Results tagged “dariusmccollum”

The police arrested Darius McCollumn for impersonating a federal employee at Penn Station on Sunday. McCollum's 25 previous arrests were for impersonating a NYC Transit employee--most famously for taking the E train for a 6-stop ride when he was 15 years old. More recently, the 43-year-old has tried to steal a train at the Long Island Rail Road yard in 2004 and tried to enter a restricted area at Columbus Circle wearing a transit worker-like uniform in June. It's believed the 43-year-old suffers from Asperger's; his "weary-sounding" mother told the Daily News that she wasn't surprised he was arrested again. McCollum now lives in North Carolina with her, but he traveled to NYC in spite of her warnings, "He's a lover of New York and can't get over it."

Darius McCollum, the minor cult figure among train buffs and subway enthusiasts, was arrested again this morning after being caught in a restricted area at Columbus Circle . McCollum is such a well known figure, that police recognized him on sight boarding an uptown 1 train at Times Square wearing a blue transit worker-like uniform and gloves that bore a NYC Transit patch. They followed him when got off the train at Columbus Circle and arrested him when he bypassed a barricade at the station.

We had Wesley Autrey, Subway Hero, last month, and this month, we've got... Stuart Tito, Toddler Commuter! The Daily News talks a family whose 22-month-old son took the 7 train all by himself. Yeah, we were amazed too - the 7 was actually running!

At yesterday's NYC Transit public hearing, NYC Transit President Lawrence Reuter was pummeled by complaints from disgruntled riders. And this was after a long meeting with a skeptical City Council board about the NYC Transit performance. The NY Times says that after Reuter said, "The system is actually safer than it ever has been," he was met with boos plus one person's exclamation of "Oh, please." Hee hee. Reuter wasn't that thrilled with the reception, but what can he expect when he's revealing that more holes have been found in the subway system, laying blame on crews in 1993. Whatever - it's been 12 years, it's still crap! Anyway, Reuter has been an easy target ever since the "It'll take 3-5 years to fix the A and C lines" pronouncement; Gothamist hopes that being on the hot seat will shape up service more.

Read a Harper's article about McCollum. * And a metrophile "is a person who has as a hobby the study of metro (subway, underground) systems," according to UsefulReference.com. Hmm, McCollum is certainly a Type-A metrophile. Gothamist is happy to read nycsubway.org and leave the conducting of trains to the professionals.