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	<title>The City Desk &#187; CSTA</title>
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	<link>http://thecitydesk.net</link>
	<description>Fictional urbanism.</description>
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		<title>City&#8217;s First Subway Car Found</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/11/17/citys-first-subway-car-found/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/11/17/citys-first-subway-car-found/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:17:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Central Corridor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Downtown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[old city hall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ostahanoc River]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RJ White]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Upper Carsonhurst]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/?p=738</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The second week of June 1901 saw the formal opening of the City&#8217;s first subway- what was to become today&#8217;s Brown Line- a modest straight line connecting the old Central Depot (across from Old City Hall, now Ludlow Plaza Station) and the Ostahanoc River, taking in the Downtown/Central Corridor areas, as well as the bustling Fifth and Second Wards. With a flourish and burst of a Champagne bottle, the very first car to travel the line was the &#8220;Jenny-Anne,&#8221; an elaborate ceremonial car outfitted with carpeting, electric chandeliers, upholstered seats and even a small wet bar. The car was constructed at the behest of L. Mathewson Burlsworth, whose Ostahanoc Valley Northeast Line railroad was a partner in the project. From this point on, throughout the expansion of the subway system in the early 20th cetury, the car was occasionally pulled into service for various heads of state and other dignitaries, including President Theodore Roosevelt (It can be presumed that, for certain reasons, President Taft was not offered a ride during his 1911 visit). In 1914, the &#8220;Jenny-Anne&#8221; (named after the daughter of Mayor Orson Winthrop) was decommissioned and put on display at the Commercial Museum (adjoining the Atlas Exhibition Hall), [...]]]></description>
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		<title>The Brothel Five Levels Below the Street</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/06/08/the-brothel-five-levels-below-the-street/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/06/08/the-brothel-five-levels-below-the-street/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:39:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Central Corridor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Downtown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[historic preservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[old city hall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ostahanoc River]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RJ White]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subway]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transportation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[urban exploration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Watson University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/?p=567</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The old Central Depot, which sat across across Ludlow Plaza from Old City Hall from 1896 until its demolition in 1968, was a wonderful, massive gothic structure, covered in ornament and decoration which one doesn&#8217;t find much in today&#8217;s construction. It certainly isn&#8217;t found in its replacement, the City Centre Square building, a long rectangular affair, completed in 1972. Below the glass and brown brick-covered box, the City-Suburban Transit Authority (CSTA) has its Ludlow Plaza Station, the only remnant of the old depot. It&#8217;s one of the nicer stops in the subway system, with some of the old architectural details still showing through slight neglect mandated by tight budgets over the decades. Central Depot was the showpiece of the of the Ostahanoc Valley Northeast Line, a regional railroad that did very well with both passenger and freight transport during this city&#8217;s booming industrial age. As such, the railroad&#8217;s offices were located on the upper five floors of the massive limestone edifice to transportation. The first two floors were dedicated to the grandly-designed passenger concourse and two levels of tracks were located below, which are now used for CSTA subway and regional light rail. But few know about the levels which [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Snapshots: Last Days of the Riverfront Transit Center, 1933</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/01/30/snapshots-last-days-of-the-riverfront-transit-center-1933/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/01/30/snapshots-last-days-of-the-riverfront-transit-center-1933/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:18:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RJ White]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[snapshots]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/?p=533</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[April, 1933 &#8211; This photo was taken one week before construction was &#8220;temporarily&#8221; halted on the City Transportation Company&#8217;s (Now the City-Suburban Transit Authority) planned transit center on the Ostahanoc Riverfront. To be built in stages, the center would have facilities for regional and local buses, planned subway and elevated train lines and even an &#8220;auto-gyro landing pad.&#8221; However, an excessively rainy spring, leaks from the nearby Ostahanoc River and the economic realities of the Great Depression caused the CYC to suspend construction. This city did not receive nearly the amount of New Deal largess afforded its municipal bretheren. The site remained in a sort of half-built decaying limbo until 1949, when it was purchased from the cash-strapped transit company by the N.L. Lancaster Mfg. Co., a manufacturer of ball bearings, for the purpose of constructing a plant. The company went out of business in 1994 and the property has sat abandoned since then. CSTA repurchased the land several years ago for a new riverfront transit center and had to pay millions in environmental cleanup costs. Now that the site is ready, the once-again cash-strapped transit agency&#8217;s capital budget has become far too stretched in the current economic climate. Construction [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Dockside Residents Will Finally Ride Like The Rest of Us</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/01/12/dockside-residents-will-finally-ride-like-the-rest-of-us/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2009/01/12/dockside-residents-will-finally-ride-like-the-rest-of-us/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:21:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[art]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dockside]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sean Fraga]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/?p=498</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The City-Suburban Transit Authority has agreed to add full-length buses to lines serving the Dockside community, in a reversal of current policy and in response to harsh, ongoing criticism from local activists. For years, the CSTA had maintained that Dockside&#8217;s narrow streets made maneuvering full-size buses dangerous and difficult, while residents charged that the Authority was using &#8220;midget buses&#8221; to purposefully under-serve a historically poor district. &#8220;Hopefully, the introduction of full-length, full-size buses will lay to rest any concerns that the CSTA cares less about certain neighborhoods than others,&#8221; said Transit Authority Director Ray Martin. Dockside developed from a hard-scrabble industrial area into an artists&#8217; colony in the early 1970s, when famed surrealist artist-philosopher Lulu Parsons won the deed to the abandoned ICE-EE-COOL warehouse in a civil suit against the city over squatter&#8217;s rights. She rented the warehouse&#8217;s individual refrigerators as cheap studio space and used its massive shipping and receiving bays to stage group art exhibitions, attracting the work of Jean-David Miró, Karl Bjorn, and Geoff Duchamp (no relation to Marcel). &#8220;Lulu was a one-of-a-kind gal,&#8221; said her close friend and protege&#8217; Flora Turner. &#8220;She made Dockside—gave it birth, made it breathe, slapped some sense into it when it [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Don&#8217;t be Afraid of the Humpback Buses</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2008/06/30/dont-be-afraid-of-the-humpback-buses/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2008/06/30/dont-be-afraid-of-the-humpback-buses/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:44:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hoyt Schermerhorn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the city desk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/?p=272</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You may have noticed the City-Suburban Transit Authority’s fleet of buses are all starting to grow humps on their roofs. It is nothing to be alarmed about, since it is all part of the CSTA’s conversion to compressed natural gas-powered buses, something that sounds like an especially good idea with increased CSTA ridership (due to escalating gas prices) and today&#8217;s sixth city-wide Ozone Action Day in a row. After dozens of buses being in service for several months, the CSTA has finally issued a press release (reprinted in its entirety below) regarding the new cleaner buses: “The City-Suburban Transit Authority has introduced new buses using cleaner burning compressed natural gas. The buses are manufactured under license by the Gleason Coach Company, from a Canadian design, at a factory across the state in St. Alban’s County. They cost approximately $500,000 each and are cleaner burning than the diesel buses they are gradually replacing.” According to Monty Neville, local transit enthusiast and host of Bus World (monthly, on public access cable channel 114), the North Side and the Berman Gardens depots have totally converted to natural gas while the other twelve depots are slated to gradually convert over the next two years. [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Code 54 &#8211; Possible Body on the Tracks</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2008/01/02/code-54-possible-body-on-the-tracks/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2008/01/02/code-54-possible-body-on-the-tracks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:05:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[halloween]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hoboes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RJ White]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subway]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[urban exploration]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/2008/01/02/code-54-possible-body-on-the-tracks/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[No light rail or subway dispatcher in this city ever wants to get a Code 54, but that&#8217;s just what City-Suburban Transit Authority (CSTA) officials received when the 314 Orange Line local hit, then ran over what appeared to be &#8220;skeletal human remains&#8221; just past the Vespid Avenue stop Monday afternoon. The driver was virtually inconsolable, according to those on the scene, and passengers in the front car were understandably upset, as were thousands of other subway riders, when the incident caused delays up and down both the Orange and Brown lines. After questioning by authorities, the front car (it being a potential crime scene) was detached from the rest of the train and the passengers were ushered into more rearward cars and taken back to the Vespid Avenue platform, then upstairs to emergency buses which were trying to take up the transit slack. Police began their investigation of the scene. Was it a hobo who&#8217;d wandered into the tunnel long ago? That kid who was rumored to have disappeared while playing Dungeons and Dragons in the subway system in the 1970s? As soon as the &#8220;skeletal human remains&#8221; were recovered from underneath the train, however, it became clear that [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Betting on the Number Six Bus</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2007/10/03/betting-on-the-number-six-bus/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2007/10/03/betting-on-the-number-six-bus/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:39:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RJ White]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/2007/10/03/betting-on-the-number-six-bus/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There was a great deal of fanfare Monday, when the City-Suburban Transit Authority (CSTA) unveiled their new real-time transit information system, which will give riders access to bus or subway vehicle locations and schedule changes, via the internet, portable devices and small screens at many of the city&#8217;s transit stops. The three-year, $2.7 million project has been hailed as a technological marvel- an innovation, the likes of which has not been attempted by the city&#8217;s transit system before. This is not entirely true. In the late 1940s, the City Transit Company (or CTC, the precursor to the CSTA), had installed, in the old Central Station building, a massive device that purported to give up-to-date information for most of the system&#8217;s transit routes. The board was ten feet high and thirty feet long, mounted on the east wall of the station&#8217;s main concourse, updated manually by a team of five people who received updates from the central dispatch office via teletype. In 1954, at a great cost, an improved mechanical schedule board was unveiled, cited nationally as quite an achievement in mechanical digital display technology, even receiving a brief item in Popular Science. People loved watching the numbers and stop names [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>The Stop-Callers</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2007/08/15/the-stop-callers/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2007/08/15/the-stop-callers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:49:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inconsistencies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RJ White]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Watson University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/2007/08/15/the-stop-callers/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Usually, here at The City Desk, we like to offer well-researched accounts of the city&#8217;s past and present, based largely upon old newspaper articles, city/university archival materials and personal accounts. We like to stay away from posting apocrypha whenever possible. Today&#8217;s topic, though, is a bit harder to nail down using such traditional means. The idea behind it is simple, that of the public transit &#8220;Stop-Caller,&#8221; someone who would sit on the bus and call out the upcoming stops, so that passengers would have advance notice. Of course, on most transit systems these days, this is taken care of via an automated recording (when it works). Here, for a brief period (maybe) there were actually people assigned this job on specific transit routes. The thing is, no one can exactly agree as to when or why. One version has the Stop-Callers riding along on some of the City-Suburban Transit Authority&#8217;s (CSTA) major bus routes after a particularly awful snowstorm in 1931. The reasoning being that the drivers needed to concentrate on the road ahead- this other person, usually someone from the CSTA office, whomever could be spared that also had a good sense of the route. This was said to [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Batteries on the Tracks (or Lack Thereof)</title>
		<link>http://thecitydesk.net/2007/05/28/batteries-on-the-tracks-or-lack-thereof/</link>
		<comments>http://thecitydesk.net/2007/05/28/batteries-on-the-tracks-or-lack-thereof/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 May 2007 01:15:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>The City Desk</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Brown Line]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RJ White]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subway]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Watson University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thecitydesk.net/2007/05/28/batteries-on-the-tracks-or-lack-thereof/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last fall, Watson University instructor Susan Jakovac was looking for a new project to use in her Statistical Analysis studio class, but she kept coming up short. Jakovac wanted something with real world application, that would require her students to do some hard data collection and observation and nothing seemed quite right. That is, until one afternoon, while standing on the platform at the Osberger Avenue subway stop waiting for the Brown Line, she happened to look down at the tracks in sheer boredom. She realized that something was missing. &#8220;I hadn&#8217;t really noticed before- but there used to be so many batteries- mostly double and triple-A- down between the tracks,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I always figured that it was from people discarding them from their CD players and Walkmen- I looked around and saw about six people right there listening to iPods and the wheels started turning.&#8221; The wheel-turning led to a bit of digging and some luck in the records of the City-Suburban Transit Authority (CSTA). Though it led to cost overruns and a great deal of annoyance on the part of CSTA employees, Damon Flynn, a political appointee who ran the authority from 1997-2000, had a touch of [...]]]></description>
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