen from Brevoort Place.