a side effect of the city’s massive Central Subway project beneath the street. But whether the shopper-friendly plaza will stick around after the subway tunnel is completed — or be turned back over to traffic — remains unsettled.

The idea of blocking the street to cars, either year-round or seasonally, is certain to generate debate as the city plans for a 2019 launch of the Central Subway to Chinatown. For now, though, Black Friday shoppers crowding into the Union Square area will find a two-block oasis on Stockton Street between Geary and Ellis streets.

The retail-friendly festival will continue through the month of December and end on New Year’s Day, when the street will become a construction zone again.

On Monday, the rumbling of heavy equipment drowned out the holiday musicEmail This Story

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Contractor gets prison, fine for smuggling cash

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- A private contractor from Kansas has received a 30-month sentence for trying to smuggle $150,000 from Afghanistan back to his ex-wife, in a case the government claims was part of a larger kickback scheme.

The U.S. attorney's office says Army veteran Donald Gene Garst was also fined about $52,000 at his sentencing Tuesday in federal court in Topeka.

Garst pleaded guilty in November to one count of bulk cash smuggling, but he has recanted an earlier admission that the money came from a kickback scheme to steer subcontracts to an Afghan company.

Instead, Garst says he won the money gambling at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he worked as a manager for a