Have some extra cash to spend around the holiday season? Even the littlest bit can go a long way in the over 80 year old Operation Santa program. Every year letters pile up at the James A. Farley Post Office from (mostly needy) kids writing to Santa Claus (read one of them here). Their wish lists don't make it to the North Pole, but with New Yorkers pitching in every year, it's as if they......

There's a fantastic look at a cross-section of Queens residents in the Times today. There's a feature about a Wednesday night class at the James A. Bland Houses in Flushing, where a group of curious and determined residents are learning Mandarin. There's an Italian-American woman who explains, "Kind of like, ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,'" a few people who simply want to communicate with their neighbors, and an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who......

In keeping with the earlier report this week, the planned conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into a new transit center, the Moynihan Station, moved a step closer to reality. Yesterday, the Public Authorities Control Board voted to approve spending $230 million to buy the post office. While the PACB has approved this and politicians are patting themselves on the back, we doubt the drama will be over. Last October, Assembly Speaker Sheldon......

It's difficult to know quite what to say about the huge transformations on the horizon for the Far West Side. That's partly because major negotiations and plans regarding the future of Madison Square Garden, the Farley Post Office, the Javits Center, the 7-train extension, and rezoning are taking place behind closed doors. Another reason is the uneven pace at which the planning proceeds-- years of plodding speculation followed by the sudden unveiling of a proposal,......

Maybe it was the umpteenth “F Bush” tag that seen in the subway station. Or maybe it was President Bush’s interview on Sixty Minutes last night. But recent news about the war, troop deployments and civil rights has infused us with feeling like we're in the 21st Century version of the Wonder Years. This is not the Sixties, but it seems like today’s commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. has gotten some of us......

A couple weeks ago, Gothamist wondered what was going on with the scaffolding outside the James A. Farley Post Office at 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue. Sure, there must be restoration work of some sort, but it looked very Christo, as it is a huge building that takes up two blocks. Now the Daily News reveals that the scaffolding is being offered as advertising space. That's 21,000 square feet of space! The space will be......

This past weekend, the city's main post office, the James A. Farley branch started its annual Operation Santa program. The post office receives thousands of letters to Santa from needy children, and people can pick up a letter (or two or ten) and give gifts to the children. You can get letters one of two ways: (1) Go to the Farley Post Office (8th Avenue at 33rd Street) in person to pick from the letters......

It looks like a renovated Penn Station on Eighth Avenue is closer to being a reality. The project has been gestating for a while - check out this 2002 press release from the Governor and this 1999 NY magazine article - but according to New York Region > State's Project for a Grand New Penn Station Is Moving Again" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/nyregion/28penn.html?oref=login">an article in the NY Times, NY State, who is overseeing the plan, has two anchor......