I don't see how this was a hoax at all seeing I was stuck underground for a half hour due to police activity at grand central.

Suspicious package? Building evacuation? Subway diversions? Not to worry. That was just Haisong Jiang again, this time sneaking in a gift for his girlfriend.

I tried to get into Grand Central around 2pm, but was prevented from doing so by cops and a massive crowd flooding out of the station - several people said there was a bomb threat, so I high-tailed it out of the area.

Can't have been a total hoax, MTA sent out this e-mail alert at around 1:50 pm ET:

"Both directions, 4,5 and 6 trains are bypassing the Grand Central Station. Due to police investigation at Grand Central. Visit www.mta.info for details.

Then at 2:30:

4,5 and 6 train service has resumed with residual delays.

So what's the big f'in deal?

I walk through Grand Central every day with a suspicious package...

in my pants!

Next time wear a diaper.

I hope the cops at least got to do one of their fascist cavalcades along 42nd, 40 vehicles long, lights flashing, in honor of the hoax.

I barely looked up from my oysters.

uhhhhh im inside in the graybar building.. directly about the graybar passage in grand central and no one evacuated my a**.. that doesnt make me feel so safe

Safe from... what?

It appears, actually, that only the platforms were cleared of passengers for the suspicious package incident, they didn't evacuate the entire building. If that had happened, it would likely have been much more widely reported.

thats seals it. john has moved into 1st place of editors I like. Jen you're slipping. You're starting act like one them newbie editors.

"Starting act like one them newbie editors"?

Because you're so great at spelling. Maybe there's an opening at Tuscaloosaist?

This person says this person started the dirty bomb explosion in GC

*explosion rumor

phew!

Based on the history of tweets, it looks like something happend at Grand Central - a suspicious package apparently - and as happens on a somewhat regular basis, a police action was reported and the subways were halted. It started on Twitter by people who were stuck on a subway or near the terminal asking if anyone knew what was going on. Then people started making assumptions, growing it out of proportion (police became SWAT team) and it escalated. Then someone looked on Google to see the Twitter feeds or the news and saw the 2007 story where Grand Central was evacuated and thought it was the current story since it came up first. They started tweeting the details of that and got retweeted. So . . . there was something to it. No really a hoax, just a bunch of people taking a minor incident and blowing it out of proportion.

so it wasn't a hoax at all...

"UPDATE: The NYPD has now confirmed to The Business Insider that Grand Central was evacuated about 2 hours ago. The situation is now back to normal and the station is open."

Can they confirm if it was the twitter hoax that caused the evacuation?

Most of these idiots' tweets say "dirty bomb found" or "Mayors office, one dead, 15 injured". That might be enough to investigate.

I hate twitter.

Oh and aparently 200,000 people work "right across the street, here's a pic"

fucking hate twitter