AMNY Subway Tracker

So today at City Hall, Lee Sander honored Wesley Autrey -- a year's supply of MetroCards and MTA knapsacks and other goodies for the kids.

Sander was accompanied by Paul Fleuranges, director of communications for New York City Transit.

This in unusual, because Fleuranges only used to accompany outgoing NYC Transit chief Larry Reuter for events. Anything to do with Peter Kalikow or the former exec director Katie Lapp, was the real of the MTA headquarters own press staff.

Neither Kalikow spoksman Tom Kelly, Lapp's former chief of staff turned Kalikow spokesman Tim O'Brien, or Mercedes Padilla, a former Pataki spokeswoman who acts as a liason to Spanish media, were there.

Instead, it was Fleuranges, who is highly regarded by transit reporters for his encyclopedic knowledge of subway.

Is this a promotion for him ?

UPDATE: Fleuranges denies a promotion. "Just so happened that we here at Transit have the MetroCards and we put together the goodie bags for Mr. Autrey and his children with assistance of the Transit Museum Gift Shop in Brooklyn. I’ll be content to keep the [job] I have."

-- Chuck Bennett