West 81st Side road. Credit score Hiroshi Kyoto by way of Wkimedia. By means of Carol Tannenhauser I are living around the boulevard from the West 81st Side road and Central Park West subway station, which is at the southwest nook close to the American Museum of Herbal Historical past. On June 17, development will start at the elevator on the most sensible of the station, which is able to go back and forth 3 ranges down the Ny cliff to the subway. It’s anticipated to take 3 years to finish. I earn a living from home and my workplace window overlooks the station. I temporarily discovered what this activity supposed to me. Now not the confusion and disruption of development, however, worse, the noise. I believed impatient automotive drivers leaning on their horns to pass 79th Side road have been dangerous. Now there may also be jackhammers and different vibration waves – from 7am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, excluding occasionally when paintings finally ends up to 10pm and takes position on Saturdays and Sundays. I used to be upset. My house, my place of job, my sanctuary is beneath assault, actually, till 2027. Then, I had some other thought – that of Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, the man I interviewed in 2018 at a gathering there, when the a hundred and tenth Side road subway. a station at the identical line was once being repaired with out an elevator. 9 years previous, in 2009, Blair-Goldensohn, then 33, a Google engineer with a spouse and two small children, was once hit at the head through a 100-pound rotting department that fell on his common travel. to the subway. Central Park. He was once in a coma for a month and because then he was once in a wheelchair, his again was once partly damaged, his decrease again was once paralyzed. “It was once very dangerous,” he informed me that day on the assembly. He stated it modified him from being a “personal individual” to an “recommend for other folks with disabilities.” He was once wearing an indication that learn “Let's Cross Up!” with an image of a dinosaur on it. He defined that it was once made through his 11-year-old daughter on the time. “It has a dinosaur to turn that those stations are dinosaurs,” he stated, “and in addition, that the station subsequent to the Herbal Historical past Museum not has an elevator.” I emailed Blair-Goldensohn about her response to listening to that the 81st Side road station was once getting an elevator. How does that make him really feel? I requested. I informed him my tale, and his reminiscence “makes me say, ' what? I'll maintain it…even the noise.' When it will get worse – and it’s going to – I simply call to mind you and remind myself that it issues. ” And that's what I wish to do. I've by no means heard of Blair-Goldensohn ahead of, however I'm now not positive the e-mail I used is present. I do know he's nonetheless lively, as a result of I examine him within the 2023 New York Occasions. I additionally learn that he's an Higher West Sider for a very long time. I consider it. that he and his daughter are taking part in the tale. I reckon she can be about twenty years outdated when the elevator is done, now not too outdated to visit the museum together with her father.
Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, 2018. Picture through Carol Tannenhauser. Subscribe to West Aspect Rag's FREE e-mail e-newsletter right here
