Scrapper and Jason,
You both must be right. I am sure your extensive knowledge about the intricacies and daily operational characteristics of the JFK sector at New York TRACON trump my irrelevant REAL-world experience in the aforementioned sector as a certified FAA Air Traffic Control Specialist.
By the way 230 till the marker is not only illegal but painfully wrong. There is no "marker" anymore, and you cannot assign a turbojet aircraft 230 knots till the FAF per FAA Order 7110.65 Chapter 5.
I think its my turn to chime in again. As a professional pilot that flies into NY airspace and tougher airspaces around the country (yes, that's right, I don't consider NY airspace to be the worst), I think I might have a little authority on the subject.
Firstly, saying that there is no "marker" anymore is completely true. Except for one funny thing. Just a few days ago I was flying the GPS13L at JFK, coming up over CRI, following an American Eagle over DMYHL, and tower reported I was following an Embraer over the marker. Am I going to argue the fact that the tower was wrong on 2 accounts, or am I just going to understand that I know exactly where they are.
Second, there are absolutely no assumptions in the aviation industry, legally. Stating that a pilot flying into JFK "ought to know the drill" is one of the worst things someone could say about ATC, especially from an ATCS. The American air traffic control system hand feeds just about everything to the pilots, unless it is already written somewhere. If you want EVERY aircraft to maintain 250kts at CAMRN and LENDY, have the STAR changed from "Expect 250kts" to "At 250kts." It definitely would not be the first arrival route to have a hard speed restriction. We're adults, we know that when the STAR says "AT" we'll cross it without any intervention from ATC.
Third, and I know this is going to be taken as flame bait, but I honestly don't want it to be. N90, JFK, and LGA all get away with stuff that is very non-standard (I cannot speak for EWR as I do not fly there on a regular basis). Everyone, including the FAA, turns a blind eye to these non-standard practices. Just the other day, LGA was operating on 1 runway. A Delta 757 had landed on Rwy31 and was turned halfway off of the runway but had to stop due to gridlock on the taxiways. His main gear had stopped exactly on the hold short bar (half of his airplane was still on the runway enviornment). The controller cleared the next guy for takeoff anyway and advised him "use caution for traffic downfield." Now if that was me, I would have refused that clearance for 2 reasons. There was still half of a 757 on my runway not moving, and I have no idea what the clearance of "use caution for traffic downfield" means. Also, N90's frequency changes are very nonstandard. I had an instruction the other day of "Comair twenty four Newark twenty eighty five." Now as an N90 controller, you might know exactly what that means. The captain and I both had no idea what that meant, as we were not flying into/out of Newark at all. The controller got very angry after I asked what he was trying to tell me. On the third try, someone else's voice came on and said "Com24, contact new york approach on one two zero point eight five." That's a bit of a difference between clearances.
Okay, rant over. More to come later I'm sure. Go ahead. Over