Penn Station | The New York Observer

Amtraked! Carrier to Temporarily Suspend Boston-New York Service

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:14:18 -0400

Traveling on I-95 on a summer weekend has never been pleasant, but this weekend you can expect it to be particularly rough.

Amtrak announced that its Accela and regional service between New York, Boston, and New Haven will be cancelled from June 14 to June 17 so the moveable span of the 90-year-old Thames River Bridge connecting Groton and New London, Conn., can be replaced.

During the four-day track outage, Amtrak...

Brodsky, Gottfried None Too Happy About Moynihan’s Move to Port Authority

Thu, 08 May 2008 11:21:54 -0400

Should Governor Paterson indeed move the Moynihan Station project under the control of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as he said he wants to do, at least two members of the State Assembly are poised to resist the action: Richard Gottfried, the district’s representative, and Richard Brodsky, the chairman of the committee that oversees public authorities.

“It’s a New York project; it ought to be run by...

Was It Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:21:49 -0400

From Thomas Friedman's column in The New York Times this morning. He was writing about the lack of investment in American infrastructure, among other things:

If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War...

Ray Kelly to Steve Roth, James Dolan: Put Up That Wall!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:45:05 -0400

WNBC.com got hold of a March 25 letter from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to Madison Square Garden Chairman James Dolan, Vornado Realty chief executive Steve Roth, and the heads of the M.T.A. and Amtrak, faulting the parties for holding up the installation of a security perimeter around Penn Station to protect what he called “the single most critical transit hub in the United States” from terrorist attacks.

Though the MTA...

Endangered Hotel Penn Nets Nearly $38 M. in '07

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:53:01 -0400

With Merrill Lynch staying put downtown and plans to redevelop Penn Station in flux, Vornado CEO Steven Roth may not know what to do with the Hotel Pennsylvania--a building the company once described as "a placeholder, sort of like a parking lot."

In the meantime, the historic lodge continues to make his company some big bucks--netting roughly $37.9 million last year.

That's $10.6 million more than in 2006, according to the company's latest filing...

Roth Still Interested in Smaller Moynihan Plan

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:24:38 -0400

With the plans for a grand redo of Pennsylvania Station looking all but dead following Madison Square Garden’s announcement that it will renovate its existing arena rather than move to a new site, one of the developers central to the project has indicated his approval for a scaled-back version if the larger plan indeed fails.

“I am hopeful a scaled-back version and perhaps even a doubly scaled-back version will happen,” Vornado...

Garden Unveils Renovation Plans; Moynihan Station Dream Flatlines

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:19:50 -0400

Madison Square Garden today unveiled plans for a $500 million interior renovation of its arena that would remake and reconfigure lobbies, concourses, seating and concessions in the four-decade-old building. Should the project go forward, it would bring an end to the plans to remake Penn Station, a $14 billion initiative of transportation and commercial development in the area that hinges on the Garden moving its arena.

“You saw the plans, you see...

Moynihan Station Funding: A Primer

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:03:41 -0500

At the center of recent concern—voiced by advocates, officials and others involved with the process—surrounding the viability of the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station is where all the money will come from to fund it. [More on the broader issue here.]

State officials have said the redevelopment of Penn Station, part of a grander project known as Moynihan Station, will cost at least $2.2 billion (with emphasis on “at least”), and there’s a...

Bam! Moynihan Station Imagined in Full

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:48:13 -0500

Don’t know how we missed this. Apparently, for the first time, the state displayed this rendering of the larger Moynihan Station last week, as part of a talk Governor Spitzer gave at the Association for a Better New York breakfast, according to a spokesman from the Empire State Development Corporation.

The governor is at a critical stage with the Moynihan plan, seeking a big, big chunk of money from Washington, along...

This Won't Take Long, Amtrak Just Wants to Check Your Bags

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:49:22 -0500

To jolt commuters from the holiday lull, Amtrak will now greet passengers at Penn Station and elsewhere with bomb-sniffing dogs, machine-gun-wielding security officers, and random carry-on bag checks starting today as part of a program to boost security measures on domestic rail lines.

A long-time proponent of upping security on America’s vulnerable rail system, Senator Charles Schumer, supported the initiative but feared that cash-strapped Amtrak might not have the personnel to make the system work...

Council Pushing to Halt City’s Dolan Dole

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:08:33 -0500

In a morning sure to be rife with Jim Dolan-bashing, the City Council is holding a hearing Monday on a Madison Square Garden tax break, as elected officials are calling for an end to the approximately $11 million-a-year property tax exemption. The movement to revoke the break is gaining steam at the same time that Mr. Dolan, the owner of Madison Square Garden and a true darling of the media, is in negotiations to...

Civics Let Some Ads In at Moynihan

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:09:52 -0500

One of the ongoing points of contention between civic organizations and the developers of the planned Moynihan Station complex is whether Madison Square Garden should be allowed to advertise on the Beaux-Arts façade of the Farley Post Office, which would serve as the Eighth Avenue entrance to the new arena. Today, a coalition of 17 organizations and elected officials, under the auspices of Friends of Moynihan Station, softened the hard-line preservationist approach.

The...

Midtown South Graduates

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:57:15 -0500

It’s official: midtown South has been annexed by midtown, as the prospect of billions in investment in Penn Station and some 7.5 million square feet in anticipated development by Steve Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust have convinced a major brokerage that things are changing along 34th Street.

CB Richard Ellis today announced that the Empire State Building, the Penn Plaza buildings and others in the area will now be included in...

Parking Lot Across From Penn Station to Go Residential

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:48:21 -0500

The New York-based Savanna Real Estate Fund is planning a 100,000 square foot mixed-use building across the street from the Farley Post Office and Pennsylvania Station, a corner site home to a parking lot.

The site, 415 Eighth Avenue, is on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 31st Street, a location certain to benefit from the gargantuan amount of development – about $14 billion –...

MAS Pre-empts Moynihan Developers

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:16:58 -0400

While the players in the proposed Moynihan Station get entangled with one another (wasn’t there supposed to be a plan out there by now?), the Municipal Art Society is hitting them from the outside.

Today, the organization, which likes the idea of a new train station but is none too happy if Madison Square Garden takes it over again, launched a Web site to “document its campaign for the development of a grand...

ESDC Eyes Farley Post Office Buy in March

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 11:54:29 -0500

The state economic development agency is paving the way to get a hold of the Farley Post Office as soon as next month, a crucial part of the Spitzer administration's new strategy for building a new Moynihan Station and revamping Pennsylvania Station. Shortly after coming into office in January, Pat Foye, the new downstate chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, extended the option to buy Farley, but just until the end of March--an...

Spitzer Camp to Study Madison Square Garden Move

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:55:02 -0500

The Spitzers administration's keen interest in moving Madison Square Garden (a not-very-well-kept secret) came out into the open on Thursday morning. The board of the Empire State Development Corporation, the state economic development agency, allocated $500,000 for a supplemental environmental impact statement for the Moynihan Station project that would consider the implications--in terms of traffic, historic preservation and whatnot--of moving the basketball arena from its present home at 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue a...

Lord Foster, Others Propose Massive Plan to Supplant Garden

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Four architectural firms presented plans to developers in closed-door meetings late last month for a redesigned Penn Station—with Madison Square Garden chopped off the top and moved one block west, and traded in for office towers arranged around a pedestal that would house the train station. Lord Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill presented models showing anywhere from two to four towers of varying...

Penn Station Gets Band-Aid

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 08:56:41 -0500

As the state, city and private developers dance and parry, NJ Transit has put forward a small, temporary solution toward easing crowding at Penn Station: a $13.8 million entrance at the corner of 31st Street and Seventh Avenue, Crain's reports. - Matthew...

In This Week's Observer...

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:14:56 -0500

The Garden: Where's it headed? Plans afoot to supplant Madison Square Garden "Four architectural firms presented plans to developers in closed-door meetings late last month for a redesigned Penn Station - with Madison Square Garden chopped off the top and moved one block west." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman Presenting the priciest downtown single-family sell "A 55-foot-wide townhouse at 11 West 10th Street has gone into contract. The asking price was $37.5 million. If it closed...

Bakery Transcends Its Transit-Based Comfort Zones

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:33:07 -0500

Zaro's Babka: No longer just for Amtrakers. Fans of bagel dogs and other Bronx-made baked goods, get ready for more crusty carbs, in a somewhat unusual setting. Zaro's New York Bakery will soon open its 13th area store--far removed from its typical train-station or bus-terminal digs. Having already established a dominating presence at the city's transit hubs--including four stores at Grand Central, two at Penn Station, and another at Port Authority--Zaro's is now targeting Flatiron-area flatfoots. At...

Beneath Their Stations

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

During a recent and rainy rush hour at Penn Station, dripping umbrellas and dirt tracked in from squeaky sneakers and soggy loafers added to the standard feeling of despair among New Jersey Transit and Long Island Rail Road commuters trying to get home. The air was thick and humid with anxiety, and it smelled like a combination of wet hair, hot dogs and defeat. “There’s a low-ceiling alienation to the place,” said New York...

Brookfield Goes West

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 05:10:32 -0500

Brookfield Properties is planning "a huge new office development" on a recently completed assemblage between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, 31st and 33rd Streets, The Post reports, behind what would be Madison Square Garden if the Moynihan-Penn Station deal ever gets done. On the other hand, don't get too excited. Steve Cuozzo quotes a source saying, "They will not build on spec, but are considering a two-building or a three-building option depending on tenant interest."...

Speaker Silver on Moynihan: Deal by June '07

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 19:00:00 -0500

“We’re talking probably sometime before June,” said Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in an hour-long interview with The Observer, when asked when he thought the project could get its final approval. “If it’s given...

Speaker Silver on Moynihan: Deal by June ’07

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Fresh from vetoing the project to turn the Farley Post Office Building into Moynihan Station, a new rail hub, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver nevertheless sounded chipper about a bigger, better train-station plan in his offices on the evening of Oct. 24. “We’re talking probably sometime before June,” said Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in an hour-long interview with The Observer, when asked when he thought the project could get its final approval. “If it’s given...

Silver Rejects Moynihan

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:48:45 -0400

Holding out for his compromise proposal extended this morning, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (or, rather, his appointee) voted against the Moynihan Station project at today's Public Authorities Control Board meeting. "We thought our alternative provided the critical advantages that we needed and we thought it would be better for a full, safe modern transporation facility," Silver's spokesman Skip Carrier said. The Governor had threatened to nullify the agreement with Related and Vornado and start over...

The Squeeze, Pataki-Style

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 12:24:08 -0400

Just how much leverage does an exiting Governor have over a recalcitrant Assembly Speaker who refuses to approve the Moynihan Station plan that Pataki has worked on for just about all of his 12 years in office? Well, there is always the press conference, which he held today in the foyer of the Farley Post Office, where the station (technically an extension of the existing Pennsylvania Station) would go. And then there is the...

Perils of Pataki: Tied to Tracks on Moynihan Station

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Things aren’t looking good. Moynihan Station started out life as a comparatively modest renovation of the city’s main post office into an extension of Amtrak’s Pennsylvania Station, underground and across Eighth Avenue to the east. Now the...

Perils of Pataki: Tied to Tracks on Moynihan Station

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Governor George Pataki’s aides are scrambling to get the jackhammers going at Moynihan Station in west midtown before Dec. 31, determined not to let yet another Pataki-legacy development project slide into the Spitzer era. Things aren’t looking good. Moynihan Station started out life as a comparatively modest renovation of the city’s main post office into an extension of Amtrak’s Pennsylvania Station, underground and across Eighth Avenue to the east. Now the post-office renovation, named...

Penn Station Madhouse: Big Storm's A-Comin'!

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:39:22 -0400

With Labor Day Weekend just a few hours away, The Transom decided to go straight to the source: the Long Island Rail Road section of Penn Station. The trip got off to an inauspicious start, however, when a faux-pas was committed: hugging a young child on the subway. Her sweatshirt read: 'Aww someone needs a hug.' A reminder of that didn't cut it with her father. "Get outta here," he said. In Penn Station, it...

Landmark Hotel Pennsylvania Needs Big Dose of Lysol

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 20:00:00 -0400

As a present for her husband Gary’s 60th birthday, Diane Farnham, of Bath, England, booked a four-night getaway in the heart of Manhattan at the start of the summer tourist season.

Ms. Farnham, 59, chose the historic Hotel Pennsylvania—the showpiece built in 1919 by McKim, Mead and White for the Pennsylvania Railroad, across Seventh Avenue from the firm’s soaring Penn Station. Old Penn Station is just a rueful memory and a cautionary preservation...

Events for July 25, 2006

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:50:00 -0400

Marty Golden and NYC Department of Design and Construction officials will tour the Fort Hamilton Roadway reconstruction project. John Faso will campaign at Penn Station. Board of Elections Executive Director John Ravits will announce a poll worker outreach effort during screening of the documentary By The People at the Manhattan BOE headquarters. NY1 hosts a debate between Tom Suozzi and Eliot Spitzer. Azi has the debate party details. —Nicole...

Letters

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Gargano Responds

To the Editor: Your paper’s editorial “Moynihan’s Grand Vision” [July 3-10], in which you criticize Governor George Pataki for moving forward with Moynihan Station, demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the independent importance of the project. Your description of the developers’ proposal seems to suggest that it is in more than a speculative stage. To the contrary, if a substantive proposal were to be submitted to the city and the...

Letters

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Gargano Responds To the Editor: Your paper’s editorial “Moynihan’s Grand Vision” [July 3-10], in which you criticize Governor George Pataki for moving forward with Moynihan Station, demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the independent importance of the project. Your description of the developers’ proposal seems to suggest that it is in more than a speculative stage. To the contrary, if a substantive proposal were to be submitted to the city and the state, it would...

Editorials

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Moynihan’s Grand Vision During his four terms as a United States Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan often sighed in frustration over the lost art of thinking big. New York City, the late Senator complained, had lost its ability to conceive and execute public-works projects worthy of a world capital. In his last years, Moynihan championed (and funded) a project that promised to reverse the trends he so deplored: the conversion of the old Farley Post...

Tuesday: Gehry's "Flimflam," Lauder's "Club," and $7b for MSG

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 04:20:00 -0400

Steves Roth and Ross have a little $7 billion plan to move Madison Square Garden a block west. And to build the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station, of course. And to transform Pennsylvania Station by erecting a monumental glass canopy (plus 20 Corinthian columns). And to construct five towers on top of Penn Station. "We are about making money here on a grand scale," Mr. Roth admits. (A political "battle royale" The Times...

City-State Battle Looms At New Moynihan Station

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 20:00:00 -0400

The plan to turn the Farley Post Office building at Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street into a commuter-rail hub named after its early champion, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is turning into a political skirmish pitting Governor George Pataki and his administration against the city. Charles Gargano, the Governor’s development czar, is anxious to get a spade in the ground on the new Penn Station by the end of the year—and, some say, the end...

Roth Rescue: Garden Swap For Moynihan

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Steven Roth lost the deal to lease the World Trade Center five years ago this month. He lost it, the press concurred, because he pushed too hard, for too long, and annoyed the sellers. Mr. Roth will not want to lose out on the deal he is now negotiating: persuading the Dolan family, owners of Cablevision and Madison Square Garden, to move the arena one block west to Ninth Avenue to make room for...

Dolans to Build New Garden

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:04:47 -0500

The Farley post-office building today. Crain's is reporting that the Dolans have finally agreed to rebuild the jinxy Madison Square Garden one block west, on Ninth Avenue, as part of the renovation of the Farley post-office building. They're sourcing it anonymously. A new office tower would go up above Penn Station instead. [A] source said The Related Cos. brokered the deal by smoothing over hard feelings remaining from the West Side stadium fight between...

LIRR and NJ Transit to Help Fund Amtrak?

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:52:30 -0500

Slithering out. Troubled Amtrak has long worked well in the Northeast Corridor--Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, various Connecticut cities, Providence, Boston. So now the Bush administration, according to The New York Times, has a new solution: Charge surplus-addled commuter rail systems in those cities for their use of Amtrak facilities--tracks, stations, etc. The plan, according to The Times, could hit New Jersey Transit hard, because it operates many trains over long routes. The Long Island Rail Road...

Autosummarize: Muschamp

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 12:32:00 -0500

The Gutter has posted this hysterical take on Herbert Muschamp's gay Huntington-Hartford opus, from an anonymous correspondent. Bonus dirty excerpt: Meanwhile, a few blocks south, Pennsylvania Station was being a really bad building, but a really good one, too. Mr. Hartford had a collection of poodle art that he kept in the gallery, which is why it had no windows....

WOOD WAR VIII

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:03:00 -0500

Who's winning the battle of the front pages? The Media Mob would like to reward the Post for scaling back its Post Poker ad and getting a nice big screamer headline out there. But the Media Mob happened to first spot this front page out the corner of one eye in its natural competitive habitat--on a Penn Station newspaper rack. And on that newsstand stroll-by, the most salient impression was that "Ferrer ad /...

McMansion Mania

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 04:13:00 -0400

Paul Goldberger called it "a graceless, sloppy, cheap entertainment and office complex that would be an insult to an empty site in the middle of nowhere." So who wants to save Penn Station? It has been noted here before that the New York Times loves the term “McMansion.” However, Jon Gertner’s excellent magazine piece is an welcome exception to the typical use of the term. Mr. Gertner follows the buying of land, and rampant building...

Sounds of the City: What Happens to Hearing When You Move to N.J.

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 20:00:00 -0400

“What? Yes.” “The hollow bleeping sound when you type in your P.I.N., the one that sounds like Speak and Spell. That ain’t no Chase machine.” “You’re psychotic.” “No, I just live here.” “O.K.,...

Sounds of the City: What Happens to Hearing When You Move to N.J.

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 20:00:00 -0400

A few nights ago, my sister called from her cell phone to make dinner plans in Manhattan. Two minutes into the conversation, I said, “I don’t know—what about that place with the chopsticks that don’t splinter? … You’re at an A.T.M. in a bodega, aren’t you?” “What? Yes.” “The hollow bleeping sound when you type in your P.I.N., the one that sounds like Speak and Spell. That ain’t no Chase machine.” “You’re psychotic.” “No,...

Penn Deal Inked

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 04:38:00 -0400

The New York Times reports today that Vornado and Related have sealed the deal to develop Moynihan Station--that's the old Farley post office building accross the street from Penn Station (which was once referred to by a critic as the city's "vomitory.") They won because they had the highest bid; they had the highest bid because they're going to take the "air rights" from over the station and transfer them across the street where they're...

Final Decision Looms For Moynihan Station

Sun, 26 Jun 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Toward the end of an industry luncheon one recent Wednesday, after the roast chicken but before the fruit torte, prominent real-estate lawyer Jonathan Mechanic announced that the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust had landed the contract to develop the Farley Post Office at Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street into the next Grand Central Terminal. It was, he explained, one of the keys to the development of the West Side-and, considering the Jets stadium...

Moynihan Station Makes Its Big Push With Sangria Kicker

Sun, 08 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, late a Senator from New York, can still pack them in. He's been gone for two years now, but on May 2 dozens of New Yorkers-including the woman who holds his old Senate seat-gathered in the James A. Farley Post Office building to pay homage to his last dream.

Were he still among us, the Senator would not be surprised to learn that his notion of turning the Farley building into a...

All Not Aboard! Amtrak Pulling Brake on Penn

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:00:00 -0400

Senator Hilary Clinton had just spent several hours on Friday, Sept. 17, touring an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York about the life and times of her predecessor, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, when she and a small group of architects and urban planners took an impromptu walk upstairs to discuss, over coffee, the fate of the late Senator’s most frustratingly unfulfilled dream: the transformation of the James A....

Suburbs Benefit From City Spending

Sun, 16 May 2004 20:00:00 -0400

Thirty years ago, eight city officials-the Mayor, the Comptroller, the City Council president and the five borough presidents-would sit around a solid oak table on the second floor of City Hall every other Thursday, deciding how to spend tens of millions of dollars on city services.

The table was in the hearing room of the old Board of Estimate chamber, where citizens were permitted to testify on any calendared item. Today, that room is...