From 1910 until 1963, when New York actually had a Pennsylvania Station instead of a dingy 1960s subterranean rat warren beneath a hockey rink and office towers, twenty-two stone eagles stood guard over the McKim, Mead, and White masterpiece. The eagles themselves, along with almost all the other stone artwork on the station were the work of artist Adolph A. Weinman, who among other things created Civic Fame atop the Municipal Building and the Walking Liberty half dollar coin. more ›

The NY Sun had a fun article about the different kids of music played at various transit hubs in the area. For instance, the Port Authority plays Handel and Bach and the area airports play "light classical." At Penn Station, there's "string quartets and flute piccolos" at Amtrak but top 40 music at the LIRR area. Why?

sic, composed to serve as background music, best soothes the preoccupied, traveling mind. more ›

Yesterday, there was a sprawling editorial (literally sprawling too - it covered two pages) in the NY Times Week in Review by Tom Wolfe. And in it, he ripped the Landmarks Preservation Commission, most of its commissioners, and Mayors Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg a couple new ones. more ›

Commuters may feel safer when they hear that the MTA is installing a million dollar chemical detection system at Penn Station. But it turns out that the MTA has been testing the system for the past two years at Grand Central, where, as the NY Times reports:

Technicians found that a person walking by with a mop and bucket full of floor cleaner could trigger the chemical sensors. more ›

Kate Wood, executive director, LANDMARK WEST! more ›

or maybe even in 2005, when the Times decided to get around to digging them up from the archives).

Titled "Our Changing City," a 20-part series of articles in The New York Times painted a largely optimistic panorama of the century's second half. It envisioned a sprawling cultural center and Fordham campus on the squalid West Side, a civic plaza in Downtown Brooklyn that Robert Moses promised would rival the Piazza San Marco in Venice, a grand development over the Sunnyside railroad yards in Queens, and a Palace of Progress devoted to world trade atop a reconstructed Pennsylvania Station. more ›

Extra, extra - it's time to get your free NY Times tabloid, the MarketPlace Weekly, this afternoon! It will be full of "classified ads, supplemented by articles culled from The Times's Job Market, Real Estate, Automotive, Business and Dining Out sections, among others." Hmm, so it's like a reverse paper - mostly small type ads, with some content; we're officially in the bizarro world. The NY Times tells NY1, "We have an opportunity to reach an 18- to 34-year-old reader – or perhaps even a Times reader – with very specific information. It's very targeted toward those readers that are interested in finding a new job, purchasing a home or purchasing a new car." Well, Gothamist gets the need for job listings (sometimes scrolling through Monster gets tiring!), but purchasing a home or new car seems a little more...aspirational for the 18-34 year old reader. If there were listings for sample sales and concerts, not to mention free wine tastings at area wine merchants and free anything else, then you're talking. Anyway, here's the official word from the New York Times:

Street teams strategically positioned at over 250 commuter centers including Grand Central Terminal, WTC PATH, Pennsylvania Station, the Port Authority, the Staten Island Ferry, Jamaica Station and Hunters Point in Queens, Flatbush Avenue and the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, and The Grand Concourse in The Bronx, will hand out the weekly during the peak afternoon travel times of 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. MarketPlace Weekly will be available every Thursday. The guide will also be given out at select college campuses in the city.

New York magazine has a really good article on the foot dragging with getting the new Penn Station, really Moynihan Station, relocated in the Farley Post Office across the street from current dingy Penn Station. Writer Chris Smith calls the project "the middle child of New York City development projects":

Ground zero, which will always claim the greatest emotional attachment, is the firstborn. The West Side stadium, which can do no wrong in the eyes of its indulgent parents, is the favored baby of the family. Moynihan Station—earnestly playing by the rules, reluctant to complain—has been rewarded for its obedience by being ignored.

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