Neil deMause

Just when you thought it was safe to go back underground:

The announcement that video ads are coming to the subway — in the form of playoff baseball highlights beamed by TBS to specially-equipped cars on the 42nd Street Shuttle — was met mostly with goggling over the technology that embeds TV screens in train car walls, mixed with plaintive sighs that, given what MTA chair Jay Walder charitably called the authority’s “uncertain finances,” watching clips of Reds-Padres games was better than yet another fair hike. … [read more]

Beneath the longest headline known to man or blog, I examine the possible fallout of the NYC subway’s first-ever naming-rights deal:

That resounding “Ewwwww!” you heard emanating from Brooklyn was the sound of locals discovering that as part of Bruce Ratner’s revamped deal with the MTA for the Atlantic Yards site, he’s set to get naming rights to the Atlantic Avenue subway station. If it’s approved by the MTA board tomorrow as expected, the new station name — which as Ben Kabak notes at Second Avenue Sagas would bear the unwieldy moniker “Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street/Barclays Center — would presumably be put in place once Ratner’s new basketball arena opens, which is set to happen any century now… [read more]