Car Park in Brooklyn (later saw another identical in Tribeca - near World Trade Center). Single open yard in downtown. Each parking spot had a car lift which raised the car and allowed another car to be parked underneath. Hydraulic lift, like in a garage.
Subway
Excellent - we didn't wait long (max 10min) ever (unless we watched a train arrive and depart and then realise we were meant to be on it). Express and local stop routes, safe, noisy, dirty steps from the street level, some stations were clean (like Grand Central Station), others quite dirty.
Always a little warmer than outside, noisy at times, very crowded at peak hour, beautiful signs and decorations made from tiles, good signage, excellent metrocard system, good maps. Some new trains have electronic signs and audio messages - sign with lights showing which station the train is at on a strip map, light flashes to show current station. Very new carriages have LED display showing destination, route number, next station, time.
Automated audio messages are clear, undistorted, neutral accent - very easy to understand. Doors on all carriages are automatic and we nearly got caught in them a couple of times. Entrances are from the street level and are steps down under the street. Some entrances are direction dependant - we needed to know whether we were wanting to do uptown or downtown before selecting the street level entrance.
What was simple to understand was the destinations were shown as Uptown, Downtown, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, which were easy to learn. For example when in the city we needed to head uptown, on the green line to get back to the apartment. During our week in NYC we had a week pass and it was great just to get on and off the bus and subway as often as we chose to.
8 Carriages - whole length of station - carriages are long with 4 doors on each side. More modern trains have electronic displays and audio messages announcing stations, destination and train number/letter. One has to get on quickly especially when there's a lot of people geting on as the doors close and can hit you. There is nearly always people standing up, sometimes it is like the San Fran cable cars - just when you thought there was no more room, a dozen more people get on.
Taxi 'cabs' - don't follow road rules (well that's how it seems) from driving in bus only lanes to stopping anywhere (including in interseactions) to drop/collect people. People seem to stand at the roadside or partway into the roadway with their arm raised, sometimes waving, at cabs. Just like in the movies. They are all yellow and seem to be the same make and model of car (probably not, just look it). The price is shown on the side of the door
