The Lexington Avenue stop on the E/V line has exits to 3rd Avenue on the east end as well as the Lex Ave exits to the west. If you get out at the 3rd Ave end and bear left as you leave (as one would if one were headed downtown-wards), you come out from underneath the rather angular building next to the Lipstick Building.
There’s the famous long long long long long escalator that brings you up from the nether regions of the earth’s mantle up to the level where the MetroCard vending machines and the turnstiles are at. This rant isn’t about that one. It’s usually working, and the folks riding it are even usually compliant with “climb on the left, ride on the right”.
No, it’s the short mundane little escalator that goes from that level up to the sidewalk level. It’s not a horribly imposing distance to climb steps the old-fashioned way, but if one is going to insert an escalator into the works, would one not generally have at least a residual interest in having it work?
I’ve lived in the area, both south and east of 3rd @ 52nd, for a decade, and hence exit from that particular mouse-hole on a regular basis. I would estimate that I’ve seen that escalator turned on and running perhaps one day out of every 600.
For months on end, it’s not running, it’s not being worked on, people climb up and down it as an auxiliary set of steps when the regular steps are crowded during rush hours.
Eventually, yellow tape or wooden barricades blockade entrance or exit, or occasionally an entire workspace structure is built around it. Wow, they are finally fixing the bloody escalator. (Either that or replacing it with a waterslide.)
Then the construction paraphernalia disappears. Escalator stands there, not running. People revert back to using it as an auxiliary set of steps.
Two years & seven months later, one day: well hello, live workers, things all ripped up, gears visible, lanterns in deployment, toolboxes abound. They’re really fixing it this time!. Another day, another day. Hmm, no workment, but it’s all blocked off with construction tape.
Then the tape disappears, eventually. People revert back to using it as an auxiliary set of steps.
Count forward a year and eleven months. Wow! Look! It’s WORKING, it’s RUNNING! (Too bad it’s roped off behind a construction barrier preventing anyone from getting ONTO it yet, but presumably that will come down soon, they’ve got it RUNNING! Who’da thunk it?)
Weekend goes by. Hmm, not working any more. Still boxed up inside wooden barriers.
Eight months go by. Snowstorm. Oh look someone has ripped aside the construction barriers so they can go up or down the stalled escalator.
Soon people revert back to using it as an auxiliary staircase.
Three years and a month go by. Oh, look, they’ve got the escalator cordoned off with contruction tape and someone has ripped up the bottom 12 steps and you can see gears and stuff!
End Loop, Repeat until “hell” = “frozen over”.
Aw, c’mon dammit! Just admit it: you do not have a fucking escalator. It has never been a fucking escalator. Quit cordoning it off, it makes the steps more crowded during rush hour. If you want to do something USEFUL, rip it out and put in a third flight of steps. Bloody hell.
If the folks responsible for the long long long long long escalator below can keep it running pretty much in perpetuity, what in the name of Cthulhu’s barf bucket can be so wrong with this short little one that y’all absolutely positively CANNOT get it to run? Whatever…give it up. If it requires skills, you obviously ain’t got 'em. Maybe you need to hire an exorcist, I dunno. But drop the pretense that you’re fixing the escalator. We know better.
