New York City briefs

2-year-old survives fall from third floor

A 2-year-old boy fell from a third-story window in lower Manhattan early yesterday and miraculously survived, police said.

Around 1 a.m., the boy fell from a third-story window at an apartment building on Chrystie Street, but luckily his fall was broken by a mesh screen covering a row of garbage bins on the street. His family was home at the time.

He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was in stable condition with internal injuries, police said.

No charges have been filed in the incident, which remains under investigation.

Q train will add local stops later this year

Late-night riders on the Broadway line will be able to catch the Q train starting late this year, New York City Transit announced yesterday.

Beginning in December, the Q will make local stops in Manhattan between midnight and 6:30 a.m. The train now runs express and skips five stops from Prince Street to 49th Street.

"As we saw increased ridership at local stations along the Broadway line, it simply made sense to provide these customers with more service," said transit president Carmen Bianco.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority expects riders at local Broadway stations to see travel times cut by an average of six minutes. For riders who catch the Q at express stops, their trip will be about a minute longer, but the MTA said there are passengers who would no longer have to walk to an express stop to catch the train.

The new overnight service will cost the MTA $73,000 a year.

New funding needed for infrastructure

New York's aging infrastructure needs billions of dollars to be brought up to a state of good repair, but experts yesterday said new streams of revenue must be devised to fill the hole left by Washington.

At a panel hosted by the Association for a Better New York, "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, who described himself as a "ghost of infrastructure past," warned that the serious conditions he saw as a city transportation commissioner during the 1970s and '80s could return.

Under Schwartz's time leading the Department of Transportation, the Williamsburg Bridge closed, cables snapped on the Brooklyn Bridge and part of the West Side Highway collapsed, as did part of the FDR Drive.

"I'd like to tell you those days are behind us," Schwartz said. "We can very well have those problems tomorrow on one of our structures."

Since those past decades, investment was made on city bridges, putting them in much better shape. But the new DOT commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, noted that "enormous federal contributions and enormous federal funds were brought to bear."

Now the federal share of investments in bridges and transit, she said, "has basically flatlined, if not declined. Likewise, city and state coffers aren't flowing either."