A day in NYC waiting for the LIRR to start up
Eli Scalere, 19, of Garden City, sitting on the floor of Penn Station soon after the LIRR started up again. Credit: Matthew Chayes
Commuters aren't home free just yet. Some aren't home at all yet.
Eli Scalere, 19, of Garden City, had just arrived back from a visit to see family up in Albany and was sitting on the floor of Penn Station soon after the restoration of train service.
"There's no trains back, so I decided to make a day out of it," said Scalere, an Arizona State University rising sophomore: He'll hang out with friends, get lunch, get dinner and will later ride a Huntington line train to New Hyde Park, to be picked up.
On Saturday, he was planning to ride the LIRR into the city to get to Penn and then ride the Amtrak train at Moynihan Train Hall, heading upstate.
But that was day one of the strike — and no LIRR. So what would have been a roughly 40-minute ride on the railroad turned into a 90-minute car ride in traffic, courtesy of his parents, who then had to do the commute back too.
"I just barely made my train," he said. He explained: "It was just a pain in the butt."
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
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