New York – About half of Pennsylvania Station in New York was closed this morning after a suspicious substance was discovered in a soda can on the concourse, Amtrak said. Officials called it a hoax, CNN reported.
Several exits and ticket counters were closed after the substance was found sometime after 9 a.m. local time, Amtrak spokeswoman Tracy Connell said in a telephone interview. The can was later removed and a smaller area was blocked off. Officials from the New York Department of Environmental Protection are handling the testing and cleanup of the area, she said.
The substance may have been green dye mixed with sodium hydroxide, which would have caused it to foam up, CNN said. The network showed workers in hazardous materials suits in the station.
The station was Amtrak’s busiest in 2004, with almost 4.4 million people boarding trains. It is also the main terminal for the Long Island Rail Road, which is the busiest commuter railroad in the country, carrying 274,000 riders a day. It is also the primary terminal for New Jersey Transit, which has an average of about 68,000 people boarding trains there each weekday.
Yesterday New York officials said intelligence from overseas had uncovered a “specific threat” of a terrorist attack against the city’s subway system.
“This is the first time we have had a threat with this level of specificity,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday. Officials said that while the threat wasn’t fully corroborated, he and FBI officials considered it credible enough to warrant increased precautions.
The activity didn’t affect Long Island Rail Road trains, spokesman Mike Charles said. New Jersey Transit lines are also running as normal, spokeswoman Penny Bassett-Hackett in a telephone interview.
