830,000 Vehicles, 50 Places To Fill Up

On Manhattan's dwindling gas station row along 10th Avenue, Karacsony Aletar sat in his cab across from the recently shuttered gas station on 27th Street and ticked off the names of three recently deceased stations. "Every place where real estate took over," he explained, his voice carrying a hint of his native Hungary.

Up the street about half a mile, cabbie Thomas Wood waited in a queue for a pump. A black cap embroidered with "USA" shaded his stern face. "I have to come here because there's no gas on the East Side," he said, adding that the scarcity of stations cuts into his working time -- and fares. "You're supposed to finish at 5, but if you finish at 4 you can find gas."

Environmental activists happily point to the dying stations as proof that New Yorkers need other things besides gas. "The disappearance of gas stations shows that the market is right, that the real estate is valuable and it should be put to better use," said Paul S. White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a group that promotes cycling and walking. "We don't need to protect a gas station like an endangered species."

The winners often turn out to be the oil companies, said Bombardiere, of the gas station association. They typically own the land and set the gas prices. And when they're ready to sell, the companies reap the rewards.

The All Star Service Station is on a corner near the now-abandoned High Line elevated rail tracks, which are slated to become a park. Nialz Patel, the station manager, recently heard that there will be no new lease.

"The life always changes, and this is a changing, too. I have made money, it's all right," said Patel, who expects to shut down in a year.

The city's Planning Department, which makes recommendations for rezoning and tracks demographic shifts, plans to examine strategies for preserving critical services, such as gas stations, in Manhattan, according to Rachaele Raynoff, a department spokeswoman. One option is to provide special zoning protection to gas stations, repair shops and other industrial-age service centers.

Might New York one day protect gas stations because they provide a public service?

Cornelius Burns thinks so. "You absolutely need gas stations," he says. "You would need to do something to protect it."

Burns is both old school and new school when it comes to transportation. He drives his 1987 Chevy pickup truck to Pennsylvania to pick up horses and feed for his carriage company, which takes tourists on rides through Central Park. Burns said he spends $165 on gas on each trip. But whattayagonnado, he says. "You're not going to feed a horse out of a Manhattan grocery store."