Edit: Metro-North has resumed most service. For the most current information, check the MTA website.

Mayor Bloomberg’s press conference addressing the damage after Irene has just completed. Of course, Chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority Jay Walder was present to address the state of New York City’s transit system. The unfortunate news for Metro-North riders is that it was our railroad that suffered the most damage out of all of the MTA. Walder said there was severe damage to all three lines, including significant flooding and track erosion. Damage assessments are still going on, and there will be no decision on when service will be restored until these assessments have been completed.

What I must say, however, is that MTA has been keeping us in the loop via their Flickr account, which is much appreciated. From the photos we can see that there is severe flooding at Tuckahoe and Valhalla, on the Harlem Line. Valhalla also has power lines down, in the vicinity of Kensico Cemetery. There was a mudslide at Spuyten Duyvil and Scarborough on the Hudson Line. Beacon, also on the Hudson line, has massive flooding and is probably the worst station I’ve seen so far, with the parking lot and pedestrian underpass completely filled with water. Harriman, on the Port Jervis Branch also has a flooded parking lot. Thus far there has been no photos posted of the New Haven Line, but Governor Dannel Malloy has said that there was extensive damage to the catenary system, and on the New Canaan branch. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves… (all photos credited to the MTA)

Also interesting are a few photos from yesterday in Grand Central. Seeing the station this empty is a bit creepy. Although people say that this happens quite frequently at night, it is obvious that it is not night in these photos. You can see Grand Central Terminal empty – with the sunlight still streaming through the windows. That light makes these images even more amazing to me. I’m a bit jealous I wasn’t there myself to take photos of the empty station!

Hello readers. I know you’re out there. You send me emails sometimes (and occasionally freak me out, yes, I’m looking at you, person who divulged their fantasies of doing nasty things on trains. Why?!) And I sure as heck know you’re searching in Google. I have mentioned it previously, but the things that people type into search engines are incredibly hilarious. And the things that people type in to find this site, well, needless to say, I question the sanity of my readers sometimes. But there are also times you guys ask me some valid questions, so I figured I’d put together a post combining some real answers along with some real “what the hell?” type moments.

Searching the crazy internet

Some “well-educated” internet searches
If you had to take a guess as to the number one thing that people have been searching for (in google and other search engines), and finding this site, what would it be? If you said Hermon Raju, then you would be totally correct. When I first posted about this “well-educated” Metro-North rider, I refused to mention her name. But since she has not only publicly admitted that the woman in the video was her, tried to hire a PR rep to repair her reputation, and went on record saying that she feels she was “raped by the internet,” I’m pretty much declaring her fair game. All of the terms below wound up bringing people to this site, so I must say, Hermon Raju, thank you for the visitors! Despite how well-educated you think you are, you clearly didn’t have the sense to just keep your mouth shut… not only on the train, but also by making yourself again a news story by searching for a person to “repair your reputation.”

educated girl yelling at conductor
educated woman kicked off train
well-educated train rider
crazy lady arguing with conductor
followup to educated obnoxious woman onthe metro north train
identity of the “well-educated” women who snap on metro-north
lady with an education arguing with train conductor in ny
metro north commuter well educated identity
mta girl well educated metro north
woman arguing on metro north train identified
do you know how well-educated i am, i ride the harlem line
rude woman in metro educated
train rider more educated than you
viral woman arguing with train employee

And for everyone other than Raju that is looking for yet another laugh, rumor has it the conductor in the video was reprimanded for not wearing her hat at the time. Oh, Metro North. Always thinking about the important stuff.

You seriously typed that into a search engine? WTF-worthy searches:
Sometimes when I look at these search keyword lists, I sincerely worry about the people that are inhabiting this planet we call Earth. Apparently the intelligence level of some of the inhabitants is dangerously low. I can’t believe people typed in this stuff:

body of drunk found in wassaic
wetting my panties on the train story
cool lesbian on a train
getting my 6th gun in westchester county
girls doing the cat work with metro north
groping on bus and train vids
japan fuck on a subway train

Questions that people search for:

How do you ride free on metro north?
There are a lot of strategies for riding free on trains. My best suggestion is for you to ride in the sixth car of an eight car train, and to look for the special conductor’s bathrooms. People always try to hide in the regular bathrooms, and not only do they smell, you will most likely have some people bothering you at some point. However, nobody ever looks in the conductor’s bathroom. If you knock on the door a few times, usually the door will pop open with no trouble, and you can hide in there for as long you want. Enjoy the free ride! In case you weren’t sure what a conductor’s bathroom looks like, I have a picture for you.

Ignore the window – it is just there to throw you off

Do you have to pay to ride mta from harlem to grand central?
Not if you follow the steps listed above.

Is it safe at goldens bridge train station?
The good majority of Harlem Line stations are fairly safe. I wouldn’t worry about much at Goldens Bridge – but if you see a guy that looks like Santa Claus hanging around, I’d probably run away. He has been known to show up at the station with no pants on, and is miserably drunk about 99% of the time. Don’t worry – he can barely walk, let alone run!

Does the harlem line have bathrooms in the train?
Provided that no dipshit is hiding in it to get a free ride, yes the trains do have bathrooms.

Do sketchy people board the harlem train line?
Well, it depends on what you mean by sketchy. If your definition of sketchy includes women who push their cats around in baby carriages, then yes, sketchy people do board trains. My personal favorites, however, are the artistic types that sketch people on the train (though I guess they would be sketching people and not sketchy). You can find a few of them online, but my favorite is James Napoleon who sketched me one morning a few months ago.

Is being a metro north conductor a shit job?
Difficult question! Conductors certainly get paid more than I do, as well as get a whole lot more vacation and sick days than me. But they also have long hours, and are harassed by people like Hermon Raju. And people that don’t want to pay the fare. And people that are drunk and vomit everywhere. And people that can and will harass them with racial epithets. Do I need to continue? As passengers we merely observe these people. Conductors have to deal with them.

Plus, somebody needs to get your drunk ass home on days like New Years, so conductors are often stuck working holidays. As a public worker, the salaries of conductors are also publicly available on the internet. Inevitably, at least once every year, some media outlet will write a story complaining about how much money conductors make, much of it in overtime. What they fail to realize is that these conductors work every day of the week, and every holiday. They have no days off. Sure, it is by choice, but if (for example) you are trying to pay your kid’s way through college and you’re offered overtime, wouldn’t you take it? Honestly, I think the weekends are probably the only thing that keep me relatively sane – I can’t even begin to imagine working every day nonstop for months.

Other questions & things…

What kind of camera do you use?
Because I post so many photos, this is one of the most common questions I get from people. I’m also asked how I do my panoramas, and why I don’t use a panorama viewer (like this) to present them. Firstly, I don’t use a fancy camera, nor a fish-eye lens. Any distortions are based upon the stitching process (which I use Photoshop for). My main camera is a Fujifilm HS10, and I have a waterproof Fujifilm Z33WP which I carry around in the rain and snow. As for panoramas – photography is a lot about capturing a freeze-frame of something you see with your eyes, and panorama viewers tend to mimic how the eye sees, except with a large vista. I rather like making long and semi-distorted panoramas solely because they are not something you can see with your own eyes as a normal human being.

Where do you get your hats from?
Almost all of my hats come from Boshi Basiik. Susan Nguyen is both wonderful and talented, and has created a few custom hats for me. Not only are they quality made, they are also affordable. And no, this is not a paid advertisement, I just think that Boshi Basiik is that cool.

Why do you like the Harlem Line?
Why is water wet? Why is the sky blue? Why are you asking me silly questions? How could you not be a fan of New York City’s oldest railroad? Maybe I like it because it was the first railroad I was ever a passenger on. I’m not really sure. All I know is that when I started this website, it was about the crazy people I observed, not about the railroad itself. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with the history, and maybe even the saga of the Upper Harlem (even though it didn’t have a happy ending).

Every day when I ride the train down to White Plains, a crowd of folks hovers on the platform, waiting for the train to slow and then stop. They crowd around every door, masses of them, and a fight ensues. A fight of currents. The current of those disembarking clashes against those pushing themselves through and onto the train. If you don’t hold fast and push, you will be swept away before you can even place a foot on the yellow tactile stripping of the platform. And this, this is a daily ritual that I loathe. There is only one thing I hate even more than those that crowd around the doors attempting to get on the train: the people that hover in front of the doors, not to get on the train, but to accost each of the people disembarking with papers – usually some sort of politician’s propaganda. And while we’re being pretty honest here, I am not much of a fan of politicians, especially the ones that swarm train stations whenever an election looms. Some of you may remember back in the “olden days” when I first started this blog, every time a politician would forcibly hand me a piece of propaganda at a train station, I photoshopped it in some odd way and posted it. It was my own little way of rebelling. Though I may have stopped my photoshopping of politicians, the fact still remains: I don’t like politicians.

Politicians today are pretty weak. They don’t even write their own stuff, they get other people to do that. You think if they didn’t spend time writing it, the least they could do is memorize it. But no, they have to stoop to writing on their hands, using teleprompters, or just spewing complete bullshit that makes the rest of the world laugh at us – but hey, we elected them! It makes me want to go back to a time where politicians were badass… where they had duels to settle differences, and despite getting shot in the chest, still delivering their speeches. A time where the politicians could actually speak, a wonderful and eloquent stream of words – not any of this crap that dribbles like a man foaming at the mouth. Politics then would be a heck of a lot more interesting, and elections wouldn’t be a battle between the lesser of two evils.

I’m not sure if anyone really has a “favorite” historical politician. And if anyone does, it is probably a former president. I’m sure Abraham Lincoln’s name would probably come up. Maybe it is just a consequence of us looking back at history in retrospect. We learned his speeches in school, and heck, maybe even the fact that he was assassinated makes us look back and think, damn he was a good politician. But there was another man, not nearly as popular and most people today probably don’t even know his name, but I always seemed to think he was pretty cool. At minimum, he was a brilliant orator, the opposite side of the spectrum in terms of speeches today. But I must admit, perhaps I am a little biased about this fellow, as he was not only a politician, but he was also a railroad man.

Photographs of Chauncey Depew over the years

“Don’t be a damned fool!”
Usually when you’re looking to hire someone for a job, those are not the words you utter to the person you may potentially hire. But then again, most people aren’t the brusque Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt approached a Peekskill-born lawyer by the name of Chauncey Mitchell Depew, offering him a position as the attorney for the New York & Harlem Railroad – a position he was about ready to turn down. Depew had been offered a position as the US Minister to Japan. At that time the journey to Japan took a full six months, and thus the sending of any message took a full year. However, the monetary compensation was far higher than the railroad job – and Depew said as much to the Commodore. It was then that the Commodore fired back with the following: “Railroads are the career for a young man; there is nothing in politics. Don’t be a damned fool.” Depew took the railroad job.

1895 Harlem Division pass, signed by Chauncey Depew

Chauncey Mitchell Depew was born in Peekskill, New York on April 23, 1834. In his youth he spent significant amounts of time reading – his uncle was a postmaster, and at the time there was no mail delivery. Mail often sat a long while until the recipient came to pick it up, and in the interim a young Depew would peruse any newspaper or magazine that would arrive. As a young man Depew would attend Yale, and graduated from there in 1856. At that time there were no law schools in the country, and one would have to “read law” – a sort of apprenticeship – to become a lawyer. Depew “read law” with a lawyer in Peekskill and was accepted to the bar in 1858. Before being called by Vanderbilt, Depew worked as a lawyer in New York City, and served a brief stint as a member of the New York Assembly, and the Secretary of State for New York.

Photograph of Chauncey Depew, from the Library of Congress

All of that probably sounds just as boring as the pedigree of any politician, but there was something about Depew that intrigues me. He was quite the orator, and rubbed elbows with quite a few influential people that maybe you’ve heard of: Horace Greeley, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, Chester Arthur, and Teddy Roosevelt, just to name a few. Depew was described as having a “personal charm and a lovable disposition” – but for the most part he was remembered in his day as a brilliant speaker. You can in fact read many of his speeches, as well as his as his autobiography, for free online – and if you ever get a spare moment, I do find them rather interesting.

Most people today, however, will remember Depew as a railroad man (even though he served as a senator later in life as well). He accepted Vanderbilt’s offer of a position in 1866, a time when Vanderbilt’s roads consisted of a little over two-hundred-and-fifty miles. In the early 1900′s, that number had ballooned to over twenty-thousand miles in the system. By 1874 Depew had ascended to the position of Director of the New York and Harlem Railroad, and by 1882 was the Vice-President for the New York Central. In 1885 he was elected to the presidency, and in 1898 chairman of the board. He served as chairman until his death in 1928, working for the railroad for a total of 62 years.

The cover of New York Central Lines magazine, after the death of Chauncey Depew

Upon his death, Grand Central was draped in mourning. If one questioned the influence of Depew, one needs only look to the list of pallbearers for his funeral, consisting of Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. His wife received condolences from American presidents and European royalty. Though the man is long gone and many have forgotten him, you will still occasionally see references to him: Depew Park in Peekskill, various Depew Streets located around train stations, and the village of Depew, New York, located upstate. And then, of course, there are the words he left behind…

If your construction of success was honestly analyzed, it would probably mean to most minds the getting of money. The desire to acquire property is the most potent force in the activities of our people. It is the mainspring of of our marvelous development, and the incentive and reward of intelligent industry. It is alike the cause of the noblest efforts and the most revolting crimes.

We are at present sailing upon tranquil seas, with no clouds above the horizon and no warnings from the barometer. It is at such times that the prudent and experienced navigator hopes for the best and prepares for the worst.

Keep the roads paved and free from obstructions by which the industrious, the honest, and the capable, with no additional capital but character, can rise from any condition to the highest honors of the Republic, and the largest rewards of business.

Give to all men and women their full opportunities to work on their own destinies, and provide the incentives to efforts and ambitions which promote the enterprises and develop the resources of the country, and enrich and invigorate its intellectual life.

The indestructible union of liberty and law has given character and perpetuity in American institutions. It produced those perfect conditions, of freedom, protection, and equality, which peoples have sought for ages through bloody revolutions, and never before found. It has attracted to our shores fourteen millions of emigrants, against the superior advantages of soil and climate in Mexico and South America, or equal material opportunities in Canada. Most of this vast population have fled from the oppression of laws made for classes and working injustice and wrong to the masses. They have been of incalculable benefit to the country, and without them onr development and resources would be fifty years behind their present state. They have brought with them industry, integrity, and an intense desire to better their lives and improve the condition of their children.

Steam and electricity have made us one people, and for commercial pnrposes unified the world.

Trust and confidence are the foundation of success. Without them it is useless to begin and impossible to advance.

While we’re continuing our celebration of Harlem Railroad Month, I figured profiling a man who got his start on the New York & Harlem Railroad would be appropriate. Conveniently, Depew’s birthday would be tomorrow – so we’ll wish the two of them Happy Birthday on this day!

If there is one thing that Westchester people have taught me, it is how to spend money (there are many times in which I feel that I am a strange observer here, really). Though instead of purchasing those two-hundred-dollar-a-pair pants from the Westchester Mall, I’ve decided to “invest” the precious little income I make in collection of postcards (uhh, and other things. I am an eBay addict).

Westchester people are funny to me, really they are. If you get a whole bunch of them into a single elevator and each person pushes a different floor button, somebody inevitably makes a comment about the elevator being a “local”, or not an “express”. The railroad is so deeply ingrained in their psyches, they don’t even realize it! We are approaching 180 years of the New York and Harlem Railroad, and 171 of those years the railroad has had a presence in Westchester… long enough for most people to not give it a second thought.

I do, however, think my collection of postcards is far more interesting than any pair of pants, as together we can look back at little glimpses of what the area was like, back when the railroad was only beginning to mold the landscape in where we now live, and driving the migration of people to these very suburbs. So here is part three of our series Sending Postcards from the Harlem Line. If you missed the previous posts, you can view them here: Part 1, Part 2.

And really now, did you have any doubt there would be a part four? You can most certainly bet on it.

I’ve spent many months posting various panoramas of the Harlem Line stations. I’m now excited to be able to post the entire Harlem Line, viewed in panoramas. You can watch as the farmland and rural greenery morphs into the suburbs, before changing into the concrete jungle of New York City. If you want to see more photos from each of the stations, just click on the picture. Anybody have a favorite panorama? I think my two favorites are Tenmile River and Harlem-125th Street – the two of them are polar opposites in terms of the scenery visible while taking a ride down New York City’s oldest railroad.

For those who like maps, I place all of my panoramas on a Google map, which you can see below. I also add photos to Panoramio, which provides the photos for Google Earth.

View larger map

There is a lot of wrong information, or downright confusion, when it comes to the Vanderbilts on the internet. I’ve seen articles saying they earned their fortunes in the 1930′s, and that Gloria Vanderbilt’s father was the man who made the millions. But the family has origins much earlier than that, with the “Commodore Cornelius” Vanderbilt. Can I fault people for the confusion? Not really, considering that there were six or more men named Cornelius, at least five Williams, and several George Washingtons. It is my belief that all New Yorkers, and everyone that ever steps through Grand Central, ought to know about the Commodore and his family that had so much influence on our area. It was he that united New York state’s oldest railroad, with New York city’s oldest railroad. The family that built the New York Central railroad into an empire, and constructed our wonderful monument, Grand Central Terminal. So, if you were ever confused about the Vanderbilts, hopefully they’ll now make more sense to you… as I present to you, the Vanderbilts in a nutshell.

Every morning I start out my day taking Metro-North down to White Plains. Now one would probably assume that White Plains is the closest train station to my work, but the fact is that it is not. Mount Pleasant is actually the closest, but as it isn’t a regular stop, the closest train station would be Hawthorne. The place I work for has a shuttle bus that goes to and from White Plains though, so it is easier for me. But there are the occasional times where I end up going to Hawthorne or Valhalla, like when I leave work early and such. So although I am not a regular rider from the station, I am a bit more familiar with it than many of the other stations I’ve visited on the tour. I’ve seen it on the sunny days, and even on the snowy days. I am always curious about the changes going on at the station, such as the coffee shop that is supposed to be arriving at some point in the station building. And I was rather excited when the flowers arrived, along with the new clock in front of the station (which in my photos below had yet to be revealed).

Original Hawthorne station, circa 1900. Note the sign on the front which lists the distance in miles to each end of the railroad, in Chatham on one end and in New York City at the other. A similar sign still exists at Mount Kisco.

When the New York & Harlem Railroad first began making stops here in the 1840′s, the station was named Unionville. If the current name of Hawthorne evokes the memory of an American author, you are certainly on the right track (no pun intended). In 1901 Unionville became Hawthorne, honoring Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, daughter of author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rose became a nun and was known as Mother Mary Alphonsa, founder of a home for those suffering from incurable cancers.

Below are some of the photos I took in Hawthorne at my last visit (which was sometime around July). The clock had recently arrived, the sky was an amazing shade of blue, and the flowers were blooming. In fact I think one of my favorite photos that day was the one of the flower. Although many of the stations I’ve visited I may never go to again, I’ll be checking up on Hawthorne in the future, as I’m eagerly awaiting the new coffee shop… and I’ll probably have to do a before and after of the little station building.

This Tuesday the Tour of the Harlem Line makes a quick stop at North White Plains station. Located slightly less than twenty-four miles from Grand Central, it serves as a terminus for local trains servicing the southern stops on the Harlem Line. Up until the early 80′s, it also served as the end point for electrification on the line, but today the line is now electrified up until Southeast.

North White Plains is also one of the few Harlem Line stations to have an Arts for Transit piece. Installed in 1991, Rolando Briseño’s piece is titled At The Table. Although Briseño was born and works in San Antonio, Texas, he worked towards his MFA in New York City. His public art can be found at various different locations across the country – from airports, to train stations, and schools. The installation at North White Plains is made of cast aluminum on the platform’s columns. Several additional pieces can be seen underneath the station signs on the middle of the platform. In all honesty, this is probably my least favorite Arts for Transit piece that I’ve seen to date. I’m not exactly sure what it looked like when it was installed, but it looks like it has suffered under the elements. Years of salt on the platform during the winter looks like it ate away at the black paint on the bottom.

Since I really didn’t get too many good pictures of the station, I figured I’d give a little bit of a bonus. Located just north of North White Plains station is one of the Metro-North yards on the Harlem Line. Although I don’t normally post photos taken by other people unless they have some sort of historical significance, I will make an exception on these… mostly because they were taken in a place that I can’t go. Here are some photos of the yard at North White Plains…

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I don’t really like trains. Really, I don’t. Trains are a means to getting somewhere, and you can often meet intriguing people aboard, but the mechanical object that is a train doesn’t really interest me. The thing that interests me about trains though, is how they effect people and place. Over its long history, as New York City’s first railroad – chartered in 1831, the New York & Harlem Railroad (todays Harlem Line) has undeniably had a significant influence on the towns it traversed. The railroad was an important catalyst for the growth of Westchester County over the late 1800′s and early 1900′s – and Scarsdale is no exception.

The town of Scarsdale, named for the ancestral home of land owner Caleb Heathcote, was mostly farmlands before the railroad arrived in 1846. In fact it was so rural the entire population of the town numbered 255, mostly farmers, in 1840 (today’s population numbers over 17,000). Due to increased demand, by 1877 train service to Scarsdale was regularly scheduled and reliable. In 1891 the Arthur Suburban Home Company purchased a 150 acre farm and began subdividing it into lots – marking the beginning of large scale suburban development in the town. The first influx of residents were wealthy New Yorkers who built estates and used the train to commute to the city.

Today’s Scarsdale station was completed in 1902 and was designed by Reed & Stem. I’ve mentioned Reed & Stem several times before, as they have designed a few stations along the line, including Tuckahoe and Chappaqua, and also did work on Grand Central Terminal. Their design was in a neo-Tudor style, the first building in Scarsdale with that style. Many buildings later completed in the commercial areas of the town mimicked it, and today Scarsdale is known for the style. It is definitely a beautiful area, and was a well-enjoyed stop on my tour of the Harlem Line’s stations. Neighboring station Hartsdale is sort of like a younger twin brother to Scarsdale – Hartsdale’s station also mimicked Scarsdale’s neo-Tudor style. The two also share a companion Arts for Transit piece, comprised of silhouetted figures, by Tom Nussbaum. Scarsdale’s portion is called Travelers, and the figures are located on the top of the platform canopies.

For some time I’ve wanted to write a post about a particular odd topic, and have waited until now to do so. I figured Halloween would be an appropriate time of the season to mention it, as not only does it have to do with Grand Central, but a ghost in Grand Central. An equine ghost.

I’m not exactly sure how I first came across the story of racehorse Maud S, but it was likely when randomly reading about some of the Vanderbilts’ extravagant and expensive possessions. Without a doubt, Cornelius Vanderbilt was a true master at making money, and his son William Henry was quite adept at adding to that fortune. Cornelius’s grandchildren on the other hand, William Kissam and Cornelius II, were quite the masters at spending money. Though that is not to say that their father William didn’t purchase some pretty crazy things. One such purchase was the racehorse, Maud S. At the time Maud S was one of the fastest racehorses in the world, and held the record for the fastest mile. Her sale to Vanderbilt infuriated some in the racing world – he was taking this amazing horse away from the races to instead be privately corralled outside of Grand Central so he could ride her whenever it struck his fancy. Of course, this is the 1880′s and much of the area around Grand Central Depot was rural, and in terms of the city of New York, considered well “uptown”. But the fact of the matter was, if one of the richest men in the world wanted one of the fastest horses in the world to pull him around in a carriage, it would be done, and William Henry Vanderbilt certainly had deep enough pockets to pay for it. Plus, he was probably never late to New York Central board meetings.

This entire post was merely an excuse to post a picture of William Vanderbilt’s amazing facial hair

I’m not exactly sure what fascinated me about the story of this horse… maybe the fact that even today, a bed and breakfast has a room named after her? Or maybe how a windmill manufacturing company was also named after her? Perhaps it was her big obituary in the New York Times and other papers across the country? (Several internet sites claim the obituary made the first page of the Times, though this is false – it made the 12th page on March 18, 1900) Nope, I think it was the article in City Scoops that said that she is currently roaming the halls of Grand Central near the Oyster Bar – as a ghost.

Of course, the story is most likely a joke. The author even describes herself as a “professional storyteller”. Whether a joke or not, there are actually tourists that believe this shit! I had no idea that there are actually New York City ghost tours, and ones that even visit Grand Central! Perhaps I am a Halloween party pooper to say it, but there is no ghost of a horse wandering the station. I’d be more likely to believe that ghosts of some commuters haunt the station. In fact maybe that should have been written as a warning in Mileposts – don’t run to your train as you might trip, fall, die, and become the next ghost to wander the halls of the station come next October! And way before Metro North, I’m sure plenty of people have died in the station. It was, after all, built in the early 1900′s, railroading was hardly the safest occupation, plus it was being constructed as the previous station was being dismantled, all while maintaining train service. People certainly have died there. But those deaths are hardly as glamorous, and frankly amusing, as a fancy racehorse.

For all of you that happen to be in Grand Central on Sunday, have a Happy Halloween… and do keep your ears open for suspicious neighing…
…coming from me standing in front of the Oyster Bar.