With the L train shutting off the most popular route between Williamsburg and Manhattan, New Yorkers are pondering what their new reality may look like. But this problem is not foreign to the residents of the nearby East Midtown area. If there was someone old enough to remember, they would have been waiting for the 2nd Avenue subway line for 97 years now (the first plan for a 2nd Ave line was put forth in 1919). But the city never stops moving, and residents have found ways to cope.

There’s a slew of proposals slated to start sometime in the distant future, (for instance, De Blasio has proposed a major expansion of the ferry system, and all for the price of a standard Subway fare) but none of these new ideas are by any means guaranteed. So here we’ve put together a collection of alternate modes of transportation that may come in handy for the destitute multitudes that may suddenly find themselves stranded once the L Train repairs get underway.