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'Quirky Tram Once Again Delighting Its Riders'


The Roosevelt Island Tramway returned to service on Tuesday after a renovation project. Improvements include faster travel times, a sturdier cabin and the ability to run each car independently.

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: November 30, 2010 The New York Times Company

In moments real and imagined, the Roosevelt Island Tramway can seem like a fragile way to get around town. In 2006, it left passengers stranded hundreds of feet in the air above the East River for as long as 10 hours; in the movies, it has a tendency to be hijacked by supervillains.
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The Roosevelt Island Tramway making its first trip open to the public on Tuesday after being closed in March for renovations.

Even for its 5,000 regular daily riders, the tram would seem limited, depositing commuters onto a wind-swept street far from the subway and directly across from the clatter of the Queensboro Bridge.

Yet to its small but devoted clientele, the Roosevelt Island Tramway is indispensable. So when the diminutive red gondola shut down in March for renovations, life on this sliver-shaped community did not seem the same.

Some worried about the steep, failure-prone escalators that lead to the island’s subway station on the F line, its only other form of mass transit offering a direct ride to Manhattan. Curiosity-seeking tourists ceased to fill the island’s restaurants. Commutes, perhaps improbably, stretched longer and longer, even though the F train travels to far more parts of the city than the tram.

Despite the tram’s shortcomings, residents say it is a relief that their unique form of transport returned on Tuesday, only two months behind schedule and with the features of a $25 million repair effort: faster travel times, of about three minutes; a sturdier cabin, with less sashaying from winds; and the ability to run both tram cars independently, which will increase rush-hour service. Plus, it has bigger windows.

It seems the F line, where one out of five trains routinely ran late, did not quite make up for the loss of a unique mode of transport that seems more suited to a Swiss ski chalet than an urban metropolis.

“If you are down on that platform at 8:30 in the morning, you have to let three or four or five trains go by before you get on that train,” said Matthew Katz, the president of the Roosevelt Island Resident Association. “It has been very difficult.”

Jose Valero, 27, a film student, commutes from Roosevelt Island to classes in Union Square. On Tuesday, he was planning to switch back to the tram, even though it forces him to walk a few blocks to connect with the No. 6 train. He added that the aerial trip reminded him of similar rides in Granada, Spain.

Bob Curry, 64, who works in the financial district, said his commutes on the tram or the F train took about the same amount of time, despite the 10-minute walk to the No. 6 train from the tram’s Manhattan terminal at Second Avenue. But, he added, there is no comparing the views.

“It’s about the ambience: it’s an immensely enjoyable way to see the city,” Mr. Curry said. “It puts a smile on your face. It’s just glorious.”

Even those who benefited from the temporary halt to the tram’s service say they welcome its return. Business at Recep Maz’s fruit stand, outside the island’s subway entrance, has jumped 5 percent since the tram stopped running. But restoring the tram “will be good for the island, so I cannot be selfish,” Mr. Maz said.

Sky trolleys are more often used to span peaks of snow and ice rather than glass and steel. But in 1976, a tram was chosen as the stopgap transportation measure for a rapidly developing island still waiting for a subway station.

Officials promised to add subway service within a few years of the tram’s debut. Instead, the station did not open until 1989. By that time, islanders were reluctant to give up their three-minute commute with the million-dollar views.

Still, the F train has proved more popular than its above-ground counterpart. About 5,000 trips are taken on the tram on an average weekday in both directions; the F train stop generates 5,300 trips leaving Roosevelt Island.

For some, the tram remains more a novelty than anything else. “When you have kids visiting, they think it’s a ride at Disney World,” said John Bermingham, who owns an antiques shop around the corner from the Manhattan terminal of the tram.

And for many New Yorkers, the tram may be best known for the notorious episode when dozens of passengers were stuck dangling for hours after a malfunction in 2006. The riders had to be transferred midair to a rescue gondola.

That experience, of course, pales to the tram’s travails in the 1981 film “Nighthawks,” where Sylvester Stallone faced off against a European terrorist who hijacked the tram to trap officials from the United Nations. Or the scene in “Spider-Man” in which the Green Goblin forces the hero to choose between saving a hijacked tram filled with children or his love interest, Mary Jane. (Spidey, of course, saves everyone.)

Leslie Torres, chief executive of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, which runs the tram, was asked if it was disquieting that cinematic depictions of her charge inevitably involve a hostage crisis. “Drama is what people like in film,” Ms. Torres said. “There’s no question that’s what sells.”

When the tram first opened in 1976, Abraham D. Beame, then the mayor, christened the vessel with a bottle of Champagne — promptly soaking the leader of the City Council. There was Champagne again this time around, but officials said they were taking precautions. “We don’t actually want to smack the tram with the bottle,” Ms. Torres said.

Former Representative Rick A. Lazio, whose wife and daughter were among the passengers trapped on the tram during the 2006 incident, said he was glad to see that officials had installed a more reliable infrastructure for the tram. Mr. Lazio said he planned to take a ride soon to check out the spruced-up trip.

“I would take it; they would take it,” Mr. Lazio said of his family. “You’ve got to have some confidence in basic public competence.”

C. J. Hughes contributed reporting.

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