{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://maloney.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/second-avenue-subway-opening-excites-upper-east-side-restaurateurs", "Second Avenue subway opening excites Upper East Side restaurateurs, officials", "2016-12-20", "2016", "2016-12", "Democrat", "House", "NY", "Carolyn Maloney", "M000087", "maloney.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Upper East Side elected officials, community leaders and restaurateurs gathered on Tuesday to celebrate the economic good fortunes that the\u00a0Second Avenue subway\u00a0will bring upon its New Year\u2019s Day opening.\n\u201cIt is the economic gift that will keep on giving and we\u2019re just now beginning to see the benefits,\u201d said Rep. Carolyn Maloney at the corner of 70th Street and Second Avenue, where scaffolding once stood to accommodate subway work. \u201cIt\u2019s all good news right now.\u201d\nThe first phase of the Second Avenue line will bring three new stations at 72nd, 86th and 96th streets. Many struggling business owners in the area have said that they\u2019ve lost about half of their revenue during the years of disruptive tunnel construction.\nFor them, the holiday will finally bring a return to normalcy on the street grid and the expected surge of foot traffic in the already fairly developed neighborhood.\nDave Goodside, who has owned the 49-year-old Beach House Caf\u00e9 since 2005, previously estimated that he had lost a quarter of his business due to the construction near\u00a0the corner of his restaurant.\n\u201cIt\u2019s a great thing that this is ending,\u201d Goodside said, welcoming the new station entrance opening just a few yards from his cafe.\n\u201cWe survived the Second Avenue subway. I\u2019m waiting for those t-shirts,\u201d he joked.\nOther businesses haven\u2019t been as fortunate. Stores have shuttered despite community efforts to bring shoppers to the area, according to Maloney.\n\u201cThere was a basically a barricade in front\u201d of the businesses, Maloney said, referring to construction obstructions. \u201cIf you walk down this Second Avenue line you\u2019ll notice a lot of closed stores that did not make it\u2014that tried so hard. But when you are cut 40 percent or 50 percent of your clientele, it\u2019s hard to keep your doors open.\u201d\nCome noon on Jan. 1, the Q train will be extended to run up Second Avenue, serving about 200,000 riders per day. Pierina Ana Sanchez, the director for the Regional Plan Association in New York, praised the opening of the line. The association has championed the project as a critical piece of infrastructure since the publication of the Third Regional Plan published in 1996.\nSanchez said a 40-minute commute from 86th street to Penn Station will now be reduced to 16 minutes.\n\u201cThis is a critical part of the transportation system,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cWithout the Second Avenue subway, the rest wouldn\u2019t work. Investments like East Side Access wouldn\u2019t work and investments like the extension of the \u2026 7 line, wouldn\u2019t work.\u201d\nThe next step for the community is ensuring that businesses and residents can afford what were described as rising rents along the line.\n\u201cIt\u2019s a huge challenge now,\u201d Maloney said. \u201cSome of the small businesses are telling me that their rents are jumping dramatically.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://maloney.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/second-avenue-subway-opening-excites-upper-east-side-restaurateurs"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.499545993283391, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}