Edition: U.S. / Global


Published: March 17, 2002

The Great Jones

Q. East Third Street becomes Great Jones Street between Broadway and the Bowery. Who was Jones and what was so great about him?

A. Jones is Samuel Jones, a lawyer sometimes called Father of the New York Bar. He owned the land on which Great Jones Street now runs and bequeathed the property to the city with the caveat that any street that ran through the land be named for him.


In his desire to be remembered, Jones may have linked himself with a different aspect of the city's culture. The slang term ''jones,'' meaning an addiction to drugs, is said to have originated among addicts who lived in Great Jones Alley, off Great Jones Street, between Broadway and Lafayette Street.

Walk/Don't Walk/Pray

Q. When I was crossing a street in Greenwich Village, the crossing signal seemed to change unusually quickly. Do some signals give you more time to cross than others?

A. Yes, and the engineering that goes into the timing is enough to make a pedestrian's head spin. Michael Primeggia, deputy commissioner for traffic operations for the Department of Transportation, which oversees the city's 11,200 intersections with signals, understands it.

The differences in crossing time, he says, are based on several factors, among them width of a street, volume of traffic, type of traffic (cars or trucks), what other signals up and down the street are doing, number of side streets near the intersection, vehicle acceleration and time of day.

Most of the city's traffic lights operate on a 60-, 90- or 120-second cycle, covering the amount of time it takes a light to go from red to green to yellow and back to red. In the Village, where streets are narrow and commercial traffic relatively light, the cycles tend to be short. On an extremely wide street like Queens Boulevard, the cycle may be as long as 150 seconds.

The average speed of a New Yorker crossing the street is 3.5 feet per second, and Mr. Primeggia says the minimum amount of time anyone would get to cross the street is 7 or 8 seconds before ''don't walk'' begins to flash. Most streets require more time, and if there is a median, the flashing ''don't walk'' signals are timed to get you at least to that point.

The ''don't walk'' signals are intended to give pedestrians time to finish crossing the street and, despite common practice, are not invitations to sprint into the road in the hope of beating traffic.

Where Eagles Dared

Q. My grandfather said he used to watch ski jumpers in New York when he was a boy. Where would he have seen them?

A. Lake Placid had nothing on Staten Island in the 1930's. Assuming your grandfather is old enough, it is entirely possible he saw ski jumpers break the chains of gravity ever so briefly or feel the agony of defeat at Todt Hill, the city's highest natural point. In the late 30's, up to 3,000 people would gather between Staten Island Boulevard and Little Clove Road to watch local amateurs do their stuff.

In the first year of competition, leaps of 60 to 70 feet were recorded. The chute was lengthened the next winter and jumps as long as 130 feet were recorded.

Since this was one of the southernmost ski jumps on the East Coast, the caretakers had to improvise when nature would not provide enough snow. Reusable straw was spread out over the entire hill.

For those who preferred their skis on terra firma, a slalom course was laid out on Todt Hill's eastern side.


Drawing (Stuart Goldenberg)