New York: America's Busiest City—Episode 1
BBC Worldwide Learning
Anita Rani, Ade Adepitan, Ant Anstead and Dan Snow are in New York. From their base at Grand Central Terminal, they reveal the behind-the-scenes operations responsible for keeping the world's biggest railway terminal running on schedule. In this opening episode, Anita, Ade and Ant try commuting New York style, joining 5.5 million commuters on the iconic Staten Island ferry, the subway and citibikes—the latest addition to the transport network. Ant heads ten stories down to visit the U.S.A.'s biggest transport project, the East Side Access, and gets a privileged first glimpse of the new station beneath Grand Central. Ade takes a ride in a Yellow Cab and discovers that a taxi license can cost up to $1 million. And today, this business model is under threat from taxi apps like Uber. Dan Snow heads to Times Square, New York's most-visited place, to discover how the 230 LED billboards are maintained. And we reveal the secret world of lost property at the terminal, where 3,000 items—from phones to seven-foot-long canoes—are handed in every month.