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NYC Back To Business As Usual After Failed Doomsday Predictions

NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- Whatever you want to call it – judgment day, the end of days, rapture – the predictions for the end of the world didn't come to fruition on Saturday.

After an extreme radio host predicted a global earthquake to bring about doomsday, people throughout the Tri-State and across the country were talking – though many weren't buying into it, reports CBS 2's Dave Carlin.

"I'm glad it didn't end," Weston, Connecticut resident Cheryl Weinstock said. "I've got a lot to do."

Related: Nina In New York: The End May Or May Not Be Nigh

The billboards, transit posters and fliers calling for the end of the world were hard to miss. Retired transit worker Robert Fitzpatrick told CBS 2 that he spent $140,000 of his own money on the ads, 100 percent sure of his message.

Fitzpatrick insisted he had cracked the "Doomsday Code" hidden in the Bible.

"This isn't just some vague scripture that could be interpreted one way or another," he said. "This is solid, mathematical proof."

WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reports on the failed predictions from the Rapture Lounge

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"It's just a bunch of hoo-hah," Heraa Chaudhry, of Old Bridge, said. "They're trying to get a rise out of people, I think."

Even New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made jokes about the predictions earlier in the week.

CBS 2 called Fitzpatrick's home in Staten Island on Saturday, but no one answered.

The man behind the inaccurate predictions, 89-year-old Christian radio broadcaster and author Harold Camping, did not make any comment on Saturday. He said he used numbers and scriptures to make the calculation – something he also did in 1994.

"Harold Camping is going to figure out a way to say that he had a little mathematical formula wrong, like he did in 1994 when he predicted the end of the world," Wall resident Stuart Migdon said. "He said the very same things."

"He's in hiding, isn't he?" Oleina Simpson, of Bowie, Maryland, said. "His prediction is wrong. No one knows when the earth's going to end – until it does."

Many New Yorkers spent the day on Saturday embracing the prediction, using it as a reason to have apocalyptic parties or to host an end of the world bash.

On Saturday evening, though, it appeared that the Big Apple was back to business-as-usual.

Did you celebrate the end of the world - or the failed predictions? Tell us about it below!

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