Photograph from Wireimage Walking through Penn Station can be one of the more depressing commutes (especially compared to those lucky Metro-North commuters who get to enter through Grand Central!), but one man tried to bring smiles and energy there yesterday: Exercise evangelist Richard Simmons. Simmons was promoting Ocean Spray's new cranberry energy drink, Cranergy, which has green tea and various vitamins. He also led commuters and workers alike through exercises. Both Urbanite and Main......

The description to this video reads: "This guy is offered $20 to lick the hand rail of a Penn Station New York city train." That pretty much says it all. This move is not unprecedented, Bart Simpson did the very same thing! His was also in an attempt to win money, though through sympathy by demonstrating his lack of taste buds. How many licks does it take to get to the center of an infectious......

The Brooklyn Museum's Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden features an array of salvaged sculpture that managed to triumph over the wrecking ball. The preserved work on view points back through time to sculpture's architectural prominence before the advent of Modernism, when it was as bountiful on building facades as in museums.Beyond the significance of individual works, the collection as a whole demonstrates the Museum's agile response to the destruction of architectural treasures even before the historic......

Untitled photo of rodeo clown, by Zodak at flickr According to WNBC's Jonathan Dienst, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly wrote a letter to the MTA, MSG, Amtrak, and Vornado Realty expressing his dismay over the lack of Penn Station security. Three years after funding had been secured for the construction of a legitimately effective security barrier to protect Penn Station from a truck bomb attack, Kelly says little has been done to implement any plans.......

New York has lost another vintage factory built diner: The Cheyenne, a popular all night eatery near Penn Station, will close its doors on Sunday after 68 years of operation. And the owner of a rival diner – the bigger Skylight Diner nearby – is to blame. Skylight owner George Papas also owns the narrow 20-by-100 foot site the Cheyenne currently occupies and he plans to build a nine-story apartment building on the property. Forgotten-NY’s......

Image from WNBC Eastbound Long Island Rail Road Service is facing delays of at least an hour after the 9:35 a.m. train derailed at Jamaica Station. Eastbound service had been suspended out of Penn Station, but it was restored. Two trains "bumped into each other"-- the 9:35 a.m. out of Flatbush jumped the tracks when it hit the 9:34 a.m. to Huntington. Hundreds of passengers were unloaded from both trains and NYC Transit is......

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......

The Friends of Moynihan Station shared a rendering of what Moynihan Station will look like, according to NY State. According to FMS, the Empire State Development Corporation has been "reluctant" to share them, but FMS thinks "looks great," though there's a lot that needs to be explained. The Observer broke down what's in the rendering:In the bottom of the picture is the Farley Post Office with a new Madison Square Garden in the rear.......

Graphic explaining trend of train delays from the MTA's capital plan presentation The MTA unveiled its 2008-2013 Capital Plan, which explained almost $30 billion will be needed to improve mass transit and complete projects like the Second Avenue Subway, the East Side Access plan and more by 2030 (many of those projects will also be delayed). Though the current MTA capital plan doesn't expire until next year, the MTA presented this plan because the......

Less than two weeks after Gov. Spitzer publicly reaffirmed his commitment to going forward with plans to construct Moynihan Station despite a $1 billion funding shortfall, it looks like the matter may be out of his hands. The New York Times is reporting that the whole $14 billion project, which would involve building Moynihan Station at The Farley Post Office building and constructing a new Madison Square Garden on the site, is on the brink......

Last year, the Health Department unveiled its free NYC Condoms on Valentine's Day. For this year's Valentine's Day, not only will volunteers from the Health Department be distributing condoms again, there's a new packaging and a new ad campaign with the tag "Get Some." Don't worry - the condom is the same lubricated Lifestyles latex condom as before. The Health Department gave out 36 million NYC Condoms last year and Assistant Commissioner for HIV......

The fate of the Moynihan Station in the James Farley post office building remains up in the air and it's unclear whether Madison Square Garden will also relocate to the Farley building. If MSG moves, plans say the old MSG would be razed and a new train tracks would be put on top. The Municipal Arts Society's New Penn Station campaign shares a plan from students (at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture's Historic Preservation Program)......

Hundreds of thousands of commuters can breathe a sigh of relief today as a threatened strike by Amtrak workers has been avoided. A strike would have shut down Penn Station, diverting travelers on the Long Island Rail Road, Amtrak lines, and New Jersey Transit to subways and the PATH system. The city was already preparing contingency plans to have LIRR riders disembark in Brooklyn, and Jamaica Station and Woodside in Queens to take the subway.......

Photograph "Emerging from Penn Station" by boogaloo66 on Flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at West 56th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, a pedestrian struck at Marathon Parkway and Northern Blvd. in Queens, and a shooting on Gleason Ave. and White Plains Rd. in the the Bronx. If you live in NJ and recently obtained a machine gun from local cops, they need it back. A court ruling made the market......

FOOD: Drinking With the Professor: a Look at Jerry Thomas and His Liquid Legacy: Join cocktail maestro Dave Wondrich as he shares recipes from his latest book, Imbibe! plus a few that were cut in the editing process. Wondrich has an in-depth knowledge of nineteenth-century classic cocktails, so step up and taste the benefits. - Laren Spirer Friday // 6:30pm // Astor Culinary Center [399 Lafayette St] // $75, tickets available online THEATER: As you......

Today we wrote about the discontinuation of the requirement for subway conductors to announce a train's arrival at the 47th-50th St. Rockefeller Center station with a plug for the "Top of the Rock" observation deck. Most commenters found the idea of corporate sponsorship of subway stations distasteful, let alone the fact that this was an enforced and required announcement that generated no revenue for NYC Transit. Some people do enjoy when their conductors deviate from......

Eight separate unions representing Amtrak workers are threatening to go on strike as early as January 30th if they are not presented with new contracts, which they've worked without for years. A strike would hurt more than people taking the Acela between Washington D.C. and Boston. If Amtrak workers strike, it would close Penn Station and hundreds off thousands of daily commuters on the Long Island Rail Road, NJ Transit, and Amtrak would be seriously......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, a double shooting at West 151st St. and Walton Ave. in the Bronx, and a pursuit/crash/bailout on 95th St. and the West Side Highway in Manhattan. The disbarred lawyer accused of murdering his wife and blaming it on a random carjacking admitted to cops that he'd sent flowers to his girlfriend that day and had various small affairs and used escorts outside......

In what seems to be separate incidents, NJ Transit and PATH commuters are facing a rough Thursday morning commute into the city. The NJ Transit issue is a downed wire just west of Newark Penn Station. Riders on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Line, and Raritan Valley Lines have delays of at least 60 minutes. According to NJ Transit, Amtrak is working on fixing the problem but "commuters are encouraged to seek alternative transportation."......

Now that you've torn through your presents and are making room for new gifts and purchases -- why not give a little back? Green Brooklyn reminds us that we have until December 31st to make tax-deductible donations (to claim on 2007 income taxes). They were particularly moved by the amount of work Habitat for Humanity has been doing for Brooklyn, they just completed their 9th home in the area -- all "constructed using state-of-the-art, eco-friendly......

As of this month, New Yorkers will have an easier time finding their long lost gloves. A website called One Cold Hand has launched to reconnect bare hands with missing mittens. The site first launched in Pittsburgh (New York is the second city to get a helping hand) and their mission is simple:We are connecting the community of the five boroughs through one unfortunate event – the loss of a glove. This site creates......

Will Macy's give its regards to Broadway? The NY Times reports that the developers who are trying to redevelop the James Farley Post Office building into the new Moynihan Station "are in the early stage of negotiations with Macy’s" to move from the store's landmark Herald Square location to the Farley building on Eighth Avenue. Charles Bagli's article summarizes the progress of the Penn Station redevelopment and Farley-into-Moynihan Station project: It's complex, given the......

The low-slung Port Authority bus terminal will be getting a heady addition: The Port Authority will announce a deal for a tower to be built at its north end. The NY Times reports that Lawrence Ruben Company and Vornado Realty Trust is buying air rights for $400-500 million, which the Port Authority will then be used to add 18 bus platforms, give the terminal a "major face-lift" and overall refurbishing. Well, finally - commuting to......

Yesterday afternoon, downed wires in a train tunnel caused hours of delays for trains in the Northeast Corridor yesterday. The downed wires stopped a passenger train from entering the tunnels, and then the domino effect: Amtrak trains from Boston were backed up on their way to NYC, while trains from Philadelphia to NYC only made it to Newark. The outage occurred around 8:30AM and service was restored around 2:30PM, after affecting at least 50,000 riders......

Yesterday, state officials released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station/New Penn Station project. The actual 93-page PDF is online for the public to peruse, and, yes, the plan is to move Madison Square Garden into the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue and possibly move to U.S. Post Office's operations to the current Penn Station (we highlighted those moves). Say it with us: UGH. The Sun calls this plan "a test for......

The state released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station project today, and while the details have yet to be finalized, The New York Sun outlines the document's major components. Madison Square Garden will be moved into the rear of the Farley Post Office Building, which will be renamed Moynihan Station. A remade Penn Station will be renamed Moynihan East and will feature a sky-lit train hall surrounded by a million square feet of retail......

Yestedary morning, a woman fell into the gap between the platform edge and train at the Syosset LIRR train station. The 60-year-old woman slipped and suffered abrasions on her legs when she was boarding a Penn Station-bound train. The gap was measured to be between 10 and 12 inches. The station has a curved track, with some gaps as wide as 15 inches there. The LIRR says a consultant recommended solutions like "platform extensions or......

NY state officials are expected to release the draft scope for the Moynihan Station's environmental impact statement today, which the NY Sun calls the "Spitzer administration's first public display of forward progress" on the project. The redevelopment of Penn Station into a Moynihan Station at the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue has been in the works for years. In fact, it was October 8 five years ago that the state officially acquired......

A retired cop who can't abide cell phone users or loud talkers on his daily LIRR commute to and from Manhattan has made it his business to intimidate fellow riders into being quiet. Standing six foot four inches, John Clifford can be an imposing figure, especially if he's yelling at you, slapping a phone out of your hand, or throwing food or a beverage on you. Clifford's been arrested a number of times, but he's......

A scary incident at a Penn Station subway station: A woman in a wheelchair rolled into a moving subway. The 50-something woman apparently lost control of her wheelchair; the Post reports that she hit an uptown 2 train "just as it began pulling out, and ricocheted into a pillar." Yikes! The woman was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. The Daily News noted, "Despite blood collecting on the platform, travelers went about their business"......