Posted by Leonard Steinberg on February 1st, 2013

A Water main has burst at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway in front of EATALY and Madison Square Park.  There is no N, R, or Q subway service at this time between Whitehall Street station and 57th Street station, at Seventh Avenue. The 36 inch main broke around 10 a.m. at 23rd and Broadway and is impacting subway service at the 23rd Street station.

The MTA says R trains are running on the F line between the 36th Street station in Queens and the 34th Street-Herald Square station, then run on the D line in both directions between the 34th Street-Herald Square station and the DeKalb Avenue station. The break has caused extensive flooding in the area and traffic is a MESS.  Water supply has also been cut off to a large chunk of Downtown New York.

Is global warming to blame? The New York Metro area has seen a wild swing of temperatures over the last few days with highs yesterday at around 60 degrees and dropping near freezing over the last 24-hours. There is no word if the weather played any role in the break but we should remember how old Manhattans infrastructure is before we blame global warming for all disasters!