Questions from a tourist (whatzit?)

I visit NYC about once a year. Here's my list of questions from this visit:

At 34th street and 7th avenue (northbound), I waited to talk to the station attendant. The woman in front of me wanted to get to some station on the green line (I assume upper East Side). The station agent advised Woman to (A) walk to 6th Avenue, (B) take an uptown train (N, R, or W (?)) thence (C) transfer to the 4/5/6 at 59th street. Wouldn't it have been faster to take the 1 to Times Square, thence the S to Grand Central, thence the 4/5/6 to her destination? When I suggested this to the station agent, he looked at me as if to say, mind-your-own-business. (Being a tourist, I shut up)

At Times Square, #1 track southbound, north end, there's a white flashing light as the train enters the station. Whatzit mean? Halfway down the platform is a red-over-white signal. What does that mean? (I know what the red-over-red signal at the south end of the station is for?

At Grand Central, on the south shuttle track (where Popeye played cat-and-mouse in French Connection), sits a train with what appears to be yellow & red shelf paper with "UNI GLO" and "THE HEAT GENERATION" all over it. The train was not in use as a shuttle on Saturday evening. What is this?

I took the #1 to 225th street. I noticed the vertical-lift bridge over the Harlem River. Is this bridge ever lifted? Is the Harlem River navigable? The same could be said for the Metro-North bridge over the Harlem River.

Lastly, while not really a transit question: Due to some geographic anomaly, the 225th street station is in New York County (aka Manhattan), not Bronx County. Did they re-route the Harlem Rive at some point? If I had walked around the area, is the New York/Bronx county line definitively marked?

Harlem River is navigable and all the bridges are exercised on a regular basis. (Someplace I have a photo of the Broadway Bridge being opened and the roadway at the level of the tracks, interesting perspective)

Scrap subway cars are loaded by crane onto a barge at the 207th Street yard. When the barge is full, tugs take it through the waterway and the bridges are opened.

If you subscribe to the MTA text messaging system, it'll let you know when the bridge is scheduled to be opened.

That UNI-QLO train is just one of the shuttle trains, MTA gets paid to have the advertising wrap inside and outside that train. I do wonder why they don't start doing that for more trains though.

http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/ ... hp?t=14295
this might help answer your signal question.

though there are several reasons that the station agent could have suggested the alternate route, the most logical one is this:
both Times Square station and Grand central are very complicated and the woman was probably a tourist.
the alternate route the station agent suggested does direct the person to stations that are less crowded and easier to navigate.

likewise, one could also take the 1 up to 42nd, transfer to the N,R,W there, then transfer to the 4,5,6 at 59th. that way, the person wouldn't have to walk outside. idk why the station attendant didn't suggest that route.

Yellowspoon wrote:I visit NYC about once a year. Here's my list of questions from this visit:
....
Lastly, while not really a transit question: Due to some geographic anomaly, the 225th street station is in New York County (aka Manhattan), not Bronx County. Did they re-route the Harlem Rive at some point? If I had walked around the area, is the New York/Bronx county line definitively marked?

The Spuyten Duyvil creek was originally north of the Marble Hill area. When a new ship canal was dug in 1895 (at 225th St) it made Marble Hill an Island. In 1914 it was filled in attaching the Marble Hill island to the Bronx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spuyten_Duyvil_Creek

I don't know if there is or ever was a sign showing where Manhattan ends and the Bronx begins.

Marble Hill has legally been part of Manhattan even though on the Bronx mainland (it does have a Bronx ZIP code).

The wrapped train on the shuttle is used for advertising promotions. Various sponsors wrap an entire shuttle train inside and out with a promotional ad theme.

Regarding the Marble Hill neighborhood, there is no current sign or marking of the border between Manhattan and the Bronx. Until about 25 years ago, each borough had different- colored street signs. Manhattan's were black on yellow. The Bronx's were white on blue. Thus back then you could tell when you changed boroughs from the different-colored street signs. The boundary (former course of Spuyten Duyvil Creek) runs north from the Harlem River through the new Target store, then along the west side of Exterior Street (Exterior Street marked the "exterior" of the Bronx) to Broadway, then westward running south of 230th Street and through the U-Haul building, then curving south to the current course of the Harlem River, near Kennedy High School. The original 17th-century King's Bridge between Manhattan and the mainland ran on Kingsbridge Avenue, between 230th and 228th Streets. The avenue is named Kingsbridge Avenue at 230th, but Marble Hill Avenue at 228th. It changes names (without any markings) in the middle of the block.