A Bridge Escalator Reaches The Top—But Not the Bottom

 by Barry Owens

At the foot of the stairs at the Vesey Street Bridge, which spans West Street, security guard Lamar Robinson fields questions daily about the recently installed escalator.
People with strollers wanting to cross West Street at Vesey have the choice of crossing the busy street at grade, or doing some heavy lifting up the stairs to get to the escalator. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum

“‘What the hell?’” is the most common, Robinson said. “They say it in all kinds of different ways, but that’s what they mean when they see this escalator.”


The east side escalator, installed in June at a cost of $600,000 doesn’t reach the ground. Not even close. A set of steps, seven of them, had to be installed to close the gap.

“The first time I saw it I couldn’t believe it,” said Judy Duffy, assistant district manager for Community Board 1.

Nor could board member Barry Skolnick, a frequent critic of the lifts installed on the West Street bridges.

“What kind of planning is that?” he said.

“They did the best they could,” explains Tom Temistokle, a civil engineer with the state’s Department of Transportation.

Temistokle said utility lines were discovered underneath the sidewalk when construction crews attempted to install the escalator and they made a decision “on the fly” to install it off the ground.

“The whole project was very fast tracked,” he said of the bridge that was installed as a temporary replacement for a bridge farther south that was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

He pointed out that the west side escalator, installed in April, reaches the top and the bottom and that an elevator would soon be installed.
During a recent afternoon on the bridge, some passersby said they never noticed the east side escalator’s short comings.

Nannies and parents who did not want to carry strollers up the short staircase bypassed the bridge all together, opting to cross West Street at the crosswalk.

But messenger Vladimir Polyakin smiled. He crosses the bridge at least a half-dozen times a day, he said, and seemed grateful for anything that would make the trip easier.

“The stairs used to be this big,” he said, raising his hands above his head. He brought a hand down and pushed his thumb and forefinger together.

“Now they are only this big.”
At the Vesey Street Bridge, pedestrians walk up seven steps in order to