She starts and ends her school day by choosing between two walking routes: one safer path that takes 35 minutes, and one creepy, obstacle-ridden one that takes 20. The shorter route requires trudging over a pedestrian bridge with dislodged cement stairs, uneven surfaces, loitering men, piles of garbage and poor lighting — despite the school’s extensive lobbying effort for an overhaul.
Rodriquez’s walk home on a recent Wednesday was typical: she watched her steps carefully as she made her way up the broken stairs and around the shards of glass. Nearing the top, Rodriguez prepared to hold her breath, because it always smells like urine and vomit. On this day, there was a pile of feces along the side.
“See right there?” She pointed to the pile. “That’s the bridge.”
Pan American High School settled into a spacious former factory building near the 94th Street bridge in August after spending a year at a temporary site in Long Island City. But shortly after the school opened its doors, administrators began hearing complaints about the bridge, which shortens the trip to the subway stops at 90th Street and Junction Boulevard, which most of the 250 students use.
The school’s entire student population emigrated from Latin America, and part of Pan American’s mission is to integrate lessons about civil liberties and immigrant rights into class curricula. So after listening to the onslaught of complaints, director of School Programs and Latin American studies teacher Carly Fox decided to do some real-world teaching about civil rights.
With the help of the school’s nonprofit community partner, Make the Road New York, Fox oversaw a petition drive. She and 40 parents collected about 240 signatures from students and teachers. Students delivered the petitions to the office of state Assemblyman Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) in December 2008.
The petitions are still on the desk of Peralta’s chief of staff Yonel Letellier. He says a phone call with Fox after the bridge was repainted in May 2009 left him understanding that the school was satisfied.
“The fact is that something was done, and it was done quickly,” Letellier says, referencing the paint job. “And when I’m told something has been done, we close the file right there. We don’t go out and see it. We have too many cases to do that.”
But the bridge was soon covered in graffiti again.
“We do have to follow up,” said Letellier, adding that he will contact Fox. “But we’re a small office in a big community, and things don’t happen overnight. These things take time.”
The bridge itself is under the city Department of Transportation’s jurisdiction because it connects city street space, a DOT spokesperson explained, but the bridge goes over Long Island Railroad tracks, which is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s responsibility. The MTA handles the area directly surrounding the bridge.
“This all just feels so overwhelming because here we have several different institutions,” Fox says. “Another person says you have to go the comptroller. Others say the politicians. But we’ve called all the offices. We’ve told them. We’ve mailed petitions. To me it just looks like people don’t really care.”
The DOT deemed the bridge in “fair condition” in its 2008 bridge report — which means it falls somewhere between “usurious deterioration or not functioning as originally designed” and “minor deterioration.”
Spurred by calls from MTRNY, Maura McCarthy, the Queens commissioner for the DOT, came to see the bridge for herself on March 27. Fox, joined by eight parents and 12 students at the meeting with McCarthy, said McCarthy promised to level out the stairs by filling in the chipped blocks of cement; clean the embankments; put a sign up explaining how to report damage; and paint the bridge.
DOT is one for four on its promises.
“They painted the bridge, and that was exciting — big moment,” Fox said. “But now it looks horrible. We knew they’d just graffiti over it again, and then when nothing else was improved after, we were actually very angry.”
Fox sent a memo to McCarthy’s office in May reminding her of the problems and asking for an update. She never heard back. In response to press inquiries, a DOT spokesperson said the agency is waiting for permission from the Long Island Rail Road to access the area underneath the 94th Street bridge to conduct a full inspection and determine its current condition. The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say why the agency required another inspection, nor how long it would likely take to get LIRR permission.
Fox sent another memo to McCarthy’s office on Oct. 9 but is still waiting to see major action taken toward the bridge.
The Department of Design Construction, the city’s primary capital construction project manager, has been assigned the task of overseeing the bridge’s long-term overhaul, according to department spokesman Craig Chin. But the project hasn’t been budgeted by DOT, Chin said, and without funding, no timetable has been set.
“As soon as DOT allocates the funding for that portion [of the five-bridge project in which the 94th Street bridge is included], we can move ahead,” Chin said.
The students are particularly eager for someone to install lights on or near the bridge, which currently has no illumination. With the daylight hours shortening by the day, students have told administrators they’re afraid to cross after dusk. Two of Rodriguez’s fellow students, Guiselle Montecel and Samantha Martillo, avoid staying after school for tutorials and club meetings they’d like to attend because they’re scared of crossing at night.
“It gets dark and sometimes there are strange guys sitting—guys that look bad,” Montecel says.
“I wish they had security cameras,” Martillo adds. “But that would never happen.”
Once Rodriguez makes it around the corner after making it across the bridge, she breathes through her nose again and begins the easier leg of her trip home.
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