Morning Headlines: New Yorkers Struggle with Rising Food Prices, Plan to Rebuild Penn Station Features Classical Architecture, and Elizabeth Street Garden Fa...

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Announcer 1: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC. It's Wednesday, March 12th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: New Yorkers say they're buying fewer eggs and eating less meat as the price of food rises. WNYC's Karen Yi reports some are even falling into debt.

Karen Yi: Residents waiting for a free bag of groceries at the New York Common Pantry in East Harlem say their paychecks aren't enough to keep up with the rising cost of food. Mercedes Rodriguez says she's been charging food to her credit card and had to take out a loan to pay it off. She hasn't had eggs in a month and mostly buys-

Mercedes Rodriguez: Potatoes. More starch than anything. And I'm not supposed to be eating that. I have diabetes.

Karen Yi: Rodriguez isn't alone. More than half of New Yorkers recently polled by the nonprofit No Kid Hungry have also taken on debt to pay for food in the last year. A majority also said their physical and mental health had suffered because of rising costs.

Michael Hill: A new plan to rebuild Penn Station would align with President Trump's affinity for classical architecture. WNYC's Ramsey Khalifeh explains.

Ramsey Khalifeh: The plan would tear down Madison Square Garden and build a new arena across 7th Avenue. The current venue would become a public park with grand entrances to Penn Station featuring Greco-Roman columns. Trump has said he likes that aesthetic. In his first term, he signed an executive order seeking neoclassical designs for federal buildings. Here's the head architect behind the plan, Alexandros Washburn.

Alexandros Washburn: I think New Yorkers like to build stuff. You know, we like to make the city newer and better all the time.

Ramsey Khalifeh: The donor is New York hedge funder Thomas Kleigenstein. He funds a group that says it wants to "make America beautiful again."

Michael Hill: For the plan to move forward, the developers would need approval from the city, state, and federal governments, as well as the owners of Madison Square Garden. A popular green space in lower Manhattan has been hit with another eviction notice. The Elizabeth Street Garden is dotted with sculptures and often open to the public, but the city owns the space and wants to use it to build affordable housing for seniors. The Garden supporters have pointed to alternative sites and have fought the city in court to stop the last eviction attempt. They also have a federal lawsuit to protect the garden sculptures and other artworks.

City officials say they're willing to include the sculptures in a green space they want to build alongside the new building. The eviction notice means that the Garden could be kicked out as soon as March 24th. 48 and mostly clear out there right now, partly sunny, steady temperature around 50 today. Tomorrow partly sunny, a little bit cooler, and then Friday back to the mid-50s.

Announcer 1: Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.

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