Last night around 10:50 p.m., heavy smoke was reported at the landmark James A Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue. Dozens of people were evacuated as the city's only 24-hour postal service branch was shut down so firefighters could locate the cause. ...

While there's video evidence Brooklyn's Kensington post office could be the worst post office in the city, Far Rockaway's post office could give it a run for the money. Representative Gregory Meeks complained to the Daily News, "There is so much incompetence and lack of supervision [there]. I'm hearing from a lot of seniors who don't get their Social Security checks on time. A lot of people aren't getting their bills." Many have been unhappy......

The Friends of Moynihan Station shared a rendering of what Moynihan Station will look like, according to NY State. According to FMS, the Empire State Development Corporation has been "reluctant" to share them, but FMS thinks "looks great," though there's a lot that needs to be explained. The Observer broke down what's in the rendering:In the bottom of the picture is the Farley Post Office with a new Madison Square Garden in the rear.......

Less than two weeks after Gov. Spitzer publicly reaffirmed his commitment to going forward with plans to construct Moynihan Station despite a $1 billion funding shortfall, it looks like the matter may be out of his hands. The New York Times is reporting that the whole $14 billion project, which would involve building Moynihan Station at The Farley Post Office building and constructing a new Madison Square Garden on the site, is on the brink......

The fate of the Moynihan Station in the James Farley post office building remains up in the air and it's unclear whether Madison Square Garden will also relocate to the Farley building. If MSG moves, plans say the old MSG would be razed and a new train tracks would be put on top. The Municipal Arts Society's New Penn Station campaign shares a plan from students (at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture's Historic Preservation Program)......

The NY Sun takes a look at the city's skybridges, and their place in our future. While some cities offer the plenty of the structures to their residents (Minneapolis, we're looking at you), they are often only found in parts of the country with extreme hot or cold temperatures. Do our humid summers and frigid winters warrant more indoor walkways? Apparently we're getting less! A few existing skybridges are now in danger of being torn......

Ooof. Talk about insulting. In today's Times, Clyde Haberman goes so far as to compare the Dolan clan to the Mario Puzo's Corleone family from his Godfather series of books. That comparison to the Dolans is clearly a slap in the face to the Corleones. Haberman says that any "enormously rich and influential business family would do as a replacement" and casts Jim Dolan, Chairman of Madison Square Garden, as "the hapless Fredo Corleone."......

Jen has already posted her Top Stories for 2007-- but here's the list according to you, the readers: By Comments* 1. Pet Food Recall After Cat and Dog Deaths, by Jen Chung (614) 2. Rev. John Carmichael, Church of Scientology, by Jen Carlson (312) 3. Wild Wednesday Weather, by Jen Chung (255) 4. Maple Syrup Was Better: Smell of Gas Covers NYC by Jen Chung (191) 5. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninites Don't Scare......

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......

Will Macy's give its regards to Broadway? The NY Times reports that the developers who are trying to redevelop the James Farley Post Office building into the new Moynihan Station "are in the early stage of negotiations with Macy’s" to move from the store's landmark Herald Square location to the Farley building on Eighth Avenue. Charles Bagli's article summarizes the progress of the Penn Station redevelopment and Farley-into-Moynihan Station project: It's complex, given the......

Yesterday was the city's day to honor and remember veterans of the U.S. armed forces. The 88th annual Veterans Day Parade started with the Eternal Light Monument Ceremony in Madison Square Park, followed by a parade up Fifth Avenue to 56th Street. An estimated 20,000 gathered for the parade, and there were veterans from World War II, Korean War, and the Iraq War. Mayor Bloomberg said, "You should know that 70 New Yorkers have given......

As the city and state start to get to work on West Side redevelopment, the Mayor said that one entity won't be getting tax breaks if it moves. Mayor Bloomberg was asked if Madison Square Garden would continue to get $10.9 million in tax breaks if it moves West to the Farley Post Office building (that's what a map in the draft Environmental Impact Statement notes). Bloomberg decisively said, "Not if I'm mayor they won't.......

The person who hung a noose on the doorknob of a professor at Columbia's Teachers College the other week seems to have been a catalyst for NY metro idiots, who have been been copy-cating or otherwise emulating public displays of hateful symbols. Most recently, Parks Dept. employees were appalled to find 10" nooses wrapped around the necks of their clothes when they opened their work lockers in Queens Saturday morning. Kenny Clark and Michelle Rouse-Williams......

Yesterday, state officials released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station/New Penn Station project. The actual 93-page PDF is online for the public to peruse, and, yes, the plan is to move Madison Square Garden into the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue and possibly move to U.S. Post Office's operations to the current Penn Station (we highlighted those moves). Say it with us: UGH. The Sun calls this plan "a test for......

The state released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station project today, and while the details have yet to be finalized, The New York Sun outlines the document's major components. Madison Square Garden will be moved into the rear of the Farley Post Office Building, which will be renamed Moynihan Station. A remade Penn Station will be renamed Moynihan East and will feature a sky-lit train hall surrounded by a million square feet of retail......

Principal Tyona Washington of Canarsie High School opened up a piece of mail that contained a noose made out of string as well as a 2-page letter containing, per Newsday, "a common racial slur and words suggesting that a black person should not be running the school." The letter also referred to "white power" and had the signature of a white administrator, but police do not believe the letter was from that individual. Additionally, the......

NY state officials are expected to release the draft scope for the Moynihan Station's environmental impact statement today, which the NY Sun calls the "Spitzer administration's first public display of forward progress" on the project. The redevelopment of Penn Station into a Moynihan Station at the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue has been in the works for years. In fact, it was October 8 five years ago that the state officially acquired......

The Reverend Al Sharpton, speaking out against the beating a black man in Staten Island, announced that he will organize a protest march in the next few weeks. He said, "New York is becoming worse than Louisiana. We're going to Staten Island, Jena, Washington - and we're going to bring out numbers like you've never seen before." On Tuesday, Skylar McCormack, who is black and had been with some white friends, was attacked by......

As the NYPD Hate Crimes unit, as well as the FBI and Justice Department, investigates the noose found outside a Columbia professor's office, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly commented about the school's cooperation. Apparently the school only turned over surveillance videos after the NYPD provided a subpoena - three days after the noose was found on Teachers College Professor Madonna Constatine's office door knob. Columbia said that educational institutions require subpoenas, because they are dealing with......

Another noose was found Thursday afternoon - and this time, it was outside the Church Street Post Office. Um, WTF is going on? The noose was found on a lamppost, and while it was visible at street level, postal employees working on the second floor noticed it. Building management took it down. According to Newsday, there is scaffolding outside the building at 90 Church Street that "leads to the light pole, but the scaffolding is......

Migrating birds should have a safer journey now that the US Post Office has altered the exterior of one of its Manhattan facilities. Migrating birds have annually fallen prey to the Morgan General Mail Facility in Chelsea. The distribution center between 9th and 10th Aves. has a south face that reflects the trees in Chelsea Park on 28th St. Thinking they've found a nice perch, many birds smack into the side of the building. Volunteers......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual trauma at Pennsylvania and Flatlands Aves. in Brooklyn, a church robbery on West 31st St. in Manhattan, and a found DOA on Furman St. at the piers in Brooklyn. State officials are now thinking that the best way to reincarnate the glory days of the old Penn Station is not to build two office towers on top of the Farley Post Office building. They've arrested the man......

Plans for a new Penn Station and Madison Square Garden at the historic Farley Post Office building remain as murky as ever. But a recent poll undertaken by the Municipal Art Society (MAS) suggests that Penn Station commuters overwhelmingly favor the prospect of a grand new train station--but they need more information. If and when the project proceeds, who will keep watch over the three mega-developers (the state-run ESDC, along with private companies Related Group......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Dorchester Rd. in Brooklyn, an armed robbery with shots fired on Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, and a bank robbery on Broadway and 68th St. in Manhattan. If one has been ordained by an online ministry, it's good to make sure the state you marry people in will recognize your performance at the altar. A possible problem is that even state officials in charge of issuing......

Last year, Rebekah Johnson went on the lam after allegedly shooting the leader of a Staten Island commune. Over a year later, police found Johnson after she got off a train in Philadelphia yesterday morning. Johnson, who had dodged the authorities after the shooting, was tracked down after she "bought a car in Delaware using her real name, and opened a post office box in nearby Cherry Hill, N.J." per the Post. And the final......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 101st Ave. in Queens, a boat in distress at the Gateway Marina off Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and an "unusual occurrence" on Wall St. in Manhattan. Brownstoner notes the arduous bureaucratic effort to get DUMBO landmarked, and developers' rush to build before that can happen. The NYPD is initiating TOMS––Total Order Maintenance Sweeps––aboard Metro-North and LIRR trains to deter terrorists commuting from the suburbs, after......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A fatal car accident in Manhattan at 55th and 12th Avenue, a water rescue on West 50th and a three-alarm fire at a Bronx post office Cute animal maternal instincts alerts: A Central Park turtle tried to lay her eggs at Wollman Rink and there's a cute shot of a hawk and her baby hawk at City Birder The Post lists NYC's most 50 powerful women: Mayor Bloomberg's squeeze......

Update: WNBC reports that Cho Seung Hui sent a "box containing a manifesto of sorts, photographs and other material" (including videos) to NBC News. NBC News received it today and president Steve Capus turned the box over the FBI, but MSNBC says that the box was sent between the two shootings. The package included a long, “rambling, manifesto-like statement embedded with a series of photographs,” Capus said. The material is “hard-to-follow ... disturbing, very......

We’d heard about a recently opened Singas Pizza on Columbia Street, that along with a few tables and chairs, also happened to have a post office inside. They usual jests about mailing pies were made, but not much talk about how the actual pizza was, so we decided to head over and check things out. On the front door was a newspaper clipping proclaiming that their chain, which has over 18 locations around the city,......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......