Can the Second Avenue Subway Bring New Yorkers Back to the Upper East Side?
Ah, the Second Avenue Subway. It’s been the topic of discussion for over 96 years (yes, the line has been in the works since 1920) and it is finally nearing completion despite reports of delays due to last minute design changes and absentee workers. But the question is, will the Second Avenue subway revitalize the Upper East Side?
Wednesday Martin, the author of the eye-opening, amusing and often shocking anthropological memoir of life on the Upper East Side, “Primates of Park Avenue,” says, “What a lot of people who don’t live here don’t know, and what many of us who do live here know, is that there is not one Upper East Side. There are at least two. The Upper East Side west of Lexington has pretty much always been and remains expensive, fancy, and established. It is the eastern UES or FEUES (Far East Upper East Side; or Yorkville) that has undergone so many demographic shifts—from slum to chic to post college kids to young families. The Second Avenue subway will bring another shift.”
