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Launched Winter 1998. Last updated:1.07.2012 Happy 2012; Happy New Year! Hello, I had a quiet New Years, spent with a college chum. Hope everyone had a pleasant time; or at least caught up on some well-needed rest. Also hope you all are in good health, or well on your way to good health. My health, incase anyone is interested, is eeking along very incrementally. Since April 2011, I was switched to steroid inhalers for my chronic asthma and due to the steriods suppressing my immune system, I have been getting sick a lot. So hopefully my MD will switch me to Spiriva, a 'nonsteroid' inhaler soon. Okay, today, I FINALLY got a YouTube account for BallardsAccessGuide; and will hopefully start uploading some videos this coming week. so you can see/hear for yourself, the accessibility of different restaurants. Will do the press releases again in hopes that local newspapers, radio stations and TV stations will publicize it as a human interest story. Then, hopefully, I'll get a great response from totally wheelchair accessible restaurants across Manhattan. As many already know, I have made previous efforts to publicize my free accessibility listings for Manhattan area restaurants, I sent out press releases, hoping media outlets would pick up on the story, but my attempts were unsuccessful. I had also emailed my press release to: The Gothamist, Manhattan Media Publishing (which includes: Our Town, The West Side Spirit, New York Press, Avenue, New York Family and New York Family Brooklyn, The West Sider and Chelsea Clinton, City Hall, and New York Family Editorial), The Resident, WPIX news desk, The Village Voice, WCBSFM, The Wall Sreet Journal, and The New York Times. With regard to press releases, I hope that many totally wheelchair accessible restaurants in Manhattan contact me for a free listing, since contacting restaurants out-of-the-blue, is a long, time-consuming endeavor that is often met with coldness or hostility. I have discovered that many restaurant personnel seem to think that I am some kind of city inspector looking to hand out fines. If this is your first visit to my guide, I have been writing/producing a comprehensive information guide on wheelchair accessible restaurants in the New York City/Metro area for over a decade. Formerly, my guide contained reviews of restaurants in terms of my dining experience and rated factors like extent and nature of the accessibility. From now on, my guide will list restaurants who offer full wheelchair accessibility in New York, NY. I am not affiliated with any disability rights organizations, but maybe I should be. View the free listings info page for NYC restauranteurs here: Thank you for visiting my site and do come again! Wen
P.S. You can now type ballardsaccessguide.com into your browser and it will forward to this page! ***************************** If you are disabled and are planning to visit New York, NY, modern hotels would have more accessibility features than older, landmark hotels. This city has some good amenities for the disabled community. New York State Department of Health, The Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities: As of 2010, Mayor Bloomberg has these Public Service Announcements on TV Channel 25, (WNYC), for a pilot program where people with disabilities in NYC can get an accessible cab by calling 311. If you plan to ride the city-wide buses, there are discounts on fares(not just for senior citizens or children), I do not know how much discount you can get, but for more information, click this link: ATTENTION TRISTATE AREA DWELLERS: Elevator/Escaltor Status: http://www.mta.info/mta/eles.html If you are planning to use NYC/MTA public transportation, I highly advise checking their service change page/s from day to day. It can be very frustrating and time consuming when you set out to go somewhere, only to find out that certain trains, buses or routes and elevators are out of service. The service change page is not just for NYC buses and trains, but for the Long Island Railroad/Buses, MetroNorth trains, bridges/tunnels and other bus companies. There are also bulletins on the pages as well. You can access the service changes page via: http://www.mta.info/service/ All MTA buses have wheelchair lifts. If you are getting around NYC soley by bus and have not bought a Metrocard, make sure you or your PCA have plenty of US coins (no pennies), as the bus fare unit does not take bills or debit cards, nor will the bus driver give you change. Here's information on fares and Metrocards: Some NYC Yellow Taxi-cabs are quite large and more like vans. And also most cabs accept credit cards: About.com has some good info for getting around NYC, but some of their info might be a couple of years old: Unable to use public transit? Then use Access-A-Ride. For Long Island, there is the Able-Ride program Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts: Promoting full diversity in theatre, film and television. Wanna go to a Broadway or Off-Broadway show? Here's another museum resource: Wanna go to Yankee Stadium? Citi Field Wheelchair / Companion Seating: Want to hang out around Times Square(West 42nd Street and Broadway), the Broadway Theater District (the West 40s through West 50s), or hang out in Central Park(59th St through 110th St-length and Central Park West/8th Ave through 5th Avenue-width). Then I suggest you book a hotel near where you want to go, not a hotel downtown in the Wall Street/financial district or out in Queens. Although some travelers have saved big bucks by staying in hotels far away from where the action is. Decide which is more important to you when selecting your hotel. By the way, it is not advisable to hang out in Central Park when it is dark. Looking for a job? If you need other access information, please feel free to email me and I will try to get back to you in a timely manner and answer your question/s. Please give me AT LEAST A FULL WEEK to get back to you, as emailing me a few days before you plan to arrive here is not enough time for me. Thank you. Sincerely, Wen BallardsAccessGuide (at) gmail (dot) com =======================FYI===================== The Guide to Riding Wheelchair Accessible Buses in NYC is available for free via the EPVA World Wide Access: Accessible Web Design - Based at the University of Washington, describes how many surfers cannot access the web due to their older systems and newer technology. Describes how you can make your website accessible to all. Liyana is a group from Africa who travel to spread the word about creating opportunity for people facing disabilities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJ1W-3XHLE&feature=related
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Created 12/97. Launched 2/98. Last
modified/updated: 1/7/2012.
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