I Don’t Know About You But That 40-Foot Crater In The Middle Of Lexington Seems Scary Enough As It Is

Bloomberg says it’s “not anything other than a failure of our infrastructure” like that somehow makes it better:

A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal yesterday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically. The city said that three firefighters and one police officer were among the injured.

The blast, near 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, raised fears of terrorism, but officials were quick to dismiss that possibility. “There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.

The explosion sent up a foul cloud of hot steam mixed with mud, rust-colored gunk and pieces of pavement just before 6 p.m. in one of the busiest parts of the city. The mayor said that some telephone lines had been knocked out, but that electric power had not been.

As people on the sidewalks scrambled to flee and office workers in the buildings above looked down in horror, debris from the geyser pelted nearby skyscrapers. Then it rained on the streets like a sudden hailstorm. Some witnesses said the jet of steam roared like Niagara Falls.

Some people ran so fast their shoes came off. Others dropped their briefcases and purses. Men in tailored suits were caught in a lapel-singeing cloud. At a health club high up in the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal, people working out on the treadmills said the explosion was so powerful they worried the building would collapse. The steam shot up from a crater that looked like that of a volcano, with orange flames and bubbling mud around the edges. The explosion packed enough force to flip over a tow truck that ended up in the crater, which was about 35 by 40 feet. Several hours after the blast, officials said the crater could grow even larger because pavement at the edges was in danger of collapse.

Another Mystery Smell . . .

Did someone leave the burner on over the weekend? Because I’m starting to feel a little lightheaded:

Con Edison, the fire department and multiple city agencies are investigating the source of a gas odor throughout Manhattan this morning.

Widespread reports of the smell have been coming in since around 9 a.m.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management says it is aware of the situation and at this point they are investigating.

Reports indicate the odor is concentrated on the West Side, as far north as the 80s. The odor has also been reported to be particularly strong around Herald Square and in NY1’s neighborhood in Chelsea.

Previously on mysterious, unexplained smells: The Sweet Smell Of Maple Doughnuts, Or Perhaps Eggos, Smell Returns? Mysterious Smell Comes, Goes And Leaves No Clues In Its Wake, Sweet Syrupy Smell, I Wish I Knew How To Quit You!

In Case You Forgot . . .

Governor Spitzer’s new team starts out on the right foot by sounding a fresh theme of hope and prosperity:

It is not a matter of if, but of when the city’s subway system suffers a terrorist attack, Governor Spitzer’s pick as the state’s homeland security tsar, Michael Balboni, said.

Meanwhile, the Republican state senator who is resigning to join the new Spitzer administration said “not a lot is different” in terms of subway security since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

While he praised the ramped-up security at some tunnel entryways into the city as well as a greater police presence underground, he said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has left gaping holes in the emergency preparedness of its conductors and train operators, who are responsible for initiating evacuations during emergencies. The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.

“There are some unspeakable potential threats out there,” Mr. Balboni said during a telephone interview over the weekend.

Maybe That Health Department Education Campaign Can Include Remedial Math . . .

In the wake of the Health Department’s move to ban transfats, restauranteurs struggle to sort out what it all means:

Mikey Baker, who runs a Golden Krust Bakery on Worth Street, has high cholesterol and understands the need to eat healthy. He believes the jerk chicken wraps and Jamaican beef patties he sells are indeed healthy, though he never paid much attention to trans fat content.

“The brand of oil we use has no trans fat, but sometimes we might have to use a different brand of oil and to be honest, my main concern is getting the meals made,” Baker said.

He paused and picked up a container of margarine.

“It says 2 grams of trans fat, but it doesn’t list a percentage,” he said. “Is that trans fat-free?”

Baker uses that margarine to steam vegetables. “Maybe I could use olive oil instead. We will look into it and do whatever we have to do.”

Either Small Planes Are Too Dangerous Or Our Parks Are Too Underutilized

Fortunately, no one actually uses Brooklyn’s Dreier-Offerman Park:

His small plane sputtering in the skies above Brooklyn, a New Jersey pilot played Capt. Cool yesterday and landed the Cessna right smack in the middle of a city park.

“It was a walk in the park,” Paul Dudley said after calmly guiding the faltering single-engine plane onto a field at Drier Offerman Park in Gravesend.

“This was tailor-made,” the 51-year-old pilot said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better place to land — except an airport.”

. . .

Police said no one was hurt in what Dudley, the director of the Linden Municipal Airport in New Jersey, shrugged off as a “big nothing.”

Frightened local residents said they saw the plane putt-putting low over the tops of buildings just across a creek from Coney Island.

“It sounded like he was in trouble — I thought it would crash,” said Ida DeGorter, who works at a local bus depot. “It came right over the garage. It came so low, we could see the pilot.”

Federal Aviation Administration officials will investigate the cause of the emergency landing.

Dudley, who has houses in the Hamptons and Staten Island, was flying the 28-year-old Cessna alone from Westhampton, L.I., to Linden when the engine started giving out as he neared Coney Island.

Instead of continuing across New York Harbor, he searched for a safe place to land.

“I didn’t want to risk taking it across the water,” he said. “I saw this open field of grass and decided to land it.”

Dudley touched down near several soccer fields and skidded to a halt after rolling about 150 feet.