How To Survive A Fall Onto The Subway Tracks

If you find yourself on the trackbed in the headlights of an oncoming subway car, roll into the trough between the rails. Just ask this guy:

Being a subway buff saved Daniel Silverio’s life — he knew exactly what to do when he stumbled from a downtown Wall Street subway platform into the path of a No. 2 train.

“I was walking on the platform when I hit something or bumped into something — I really can’t recall,” Silverio, 29, said yesterday from a bed at Bellevue Hospital, a day after his harrowing brush with death.

“I remember being airborne, and the train coming my way.”

Silverio, a stockbroker from Brooklyn, had the presence of mind to roll into the trough between the track rails — and luckily for him, the skilled train operator hit the brakes in the nick of time.

“The next thing I knew, I wake up and look over and see the third rail,” Silverio said.

“When I was down there, I knew not to touch anything.”

. . .

When he was a kid, his pals teased him about his being a transit nerd. “I used to be ridiculed,” Silverio said. “For once in my life it came in handy.”

Totally Tuggish

The Transport Workers Union wants to penalize workers who crossed the picket line by fining them, the Daily News reports:

A Transport Workers Union Local 100 committee passed a resolution earlier this week mandating strikebreakers pay fines to the union’s Widows and Orphans Fund.

The fines would mirror those being imposed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the more than 33,000 bus and subway workers who walked off the job Dec. 20. That’s two days for each day of the strike — or six days’ worth of wages.

“Those who crossed the picket line willfully damaged our ability to sustain the picket and jeopardized our ability to organize any necessary future strike action,” the track division committee said in a statement.

The resolution now goes to the local’s executive board, which meets Tuesday. It also would strip strikebreakers of their seniority privileges — the ticket to choice assignments with the best conditions and overtime opportunities.

How is this not like the mafia?

From The Absurd To The Equally Absurd

Yesterday the Daily News reported about the $150,000 Valentine’s Day extravaganza. Today, they highlight the White Castle Valentine’s Day special:

White Castle wants couples who love little burgers as much as each other to share Valentine’s Day romance over a bag of belly bombs. They’re even taking reservations.

“Some people come for a laugh, but most have a story to tell about their first date at a White Castle, or maybe they went there after the prom,” said Kelly Collins, a marketing supervisor for the chain, who said in other cities some dates arrive blindfolded or in limos.

Next month, the fast-food chain famous for its bite-size burgers will offer a Valentine’s Day experience – a far cry from the $150,000 extravaganza offered by the Buckingham Hotel in midtown that was profiled in yesterday’s Daily News.

That romantic getaway featured a private jet, penthouse suite, Nobu dinner, champagne and a Fifth Avenue shopping spree. But V-Day at White Castle means 49-cent hamburgers you can buy by the sack.

Canoodling couples will arrive at the franchise of their choosing – 48 in the New York area are participating in the promotion – and be greeted at the door by a hostess dressed to the nines, instead of in the usual White Castle uniform.

The lovers will then be escorted to their cloth-covered, candlelit table as romantic music is piped in.

“People love this,” said Collins.

Well, maybe not everyone.

“I wouldn’t dump him but I would laugh and say, ‘Let’s leave,'” said Edie Sherman, 26, who has been with her boyfriend for seven years.

“I wouldn’t dare for Valentine’s Day. Any other day, I would, but not Valentine’s Day,” said Mike Mazzeo, 20, who has been dating for five months. “What would she tell her girlfriends?”

It’s Like “The Doors Of Georgian Dublin” Except It’s Aluminum And Vinyl Siding. And It’s In Greenpoint.

I love it — first, Best of Greenpoint Aluminum and Vinyl Siding, now the remix [Link via].

Peace Is Never Dead Because People Want Peace

And here we go again. The MTA puts out their first post-rejection offer, one that is worse than what was agreed to following the strike:

Some labor experts said the authority’s move was intended to pressure union leaders to accept binding arbitration — but was likely to heighten labor unrest.

The authority’s new offer keeps the provision that union members disliked most, a requirement that workers begin contributing 1.5 percent of their wages toward health-insurance premiums, and revives a proposal that had been taken off the table, that new workers contribute more to their pensions than current workers. It also includes provisions dropped early in the negotiations, like the expansion of one-person train operation.

In addition, the authority’s new offer eliminates a provision that delighted many workers — a pension refund that would give thousands of dollars to about 20,000 union members who made overpayments from 1994 to 2001.

The offer added yet another surprise chapter to a labor epic that led to failed negotiations in December, a 60-hour strike, a hard-wrought agreement that ended the walkout, and then, finally, the general membership’s rejecting the overall contract settlement by just 7 votes.

While making its new, tougher offer, the transportation authority took steps to move the dispute to binding arbitration.

While some experts said the offer increased the possibility of another strike, others described it as a tactical move devised to show dissidents that the deal rejected last week was fair. Despite the request for arbitration, both sides could still come together to reach a new deal. A spokesman for Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union said last night that the union’s leaders were studying the authority’s new proposal and were not ready to comment.