<p>Good grief.77 stories high. <a href=“Discovery Hub - News & Technology”>Discovery Hub - News & Technology;
<p>Unfortunately the early reports of no casualties turned out to be false. Some injuries and at least one death. They think maybe cold water got into the pipe.</p>
<p>Sincere condolences here to all the NY cc’ers.</p>
<p>Thanks from a NY CC’er. I am very happy that my kids had a music recital this evening. My H left work quite a bit earlier than usual and cannot have missed this explosion by more than a few minutes. He walks from his office to Grand Central. There sounds as if there was quite a bit of panic.</p>
<p>Glad everyone is ok. How bad is the traffic up there? Are roads besides Lex at 41st (I believe) closed? I may be up there in a few days and could use the head’s up. Thanks</p>
<p>A good friend and business associate of ours lives at 5th and 61st. I’m not familiar with the city at all…is this near the explosion?</p>
<p>Never mind…google-mapped it…more than 15 blocks away. Thank goodness. Very sorry to hear there were casualties.</p>
<p>ldmom-
Since 20 blocks = a mile in NY, your friends live more than a mile away. The bigger issue is where they were, or where they work, a the time the pipe blew.</p>
<p>thanks jym…his office is near his home…and he was in the city. My husband told me last night he had a call from him and he need to remember to return it, but fell asleep before he did so. They have a meeting in NY scheduled for next week and I think my husband may have thought he was calling about logistics of the meeting…and I don’t think he had yet heard about the explosion. Sounds like our friend probably is just dealing with the aftermath and not directly affected though. Surely his wife would have called if there were a major problem.</p>
<p>Hey-- I’ll be in NY next week too!! Where will your H be?</p>
<p>Probably at his partner’s office and at a couple of investment banks…so back and forth between Upper East Side and Lower Manhattan. How about you?? </p>
<p>(He may go to Cairo instead though…working on visas. I wanna gooooo!!!)</p>
<p>jym626,
They have a large area (many blocks) around Grand Central cordoned off. You can get into Grand Central station via the northern exits, which are at 48th and Park Ave., and 47th and Madison Ave. My H said that they had blocked off maybe 20-25 blocks south to north, and a number of avenues east to west. However, they are opening them one by one as they clean up. At least I see this time that clean-up workers do appear to be wearing all kinds of masks. I saw footage which a bystander took at the time of the explosion and it gave me chills because it looked like 9/11 all over again with people running in the streets from a cloud of dust and debris.</p>
<p>living here and seeing it on TV all stations live was almost like having Post traumatic stress from 9/11…I can’t imagine what it was like for the people in the area seeing and hearing it and running from it. The woman who died was 51 and had a heart attack while fleeing the area.The kid driving the red towtruck that landed in the hole was on his second day on the job and is burned over 80% of his body.
Mayor Bloomberg on TV today said they are opening up the blocks one at a time so by next week your travel should be just fine.</p>
<p>WashMom just flew in from New York. She was staying at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square in midtown (45th and Broadway). She says they heard the sirens from the direction of Lexington Ave, but didn’t see anything.</p>
<p>ahh I was in the city at the time, but I was at 7th and 29th.
still scary though–I had friends who were right there</p>
<p>From the photos, it really looks like a miracle more people were not killed. Wow! I’m really clueless about these things, so why do they have steam pipes beneath the roads?</p>
<p>cathy, mom and our other CC New Yorkers - I wondered how it must feel to be going through something like this again. I don’t suppose anyone who was there for 9-11 will ever be able to forget. 
I truly am sorry you have had this unfortunate reminder.</p>
<p>Btw…is History Channel (or possibly Discovery Channel) that has the series about what is underneath cities? I’ve seen the episode about NYC at least twice and it is extremely fascinating.</p>
<p>momof3sons – so glad for your H’s narrow escape.</p>
<p>I heard about it on the late night news and went onto instant messaging just in case NYC son was up. Sure enough, about 2:45 am his time, he was online and able to tell me he hadn’t been near midtown and had just heard about the explosion himself. I have to say it was one time I was very happy for his late night habits!</p>
<p>I was going to get tix to a show on Sat (I will be staying in the suburbs) but maybe we should make other plans? We would be taking the train into Grand Central. Not sure that soulnds like a great idea, though we are looking at that being a week away. Maybe I should plan to stand on the TKTS line - should be lots to offer if people (like me!) are skiddish.</p>
<p>JYM re TKTS!</p>
<p>I was in NYC last weekend – there were LOTS of tix available for LOTS of shows at 4 pm for 8pm Saturday night shows. I think there were at least 500 people ahead of me in line, it took about 30 min to move through the line, and I got tix to my first choice show. </p>
<p>I had about 6 shows that were on my list as possibles – and all were available. H wanted to see Wicked but there’s nothing available at list price or discounted. Apparently if you want to pay over face value you can get tix.</p>
<p>cnp- we would like to to a Sat matinee. Any guesses on availability? what did you see?</p>
<p>Someone recommended Spring Awakening. thoughts?</p>