If you are one of the 700,000 people who pass through Grand Central Terminal every day there are things that you may take for granted or just may not know about the great train station. Thanks to Metro-North's Dan Brucker, Gothamist can reveal some of them to you. First things first: It is Grand Central Terminal, not Grand Central Station, since it has always been the terminus for the railroads it serves since its......

Above images from WNBC 4, below right image from WCBS 2; bottom left image from Peter Haskell/WCBS 880 A building collapse at 124th Street and Park Avenue has prompted the MTA to shut down all train service in and out of Grand Central Terminal. Metro-North's Dan Brucker told WCBS 880, "We don't know how long the closure will last. We have been told by the police not to have any trains run through the......

Photo via Modern Mechanix. Thanks to Modern Mechanix we can now see what New York was supposed to look like by the year 2000, as seen from 1927. In that article "streets on five levels have been prophesied," but by 1931, two-level streets (pictured) seemed more realistic.A definite step towards the relief of traffic congestion on much traveled city thoroughfares by the construction of streets under streets is soon to be taken by the......

Photograph by Jake Dobkin Later today, the city will discuss whether the I.M. Pei-designed Silver Towers should be landmarked. The Observer reported that NYU announced its support today, a reversal from an earlier position over three years ago. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation pushed for landmarking the complex, located between Bleecker and Houston Streets and LaGuardia Place and Mercer Street, a few years ago, calling it "an innovative modern design by I.M.......

From rats ruling a West Village KFC/Taco Bell to Governor Spitzer's downward spiral, from a shock jock's questionable words to an up-and-down year for the MTA (and its riders), we bring up the biggest stories of 2007. Midtown Steam Pipe Explosion On a July afternoon, an 83-year-old steam pipe near Grand Central Station exploded, ripping apart the street. Debris, including asbestos, filled the air and covered people as they ran from the scene. One woman......

Operation Lucky Bag, the NYPD program that threatened to ensnare good Samaritans along with subway thieves, is making a comeback after being effectively shut down earlier this year. Initially, the program involved cops leaving bags of merchandise, wallets, or purses on subway benches. When someone picked them up and didn't immediately turn them over to the police or subway personnel, he or she was arrested. According to the police, Operation Lucky Bag netted 101 arrests......

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.......

As the MTA considers ways to save money as it faces billion-dollar deficits, the Daily News suggests the "Sick Customer Response Program" could be on the chopping block. Apparently the MTA would be able to save $250,000 if the program, which has EMTs stationed at seven busy stations, were eliminated in 2009, but we think it would be a mistake to end it. First of all, it would be a PR nightmare, what with passengers......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: 10-75 at the Milford Plaza Hotel, DOA floater in Bay Ridge, and a water main break in East Midtown. Barclays, the bank that just bought naming rights to the Atlantic Yards arena, is demanding newspapers retract stories that mention Barclays' past involvement in slavery. The NY Times speaks to an "expert on the early British Empire" who says that all banks at the time had relationships with the slave......

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because it gets your body going, and the MTA definitely wants you to have your breakfast. Some interesting news just in time for New Year's resolutions. amNew York finds out that women fainting from their crash diets are a leading cause of subway delays. Really. While things like the flu and hangovers describe some sick passengers that the MTA's Sick Customer Response Team tends to,......

Preserving preservation history? The concept made us a little nervous, too, but, when we heard about the New York Preservation Archive Project's plan for an online database, we knew we'd have to overcome our fear of all things meta. Like a Who's Who in Preservation, the digital database, still a work in progress, draws attention to the pols, housewives, planners, architects, lawyers and others who fought to save some of the city's most unusual......

This time of year when the wind chill often makes walking the streets an onerous prospect, we at Gothamist tend to wimp out a bit. We transform into mole people and duck underground, devising new routes that involve as little of the freezing cold as possible. There are some nice surprises to be found along the way though. Take for instance the to-go window at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station. (It opens on......

Wired has a story today on the Googlecenter of America-- the place that you find if you zoom in to the closest point on the default Google map (it's a fallow field outside of Coffeyville, Kansas.) This got us thinking: where is the Googlecenter of New York City? Turns out it's the corner of Chambers and Broadway, right behind city hall. That makes some sense to us-- although there are probably better candidates-- Times......

Janelle snapped a clear picture of the new recycling bins at the Jay Street station, and these babies are stunning! Judging by the contents, they are intended for paper recycling. We're guessing they are built of see-through materials for terrorism-related reasons. We've never noticed any recycling bins in the subway before, so these might be the first ones in the whole system-- although the MTA has long had newspaper recycling programs set up on......

Tristan Taormino, Sex Educator...

A New York based band with roots stemming worldwide, Soma has a classic sound that combines melodic pop, post punk, shoegazer and a new brand of soul. Impassioned lyrics float in the forefront of the multi-layered sonic landscape. Lyrics are pertinent to our times, one reason Gothamist thinks this band has the staying power we don't often see in the more novelty based bands. Soma is Skye Nicolas (vocals), Eric Zuehlke (guitar), Jeremy Foti......

Tom Vaught, Bartender...

Gothamist heard about this missing young woman on the news last night, but this morning, a friend of her family asked Gothamist to post this: Melissa Kennedy has been not heard from or seen since Friday night, when she was dropped off by a friend at at Metro-North Train Station in upstate New York, near Bard College. Her train would have gotten her into Grand Central Station at 10:18pm. Melissa was coming home to Bay......