New Penn Station (Moynihan Station)

[BrooklynRider]

It is real. The company I'm at is a consultant on it, although I have few details myself.

[jarod213]

Great news about Penn Station.

We'd better landmark the surrounding area like crazy before the good stuff gets torn down.
(This is my home ... I promise to take some pix in the next few weeks.)

If it was up to me, I'd preserve anything above eight stories that was built before 1950, and uncork all height limits on the remaining land. Build high. YIMBY.

Now you're talking! 1950 and later is just crap, total crap; let the wrecking balls swing! Phillip Johnson and Van der Rohe can go to hell!

[antinimby]

...and Gene Kohn over at KPF, too!

By the way, is it just a coincidence that guys named Gene are awful architects or is there something to that? :confused:

[NoyokA]

...and Gene Kohn over at KPF, too!

By the way, is it just a coincidence that guys named Gene are awful architects or is there something to that? :confused:

I don't think that's fair Gene Kohn is the head of KPF which has designed a number of great buildings spanning much futher back than the Chase Tower and I don't agree with jarod213 that everything built after the 1950's is crap, especially by Mies and Philip Johnson who were both modern masters and excellent architects.

I think A. People need to calm down
-and-
I think B. People need to pick up some architectural history books

[lofter1]

You mean that all these guys suck (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gene+architect) :confused:

[antinimby]

I don't think that's fair Gene Kohn is the head of KPF which has designed a number of great buildings spanning much futher back than the Chase TowerTo me, that makes him even more of a putz because while I know KPF has done good work for other cities, it is uncomprehendible and unforgivable for him to now put this horrible Chase thingy here in his own backyard and the world stage that is the WTC.

[NYguy]

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Cost_estimates_for_Moynihan_project_are_premature/9205.html

Cost estimates for Moynihan project are ‘premature’


by amy zimmer
JUN 29, 2007

MANHATTAN. Though the Pataki administration tried to fast-track a $900 million project to turn the James A. Farley Post Office into the new Moynihan Station transportation hub, Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration is making some changes before it goes through the approval process.

According to yesterday’s Daily News, the state’s economic development czar, Patrick Foye, said the project’s cost would be “significantly higher than $1 billion,” and the paper reported sources saying the plan to build the hub — which includes moving Madison Square Garden across Eighth Avenue to the Farley Post Office and building a new Penn Station where MSG now stands — could exceed $2 billion.

It reported the project’s total cost, which included two office and retail towers by private developers — Vornado Realty and the Related Co. — could exceed $14 billion.

Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporation, said his office never put out the $2 billion projection.

“We’re still in the schematic phase,” Cockfield said. “It would be premature to speculate before we’re done with that.”

The state agency plans to start the scoping process “within the next few weeks,” in which it will present “rudimentary elements” to the public. “But for more specific schematics,” Cockfield said, “we’re still a ways away from that. I know people are eager, but it’s a very complex project with multiple transportation agencies, the state and two major developers.”

[Eugenious]

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Cost_estimates_for_Moynihan_project_are_premature/9205.html

Cost estimates for Moynihan project are ‘premature’

The state agency plans to start the scoping process “within the next few weeks,” in which it will present “rudimentary elements” to the public. “But for more specific schematics,” Cockfield said, “we’re still a ways away from that. I know people are eager, but it’s a very complex project with multiple transportation agencies, the state and two major developers.”


LOL LOL LOL

2B$ x 5%inflation x 10yrs = 3.36 billion
3.36B$ x %50 standard cost escalation = 4.88 billion
Tax payers totally raped for subsidizing new MSG (Cablevision) and office towers (Vornado & Related) = priceless

:D

[zarzapan]

Well, with a (s)pokesman like Errol Cockfield (God, I could not MAKE that up) what do you expect?

[Eugenious]

Yeah no kidding, you cant make this stuff up.

[lbjefferies]

LOL LOL LOL

2B$ x 5%inflation x 10yrs = 3.36 billion
3.36B$ x %50 standard cost escalation = 4.88 billion
Tax payers totally raped for subsidizing new MSG (Cablevision) and office towers (Vornado & Related) = priceless

:D

and downtown New Yorkers will happily re-elect Sheldon Silver, the man responsible for the raping.

[MidtownGuy]

What is it with that guy? Why is he always re-elected? Seems like a total putz.

[TonyO]

and downtown New Yorkers will happily re-elect Sheldon Silver, the man responsible for the raping.

I voted against him. But I am clearly in the minority with all the people who are anti-development, anti-tall-building, anti anything new.

[jarod213]

I don't think that's fair Gene Kohn is the head of KPF which has designed a number of great buildings spanning much futher back than the Chase Tower and I don't agree with jarod213 that everything built after the 1950's is crap, especially by Mies and Philip Johnson who were both modern masters and excellent architects.

I think A. People need to calm down
-and-
I think B. People need to pick up some architectural history books

Stern, I am an architectural historian: Mies and Johnson can stay (I was being outrageous), since they are part of history; that doesn't change my mind about their work. They strove to be true to their materials, and at the same time covered up their discrepancies. . . very very lame.

[jarod213]

Silver is the biggest a$$hole to ever grace NYS government. When will he just die? I put a price on his head the moment he started ridiculing the West Side plan. . . and then he killed it. How can a single man have so much power? And now he's against congestion pricing! he's an idiot.

[TREPYE]

Stern, I am an architectural historian: Mies and Johnson can stay (I was being outrageous), since they are part of history; that doesn't change my mind about their work. They strove to be true to their materials, and at the same time covered up their discrepancies. . . very very lame.

Johnson was OK.

But Mies....Please I will never forgive him for modernism. No single movement in art and civic practice has put more money into the hands of developers (less is more.....profit) and taken so much distinction and charm out of skylines.

Case and point...look at what Penn Station used to be and look what the masters of modernism itself, SOM, has in store for us with the new Penn station design . Wait and see, unless they have done a major redesign. Albeit better than being buried underground its pathetic compared to what we used to have or even to what Calatrava came up with downtown.

(I dont mean to hurt your feelings Vegineer)

[MidtownGuy]

I hate SOM.

[Ebola]

It's just that SOM, for the most part, gives crap to NY and gives gold to the rest of the world.

[DarrylStrawberry]

New York Times:

New Grandeur for Penn Station in Latest Plan
By CHARLES V. BAGLI (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/charles_v_bagli/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: July 4, 2007

It began as a proposal to restore the Beaux-Arts grandeur of the old Pennsylvania Station. It grew into a sweeping plan to transform the area around the station into a district of gleaming office towers. Now it is growing again.

In the next three weeks, two of the city’s largest developers will unveil new plans for rebuilding the station, moving Madison Square Garden, replacing the Hotel Pennsylvania, and erecting a pair of skyscrapers, one of which would be taller than the Empire State Building (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/empire_state_building/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), over the site of the existing station.

Though the new plan is broadly similar to a proposal offered a year ago, it is different in several important ways, starting with the cost: $14 billion, double that of the original plan, a real estate executive who has seen the plan said. It is also bigger than anticipated: the entire plan, involving buildings on six adjacent blocks, would create 10 million square feet of new office space off West 33rd Street, as much as in the old World Trade Center.

The developers, Stephen M. Ross and Steven Roth, have also burnished their vision for the station, which would be renamed after Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/daniel_patrick_moynihan/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who championed the original idea. Civic groups and the head of the City Planning Commission (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/city_planning_commission/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Amanda M. Burden, had complained that last year’s plan treated the underground station as an afterthought, without a grand public space worthy of the country’s busiest transit hub.

The new plan would try to recapture the imposing aura of the original station inside the James A. Farley Post Office across the street, with a vast, street-level waiting room under a glass canopy that would spill sunlight onto the concourse two levels below.

In the next three weeks, the public will get its first, albeit sketchy, look at the new plan when the Spitzer administration takes the first step in an environmental review of the project’s potential impact on the neighborhood.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I think the stars are aligned to do this,” said Patrick J. Foye, co-chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, the state authority overseeing the project.
It is far from a done deal.

Despite progress on the designs and numerous meetings with officials from Amtrak, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/port_authority_of_new_york_and_new_jersey/index.html?inline=nyt-org), New Jersey Transit (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_jersey_transit/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the Long Island Rail Road and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the developers do not have a definitive agreement with the various transportation agencies.

The developers also have yet to hammer out a final deal with the owners of Madison Square Garden, Cablevision and the Dolan family, to move the Garden to the western part of the Farley building, which would be the arena’s fifth home in 132 years. The two sides have a nonbinding agreement.

More important, the estimated cost of renovating the station has also doubled, to $2 billion, and no one knows who will pay. Compounding the problem, another state project, the expansion of the nearby Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, has also doubled in cost, to $4 billion. And state officials have warned that the proposed renovations of the Farley building may not qualify for $225 million in federal tax credits they want.

Proponents contend that the Moynihan Station project has an important benefit that justifies using public dollars: a new transportation hub that would form a monumental gateway to the city. But civic groups have also argued that the developers should shoulder a substantial portion of the cost of renovating the station because it would make their property far more valuable.

Mr. Roth, the chairman of Vornado Realty Trust, and Mr. Ross, chief executive of the Related Companies, would build 5.5 million square feet of office and retail space on the current site of Madison Square Garden, on Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets. If it were approved, they would also build a two million-square-foot tower at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 34th Street, using development rights from the post office building.

In addition, Mr. Roth’s company plans to demolish the Hotel Pennsylvania, across Seventh Avenue from Madison Square Garden, to make way for a 2.5 million-square-foot building. Real estate executives and urban planners say that if the plan reaches fruition, Vornado, which already owns about seven million square feet in the neighborhood, will dominate one district like no other landlord in the city.

“Given the magnitude of the project and the wealth which could be created for the developers,” Mr. Foye said, “we expect them to make a significant contribution to the cost of the train station.”

So far, the developers have said only that government should pay for the station.

“The project,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, a vice president of Related, “will unlock billions of dollars in tax revenues, remake the dismal area surrounding Pennsylvania Station” and catalyze development on the Far West Side.

That is a sentiment shared by the Bloomberg administration as well as business and civic groups like the Partnership for New York City (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/?inline=nyt-geo) and the Regional Plan Association (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/regional_plan_assn/index.html?inline=nyt-org). But Kent L. Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/municipal_art_society/index.html?inline=nyt-org), a civic group that has met with the developers, said that it was “inappropriate” for the state to put the project on the fast track and begin an environmental review before “the design, the financing and all the implications are on the table.”

Senator Moynihan first suggested in 1992 that the Farley post office, which stretches from Eighth to Ninth Avenue opposite the Garden, could be turned into a grand train station to help alleviate congestion at Penn Station in a gesture of civic redemption for the much-lamented demolition of the original station in the 1960s.

The state ultimately agreed to buy the Beaux-Arts post office, though the Postal Service continues to operate the historic stamp windows behind the colonnade on Eighth Avenue. In 2005, the state selected Related and Vornado to develop the project. Since the tracks beneath Madison Square Garden extend below the post office, the original plan was to convert the landmark building into a $900 million train station with a monumental train room and large stores like Kmart.

But the developers always had bigger things in mind. They hoped to persuade Cablevision, which owns the Garden, to sell its development rights and move to a new arena, which would allow for the renovation of Penn Station and enable them to build a huge new office complex.

Last December, the plan hit a roadblock when the State Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, refused to approve the Farley portion of the project, snubbing the outgoing Republican governor, George E. Pataki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/george_e_pataki/index.html?inline=nyt-per).

Since then, the Spitzer and the Bloomberg administrations have been working with the developers. The latest plan calls for a new, 20,000-seat arena to be built in the western two-thirds of the Farley building. The glass-covered arena would rise as much as 35 feet above the roof of the post office, with a 10-foot setback. Signs advertising events at the Garden would be mounted on kiosks, rather than plastered on the building as the Garden owners originally suggested.

One source of continuing dispute on the station has been the Garden’s insistence that the colonnade on Eighth Avenue serve as the entrance to the arena, with basketball and hockey fans buying tickets at the stamp windows, walking around the interior, past a large train room, into the arena. Commuters using New Jersey Transit or Long Island Rail Road would enter the building through separate, street-level entrances.

The Garden’s owners are also proposing to replace interior brick walls with glass, allowing visitors to see the interior of the arena. But these proposals have come under fire from preservationists who worry that the Garden will overwhelm the Farley building, much as the Garden replaced Penn Station more than 40 years ago.

“We’re looking for a well-designed, separate and distinct train station,” said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_york_landmarks_conservancy/index.html?inline=nyt-org), a private preservation group. “We do not want the Garden to swallow the station.”

Not to worry, state officials say. “This is, first and foremost, a transportation project,” Mr. Foye said. “The goal is to create something that is consistent with Senator Moynihan’s vision of a public space that can accommodate 550,000 daily commuters and still have room for growth.”

After work is done on the Farley building, the developers would move east to demolish the old Garden and allow for the renovation of Penn Station, with separate waiting rooms for Amtrak and for Long Island Rail Road passengers. New Jersey Transit would be the largest single transit tenant in the Farley building. The street-level part of the station would include two corridors running from Seventh to Eighth Avenue, several levels of stores and possibly a major department store in a 10- to 12-story base.

The developers also plan to renovate Vornado’s tower at 2 Penn Plaza and erect two skyscrapers, with one rising up to 1,400 feet, the other about 1,100 feet, according to executives who have seen the plans. On the lower levels, the towers, which would be completed in 2018, would have several 80,000-square-foot floors for a financial institution interested in a trading complex.

The developers are also talking to city officials about an alternative plan that would permit them to transfer development rights to nearby properties so that the skyscrapers would not have to be so tall. Under this scheme, the developers would also be able to start construction of other office buildings before the new arena is completed.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/04/nyregion/0704-met-MOYNIHANmap.gif

[lofter1]

Some good news and some bad news here ...




New Grandeur for Penn Station in Latest Plan


Good:


In the next three weeks, two of the city’s largest developers will unveil new plans ...

Not so good:


... it is different in several important ways, starting with the cost: $14 billion, double that of the original plan ...

Have to see the new design (would that be #4??) before I make a judgment here \/ ...


... a vast, street-level waiting room under a glass canopy that would spill sunlight onto the concourse two levels below ...

Of course there is the unresolved deal-breaker ...


The developers also have yet to hammer out a final deal with the owners of Madison Square Garden, Cablevision and the Dolan family, to move the Garden ...

Again, this is not good news ...


More important, the estimated cost of renovating the station has also doubled, to $2 billion ...

And, due to this \/, will probably evolve into very BAD news ...


... and no one knows who will pay.

Not sure this \/ has been floated before (the site now contains a low-rise shoe store and the recently renovated entryway to the underground Penn Station) ...


... If it were approved, they would also build a two million-square-foot tower at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 34th Street ...

With all that new height and razzle dazzle which will surround Farley this is a good decision ...


... Signs advertising events at the Garden would be mounted on kiosks, rather than plastered on the building as the Garden owners originally suggested.

This disagreement seems misguided ...


One source of continuing dispute on the station has been the Garden’s insistence that the colonnade on Eighth Avenue serve as the entrance to the arena, with basketball and hockey fans buying tickets at the stamp windows, walking around the interior, past a large train room, into the arena.

Why make commuters go UPSTAIRS to buy tickets and then head back DOWNSTAIRS to get the trains :confused: This is more logical ...


Commuters using New Jersey Transit or Long Island Rail Road would enter the building through separate, street-level entrances.

Hallelujah \/ !!! Although they should take the POS down and do something new that doesn't create a wall across 32nd Street ...


The developers also plan to renovate Vornado’s tower at 2 Penn Plaza ...

Wowza ...


... erect two skyscrapers, with one rising up to 1,400 feet, the other about 1,100 feet ...

I still think these humongous trading floors are going to be outdated nearly before they're built ...


On the lower levels, the towers, which would be completed in 2018, would have several 80,000-square-foot floors for a financial institution interested in a trading complex.

Dunno about this ...


... an alternative plan that would permit them to transfer development rights to nearby properties so that the skyscrapers would not have to be so tall. Under this scheme, the developers would also be able to start construction of other office buildings before the new arena is completed.

[ablarc]

The developers are also talking to city officials about an alternative plan that would permit them to transfer development rights to nearby properties so that the skyscrapers would not have to be so tall. Under this scheme, the developers would also be able to start construction of other office buildings before the new arena is completed.

There goes the building taller than the Empire State.

[Eugenious]

Boondoggle, in the sense of a term for a project that wastes time and money, first appeared during the Great Depression in the 1930s, referring to the millions of jobs given to unemployed men and women to try to get the economy moving again, as part of the New Deal. It came into common usage after a 1935 New York Times headline claimed that over $3 million had been spent teaching the jobless how to make boon doggles1.

In more recent times the term "Boondoggle" has come to refer to a government or corporate project involving large numbers of people and usually, heavy expenditure, where at some point the key operators have realized that the project is never going to work, but are reluctant to bring this to the attention of their superiors. Generally there is an aspect of "going through the motions", (for example, continuing research and development), for as long as funds are available to keep paying the researchers' and executives' salaries and so on. The situation can be allowed to continue for what seem like unreasonably long periods, as senior management are often reluctant to admit that they allowed a failed project to go on for so long.

An important aspect of the Boondoggle, as opposed to a project that simply fails, is the eventual realization by its operators that it is never going to work, long before it is finally shut down. This is not the same thing as simply fraud, where the proponents know in advance that their idea has no merit.

wikipedia.org (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/wikipedia.org)

[TREPYE]

New Grandeur for Penn Station in Latest Plan
By CHARLES V. BAGLI (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/charles_v_bagli/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: July 4, 2007

The Garden’s owners are also proposing to replace interior brick walls with glass, allowing visitors to see the interior of the arena.


NO!!!!!:mad: Totally unnecessary!

[BPC]

New Grandeur for Penn Station in Latest Plan
...
Commuters using New Jersey Transit or Long Island Rail Road would enter the building through separate, street-level entrances.


No, no, no. One of the things that makes GC so brilliant is that there a 100 different ways into and out of the complex. It combines stunning beauty with incredible convenience. Everyone should be able to enter and exit every part of the new Penn Station through EVERY entrance.

[ablarc]

^ You mean they won't connect?

[BPC]

Hard to tell from the article. But the Times makes it sound like Garden ticketholders will use one entrance, and train commuters will use another, which is exactly the wrong way to do it.

[NoyokA]

Just a small moderating note. When you choose to quote a post, if you're quoting the outside source replace the name of the outside source in place of the name of the poster in the quote code ie [quote=DarrylStrawberry _ with [quote=The New York Times

[ZippyTheChimp]

One source of continuing dispute on the station has been the Garden’s insistence that the colonnade on Eighth Avenue serve as the entrance to the arena, with basketball and hockey fans buying tickets at the stamp windows, walking around the interior, past a large train room, into the arena. Commuters using New Jersey Transit or Long Island Rail Road would enter the building through separate, street-level entrances.

But these proposals have come under fire from preservationists who worry that the Garden will overwhelm the Farley building, much as the Garden replaced Penn Station more than 40 years ago.


No, no, no. One of the things that makes GC so brilliant is that there a 100 different ways into and out of the complex. It combines stunning beauty with incredible convenience. Everyone should be able to enter and exit every part of the new Penn Station through EVERY entrance.


^ You mean they won't connect?


Hard to tell from the article. But the Times makes it sound like Garden ticketholders will use one entrance, and train commuters will use another, which is exactly the wrong way to do it.An entrance at the top of a long flight of stairs is not ideal for a train station. GC has street level entrances, as did the old Penn Stn. That's why the original Farley design had the main ticket concourse midblock at street level..

The concern of those opposed to the MSG plan is not so much the loss of the colonnade entrance for commuters, but that an exclusive arena entrance would destroy the character of the 8th Ave elevation and the interior space.

If the colonnade becomes the entrance to MSG, they're gonna want a sign. That should be a non-starter.

[NYatKNIGHT]

...an alternative plan that would permit them to transfer development rights to nearby properties so that the skyscrapers would not have to be so tall.Already there's the inclination to fight height.

[antinimby]

A 1400 foot office tower never sounded realistic to me, especially in this city.

That's taller than the WTC and look at the all drama both versions (original and now) had to go through just to get built.

I think when all is said and done, we'll get a couple of towers in the 800-1000 foot range, which will be pretty impressive nonetheless.

[ASchwarz]

I think you're wrong, because the amount of F.A.R. is such that the buildings will be much taller than your estimates.

In all the previous articles we were told both were 1,400 feet, but there was no distinction between spire height and the building height. Now we are told something a little different, but not necessarily inconsistent if the previous articles were referring to spire height for the shorter bldg.

The other two buildings will also be quite tall. I would be surprised if any of the four were under 1,000 feet (total height, not bldg. height). 2.5 million square feet for the Hotel Penn will give us a bigger bldg. than One Bryant Park, and the 34th/7th site has a relatively small footprint for 2 million square feet.

I guess we'll have a clearer picture when the plan is released in the next three weeks.

[Bob]

Zoning, schmoning. NY should let the free market rule, and scrap all building height restrictions.

[elfgam]

I know the chances are slim... but my god -- THIS IS THE KIND OF BIG THINKING THE CITY NEEDS! Everyone keeps saying that we need a Rockefeller Center on the west side to get that neighborhood jump started ... AND THIS IS IT! I've seen images of the two towers... amazing. I just hope people realize that whatever you think of scale in the other parts of the city this area right here is absolutely the right place to do this...

then again, we can already identify the main argument against it: these are talled than the Empire State Building, and are right near it... sadly, i guarantee in the end they'll be forced to 'respect' the height of the ESB... though really to respect the spirit of the ESB represents would be to surpass it in height.

[DarrylStrawberry]

I've seen images of the two towers... amazing.

What do they look like?

[lofter1]

The argument that they're taller than ESB and will thereby block the ESB so shouldn't be built really only works if you're making the argument in NJ :cool:

(or maybe as a resident of Penn South)

[ablarc]

The argument that they're taller than ESB and will thereby block the ESB so shouldn't be built
A doleful argument at best, firm in the faith that the past can't be matched.

[lofter1]

On the other hand, if one chooses to build near to and taller than the ESB then one had better produce a F'ing Great Building.

[NYguy]

An entrance at the top of a long flight of stairs is not ideal for a train station. GC has street level entrances, as did the old Penn Stn. That's why the original Farley design had the main ticket concourse midblock at street level..

The concern of those opposed to the MSG plan is not so much the loss of the colonnade entrance for commuters, but that an exclusive arena entrance would destroy the character of the 8th Ave elevation and the interior space.
If the colonnade becomes the entrance to MSG, they're gonna want a sign. That should be a non-starter.

I spent the better part of an hour standing in line at the Farley last weekend, so I had time to admire the features. The Garden won't need that many ticket windows open. Even though the post office doesn't use every window either, it should remain functioning. Let MSG share the windows, the post office will be open more. With all the surrounding office towers planned, the place will be buzzing with even more activity. As far as viewing the interior of the new Garden from the station, although I see nothing wrong with it (an added bonus in my opinion), that will only be to the west. Better to be able to see into it than being buried beneath it. These people need to find something else to worry and complain about.

[NYguy]

The argument that they're taller than ESB and will thereby block the ESB so shouldn't be built really only works if you're making the argument in NJ :cool:

And for the most part, not even then. It all depends on the angle. If we had renderings, a lot could be said...

[ablarc]

On the other hand, if one chooses to build near to and taller than the ESB then one had better produce a F'ing Great Building.
Ca va sans dire.

[zarzapan]

Zoning, schmoning. NY should let the free market rule, and scrap all building height restrictions.

Houston is a great example of what results.

[Bob]

That's exactly right. Kudos.

[NYguy]

I think you're wrong, because the amount of F.A.R. is such that the buildings will be much taller than your estimates.

In all the previous articles we were told both were 1,400 feet, but there was no distinction between spire height and the building height. Now we are told something a little different, but not necessarily inconsistent if the previous articles were referring to spire height for the shorter bldg.

The other two buildings will also be quite tall. I would be surprised if any of the four were under 1,000 feet (total height, not bldg. height). 2.5 million square feet for the Hotel Penn will give us a bigger bldg. than One Bryant Park, and the 34th/7th site has a relatively small footprint for 2 million square feet.

It makes more sense to me that the development rights for the 2 msf tower be moved elsewhere (that footprint is so small). Although, it also makes sense to cram as much space as possible as close as possible to Penn Station. As close as the Freedom Tower is to the PATH terminal, there were complaints that it was "too far". The full 5.5 msf will be built at the MSG site, you can bet on it.

(btw, those earlier renderings are consistent with 1,100 and 1,400 ft)

[NYguy]

Also, back to the Farley/MSG thing, from those earlier renderings we saw, the view of MSG from the station was more of a "peek", it wasn't entirely open to it. And even then, it won't be from the main floor of the station.

[ld876]

The argument that they're taller than ESB and will thereby block the ESB so shouldn't be built really only works if you're making the argument in NJ :cool:

(or maybe as a resident of Penn South)

I'm having flashbacks of Brooklynites talking about the Williamsburg Savings Bank...

[ld876]

I know the chances are slim... but my god -- THIS IS THE KIND OF BIG THINKING THE CITY NEEDS! Everyone keeps saying that we need a Rockefeller Center on the west side to get that neighborhood jump started ... AND THIS IS IT! I've seen images of the two towers... amazing. I just hope people realize that whatever you think of scale in the other parts of the city this area right here is absolutely the right place to do this...

then again, we can already identify the main argument against it: these are talled than the Empire State Building, and are right near it... sadly, i guarantee in the end they'll be forced to 'respect' the height of the ESB... though really to respect the spirit of the ESB represents would be to surpass it in height.

This is exactly what I was saying to a few friends the other day (which arose from an article a few months back saying NYC needs another Robert Moses). My argument isn't that we need a Moses clone, but someone with some real foresight, excitement and envelope pushing ideas would be great (who also had the power to get things going). THUS, your excitement made me smile, I'm with you all the way.

[ablarc]

The argument that they're taller than ESB and will thereby block the ESB so shouldn't be built really only works if you're making the argument in NJ :cool:

(or maybe as a resident of Penn South)
The view of the Empire State Building is already blocked from many places in its vicinity. From, say, 31st Street a person on the north sidewalk could have his view blocked by a single-story building.

A thirty story building is enough to block other views of ESB --if it's between you and the ESB.

A 250-story building will block no more views of the ESB than a 100-story building (except for a second at a time if you're in a helicopter.)

Good argument for extra height.

[ablarc]

I've seen images of the two towers... amazing.
Welcome back,elfgam. Tell us what you saw.


sadly, i guarantee in the end they'll be forced to 'respect' the height of the ESB...
You're right, alas.


...though really to respect the spirit of the ESB represents would be to surpass it in height.
Exactly.

[elfgam]

Welcome back,elfgam. Tell us what you saw.


You're right, alas.


Exactly.

Thanks for the welcome returns... its good to be back.

the towers i've seen are very rectilinear but super cool (i have no beef with straight...) They have an exoskelatal structure similar to hearst or the new richard rogers buildings over in LIC. anyway, cantilevered off this glass-wrapped conventional rectangular box structure, are sheets of gently warping glass ... something like gehry's building on the hudson but applied in front of the buildings in a manner similar to the rods in front of piano's ny times hq... the station sits between them similarly to the grand entry to the AOL TW center...

that's all i can really say...

[londonlawyer]

Thanks for the welcome returns... its good to be back.

the towers i've seen are very rectilinear but super cool (i have no beef with straight...) They have an exoskelatal structure similar to hearst or the new richard rogers buildings over in LIC. anyway, cantilevered off this glass-wrapped conventional rectangular box structure, are sheets of gently warping glass ... something like gehry's building on the hudson but applied in front of the buildings in a manner similar to the rods in front of piano's ny times hq... the station sits between them similarly to the grand entry to the AOL TW center...

that's all i can really say...

Do they have crowns?

[elfgam]

not of the pseudo-art deco variety... more like nyt hq

[londonlawyer]

not of the pseudo-art deco variety... more like nyt hq

Are there simply flat roofs with spires appended?

Are the buildings basically tall boxes?

Who designed them?

Thanks for the info.

[NYguy]

the towers i've seen are very rectilinear but super cool (i have no beef with straight...) They have an exoskelatal structure similar to hearst or the new richard rogers buildings over in LIC. anyway, cantilevered off this glass-wrapped conventional rectangular box structure, are sheets of gently warping glass ... something like gehry's building on the hudson but applied in front of the buildings in a manner similar to the rods in front of piano's ny times hq... the station sits between them similarly to the grand entry to the AOL TW center...

that's all i can really say...

That's good enough! (for now)

[jarod213]

I think to compliment the ESB, they should work with the idea of crowns, wedding cake, and spires. We're no longer a city of spires, just boxes. Also, why are we making so many concessions to the Dolan family and MSG? Who are they in bed with? The plan calls for a train station, not a new MSG. MSG is secondary, maybe even third or fourth in line of importance. The main entrance AND the side entrances should be for train riders. Why not put the MSG entrance on the back, on the Hudson River side? Make all the different spaces connect. Beaux-Arts is about CONNECTIONS, and ease of traversing the space. Jesus Christ people, Wake up!

[Eugenious]

I think to compliment the ESB, they should work with the idea of crowns, wedding cake, and spires. We're no longer a city of spires, just boxes. Also, why are we making so many concessions to the Dolan family and MSG? Who are they in bed with? The plan calls for a train station, not a new MSG. MSG is secondary, maybe even third or fourth in line of importance. The main entrance AND the side entrances should be for train riders. Why not put the MSG entrance on the back, on the Hudson River side? Make all the different spaces connect. Beaux-Arts is about CONNECTIONS, and ease of traversing the space. Jesus Christ people, Wake up!

This is no longer about the train station, it's now a ALL YOU CAN EAT TAX PAYER RAPE FEST in the name of these guys

http://www.bitterfans.com/UserFiles/Image/dolans.JPGhttp://nymag.com/daily/intel/20061017dolan.jpghttp://www.nypost.com/seven/10172006/photos/biz031.jpg

[Dynamicdezzy]

.....Nice teeth....

[JohnFlint1985]

This is no longer about the train station, it's now a ALL YOU CAN EAT TAX PAYER RAPE FEST in the name of these guys

http://www.bitterfans.com/UserFiles/Image/dolans.JPGhttp://nymag.com/daily/intel/20061017dolan.jpghttp://www.nypost.com/seven/10172006/photos/biz031.jpg

But without those "Jokers" nothing is going to happen. So let them have their tax breaks as long as they build something good. The Penn station project is actually quite nice except for the demolition of Penn Hotel.

[antinimby]

^ Good point.

Dolan looks creepy in that photo.

[jarod213]

Those are the worst Veneers I've seen in a long time. Maybe those tax breaks can go towards some new ones?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Also, why are we making so many concessions to the Dolan family and MSG? Who are they in bed with? The plan calls for a train station, not a new MSG. MSG is secondary, maybe even third or fourth in line of importance.The Dolans are unpleasant, and they shouldn't dictate design at the Farley building, but moving MSG is not secondary; it is the key to unlocking the economic potential of the site.

If you don't understand that, you don't understand the project.

[Dynamicdezzy]

^Adding to that----> this was discussed before. If only the Post office is converted into (Moynihan Station) a modern day terminal and nothing else, then the only ones to reap the benefit are commuters from NJ. Nj transit would be the anchor tenant....the only tenant to use Moynihan. Amtrak and LIRR would still use the current Penn. And while I'm not hating on NJ but investing all of that $$$ on only a single rail provider would suck for everyone else. (Look at Fulton st station vs WTC hub) However, by moving MSG from its current site else where (lets ignore the fact that the proposal is over half of Farley for a second) then a new Penn gets to be erected over the current one and the chance for HUGE (i know, i know) towers to be built opens up as well. That means more money for the city. Of course there are at least 3 big issues. 1) Subsidies, 2) tax breaks and 3) New MSG. Who should pay for the new Penn station? Should the city hand out 1 to 2 billion (tax-payer) dollars for this new station or the developers who are going to make a lot more than that because of this development? Should the city let the Dolan’s keep their tax breaks if they move else where? Should they build the New MSG over part of the Farley building? And of course that last one brings many smaller issues, like 1) design, 2) signage, 3) entrances, 4) ticket windows, etc. If the MSG design doesn't swallow the new Moynihan station then it might be worth sacrificing part of the building. You would have 2 (above ground) structures serving the current station, Office development and a brand new Arena - It’s definitely worth it. But of course, we have to wait for the renderings to be "officially" released.

[jarod213]

I know it's a key component to unlock the Penn site, but they should not have first dibs on where they put a new giant hockey puck! Why is there a monopoly on arenas in Manhattan; a West Side Stadium would have fixed that problem....hmmmmm

[jarod213]

Why is it that the old Penn took up the entire superblock, and we're having trouble dedicating a small portion of the property to the station? Rail and Pedestrian congestion means bigger station. Why have we taken a step backwards since 1911, in terms of transportation?

[JohnFlint1985]

Why is it that the old Penn took up the entire superblock, and we're having trouble dedicating a small portion of the property to the station? Rail and Pedestrian congestion means bigger station. Why have we taken a step backwards since 1911, in terms of transportation?

I think that after 1945 the main idea was a personal car -- not public transportation. Now once we have oil problems, traffic without end, road repairs which cost a fortune and there are never enough of them and on top global warming -- the new outlook is actually went back to 100 years old wisdom of having trains, trams an etc. So what was considered obsolete in 1964 when Penn station was demolished, now is back in favor. Hopefully to stay.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I know it's a key component to unlock the Penn site, but they should not have first dibs on where they put a new giant hockey puck!Because they won't move MSG far from the hub. If you try to force them to move it elsewhere, they'll stay put. End of project.


Why is it that the old Penn took up the entire superblock, and we're having trouble dedicating a small portion of the property to the station?What do you mean?

[TonyO]

NY Times
July 15, 2007
Sports of The Times

With the Dolans Involved, Expect More Ugliness

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/15/sports/15vecsey.1.600.jpg
Pennsylvania Station, a Beaux-Arts building, was torn down in 1963 to make room for the current Madison Square Garden. Plans for a new train station may have to make way for a proposed new Garden.

By GEORGE VECSEY
Just wonderful. Now it turns out that the friendly folks from Madison Square Garden, who have enough trouble qualifying the Knicks and the Rangers among the top 16 teams in their leagues, are glomming in on the dream for a new Pennsylvania Station.

That is all we need. I’ve been waiting four decades for New York to atone for the sin of destroying the beautiful Beaux-Arts train station, and now we learn that the proposed station may have to share space with the cable guys.

The way I read it, a proposed new Garden would sprout like some mutant fungus from the west side of the handsome James A. Farley Post Office, where the new train station was supposed to dwell in spacious grandeur.

The worst part seems to be that the Cablevision folks who own the Garden also want to dominate the east facade of the old post office, with ticket booths and gaudy advertisements of the horrors of the Dolan stewardship.

Instead of inviting travelers into the mystery and romance of rail travel — or at least the prosaic suburban lines — the blighted exterior would urge sports fans to visit the latest and always-suspect version of the Knicks and the Rangers. This is progress?

•

The proposed next Garden would be part of a rebuilding of the West Side of Manhattan around 34th Street, a very big real estate deal indeed. My main concern, as it was in the mercifully defeated plan to build an impractical Olympic complex in Manhattan, is that public officials do not cave in to the demands of wealthy sports proprietors. Take it from a sports columnist: Sports aren’t all that important in the overall scheme.

New York deserves a second landmark train station to go with the gilded, renovated Grand Central Terminal on the East Side. A spacious new terminal should aim to match the escalators that climb toward the shimmering open-air heavens in the magnificent station in Kyoto, Japan, or the awesome panorama of platforms and shops in European stations like Zurich and Leipzig and Milan.

Knicks and Rangers fans know the ugliness of a train station buried because of greed. The current Garden squats atop the site of the former Penn Station, once a wondrous airy glass-and-steel haven for travelers that was torn down in 1963 to make money for the proprietors of the failing Pennsylvania Railroad, now tucked into the squalid enterprise known as Amtrak.

Instead of a beautiful train station, New York got itself a dump of a sports arena five awkward stories above the ground. The “new Garden,” as I stubbornly call it, forces every sentient being, from lanky basketball players to sturdy hockey players to ponderous pachyderms to Garden patrons, to funnel into dismal little entrances, corridors, elevators and escalators.

Pardon me for sounding like an old-timer, but the previous Garden, the third one by actual count, induced much more of a sense of community, with its famous marquee (N.Y.U. vs. C.C.N.Y. — ask your grandparents) facing Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets. Meet me outside Nedick’s, you would say to a friend, but there is nothing that social at the current architectural blight.

It gets worse underground.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. A latter-day Dante might write these words after descending the lower depths to catch the 5:33 to Hempstead or Rahway. The more favored commuters to Westchester and Connecticut get to use Grand Central, where no basketball or hockey teams abide. Maybe there is a moral to that.

Many Knicks and Rangers fans have suffered from the triple witching hour of a ghastly station, an eyesore and lousy teams, particularly in the past decade. Rangers fans put up with no Stanley Cup playoffs at all from 1998 through 2005, but actually won a playoff series this spring and made some enlightened signings afterward.

Knicks fans have seen exactly one playoff appearance, a quickie sweep by the Nets, in the past six years, and last season even looked like a team sometimes, until David Lee was hurt.

Now the Knicks have brought in Zach Randolph to try to coexist with Eddy Curry near the basket, but at least the Knicks shuffled off Steve Francis, the oldest-looking 30-year-old player I have ever seen.

•

Portland did what Knicks fans demanded for two torturous seasons, buying out Francis’ contract in a heartbeat. For all the shuffling by Isiah Thomas, Knicks fans who renew their season tickets must consider it a mixture of financial speculation, like buying a faltering stock, and an act of faith, like believing in some future lottery nirvana.

There’s not much anybody can do about the incompetence of the Garden management. But Gov. Eliot Spitzer can make a statement early in his term by insisting on the original goal of a world-level train station in the name and vision of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

New Yorkers like to think we deserve the best in everything. We shouldn’t sacrifice or alter the potential glory of a public project for the self-interest of a private enterprise just because of the elusive glitter of two sports franchises.

E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com

[lofter1]

How about using Eminent Domain to take from the Dolans control of the Knicks, the Rangers and The Garden?

Surely all are blighted and are in need of resuscitation.

Have not the Dolans shown that they have allowed their holdings to drag down the immediate area?

Trying to get them out of the picture would be interesting, if nothing else.

[jarod213]

Because they won't move MSG far from the hub. If you try to force them to move it elsewhere, they'll stay put. End of project.

What do you mean?

I mean, the entire Penn Complex took up 2.33 superblocks (the old Penn Station took up an ENTIRE superblock, look at old plans) and today we have issues dedicating even a small portion of that same superblock; how backwards are we????? ahhh!

[ASchwarz]

I mean, the entire Penn Complex took up 2.33 superblocks (the old Penn Station took up an ENTIRE superblock, look at old plans) and today we have issues dedicating even a small portion of that same superblock; how backwards are we????? ahhh!

I don't get it. The old Penn continued to exist with the same footprint but was relocated underground.

It's currently probably the same size as before. The new, expanded Penn will be much bigger.

[NYguy]

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/070716PennStation.asp

SOM, Foster, and KPF to remake Penn Station

July 16, 2007
by Russell Fortmeyer

Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), Foster + Partners, and Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) have been retained as architects for a multi-billion-dollar-project to redevelop New York City’s Pennsylvania Station district, parties close to the deal confirmed on Friday.

Bud Perrone, a spokesperson for the project’s developers, a joint venture of the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust, acknowledged that the three architecture firms are involved. Another source involved in the design of the project told RECORD that Foster will prepare the master plan for a site that includes the existing Penn Station, Madison Square Garden (MSG), and two office towers, One and Two Penn Plazas. This plan calls for razing MSG and capping the subterranean train station with a large glass dome.

Errol Cockfield, a spokesperson for the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC)—the state agency involved in organizing development between private and public interests—confirmed much of the project’s scope. The redevelopment plans include SOM’s previously announced transformation of the Farley Post Office, which the ESDC purchased in March at the southwest corner of 33rd Street and 8th Avenue, into a new Moynihan Station that would augment Penn’s existing—and at-capacity—infrastructure. Cockfield says that the low-rise podium of One Penn would likely be razed, but that the tower would remain and that Two Penn would only be re-skinned. (RECORD’s offices happen to be located in Two Penn Plaza.)

Cockfield says that the ESDC has yet to assemble a timetable for making the designs public, or for the phases of development, but he did say that a scoping session would occur before summer’s end. This session will establish the amount of square footage that the development might contain and prepare rudimentary drawings for how it will be divided. “Some of this is still in flux and people want answers and there is frustration in some corners,” Cockfield says. However, other sources tell RECORD that environmental review hearings are expected to begin this fall. A draft Environmental Impact Statement was completed for the Moynihan project in 2006.

The destruction of McKim Mead & White’s original 1910 Penn Station, in 1964, is largely credited with establishing the historic preservation movement in the U.S. Charles Luckman Associates designed the replacement station, MSG, and office complex, but the public has never quite embraced them. Historian Vincent Scully once wrote that in the old Penn Station, “one entered the city like a god,” while in the new subterranean complex “one scuttles in now like a rat.”

In recent years, the site has been the subject of much speculation. A source involved in the design of the redevelopment has told RECORD that Two Penn Plaza would also be razed to allow for wholesale redevelopment of the area. Planned new structures might include 5.5-million-square-feet of retail, restaurant, hotel, and office space designed by SOM.

Additionally, for a site at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue, KPF would design a 2-million-square-foot skyscraper that will be taller than the Empire State Building, located just two blocks away.

SOM’s plan to turn the Farley Post Office building—designed by McKim Mead & White and completed in 1913—into Moynihan Station could act as the front door to a relocated MSG to the west, as well as house retail space that may include a large department store. Cockfield would not confirm whether or not other architects are involved in this project, but he said that Amtrak or New Jersey Transit will likely call Moynihan home. Currently, those two rail services and the Long Island Rail Road jockey for space in overcrowded Penn underneath MSG. Six adjacent subway lines add to the congestion.

David Childs, FAIA, a partner with SOM, says that his firm is mainly focusing on the Moynihan project. “It’s going to be one of those great stories, but if we finish by 2012, we’ll be lucky,” he says. After numerous starts and stops, that project was put on hold in 2006 when state government officials, including assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, withheld approval until a plan for the entire district could be put forward for review.

Perrone, who is with Rubenstein Communications, says that there are on-going discussions between the developers and various state and local agencies, including the ESDC, the City of New York, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the railway services, and the state government.

Separately, plans were announced last winter for the destruction of McKim Mead & White’s 1918 Pennsylvania Hotel, located at the northeast corner of 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, to make room for a hotel tower to be designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates and developed by Vornado.

That building’s demolition will leave only the Farley building as the last vestige of the celebrated architects’ legacy in the Penn Station district.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I mean, the entire Penn Complex took up 2.33 superblocks (the old Penn Station took up an ENTIRE superblock, look at old plans) and today we have issues dedicating even a small portion of that same superblock; how backwards are we????? ahhh!I asked the question because I wanted to make sure you were referring to the above ground complex.

You have to consider conditions today as compared with 1900.

Unlike today, railroads were at the height of economic power, the premier industry in the US. Real estate was already very expensive in Manhattan, and only a railroad could afford to use 8 acres of prime land for a railroad station.

Even then , PRR president Alexander Cassatt wanted to include commercial space with the station, but architect Charles McKim resisted it.

As the railroad industry went into decline, the unused air-rights over the station became a valuable asset for PRR. That's why the station was dismantled in the first place.

Todays passenger railroads are generally subsidized. If you want to build an 8 acre station, it will have to be completely funded with public money. And it won't add any capacity to the system; in my opinion, that's a waste of money.

You can have a grand station that shares spaces with commercial development

[Fabrizio]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/15/sports/15vecsey.1.600.jpg

This is with out a doubt the most beautiful photo of the old Penn Station that I have ever seen. The great interior shots are spectacular but to see the building just sitting there in it's element is quite something.

[macreator]

That picture gives me too much pain. Same goes for the framed photos of the old Penn Station that are hung on a few columns in the "new" Penn Station's main concourse. Talk about adding insult to injury reminding commuters that above them use to rise slender beams supporting a fantastic vaulted glass and steel ceiling. Ugh.

[lofter1]

PLEASE \/ Yesssss!!!!!




SOM, Foster, and KPF to remake Penn Station

... A source involved in the design of the redevelopment has told RECORD that Two Penn Plaza would also be razed :D to allow for wholesale redevelopment of the area. Planned new structures might include 5.5-million-square-feet of retail, restaurant, hotel, and office space designed by SOM.

[NoyokA]

I know the dow jones was pushed to a new record close today, but all this news sounds too far fetched for New York development circles. It even sounds far-fetched for the 1920’s when the market was booming and labor was cheap. If anyone can pull it off it will be the power combo of Vornado-Related, but we're talking billions and billions of dollars here.

[NYguy]

PLEASE \/ Yesssss!!!!!

I think that may only be one option of two (recladding is the other). 2 Penn has some of the largest floorplates in the area, but if they take it down, could they really justify putting up a new structure that chokes off the view of 32nd street (and the new Penn Station) the same way?

[NYguy]

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/070716PennStation.asp

Cockfield says that the low-rise podium of One Penn would likely be razed, but that the tower would remain and that Two Penn would only be re-skinned.

Additionally, for a site at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue, KPF would design a 2-million-square-foot skyscraper that will be taller than the Empire State Building, located just two blocks away

That's the only way they're going to fit a 2 msf office tower on that site. If it went according to that plan, the larger footprint for that tower would look something like this:

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/82350109/original.jpg

[ablarc]

Even then , PRR president Alexander Cassatt wanted to include commercial space with the station, but architect Charles McKim resisted it.
Ha! Find me an architect these days who has the power and prestige to "resist" anything a client demands.

[elfgam]

That's the only way they're going to fit a 2 msf office tower on that site. If it went according to that plan, the larger footprint for that tower would look something like this:

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/82350109/original.jpg

To my knowledge -- 2 penn is merely being re-skinned...

[londonlawyer]

[QUOTE=elfgam;176909]

Hola, amigo.

I get the impression that you're involved in this project. If so, who is designing the MSG towers? Is it KPF?

[antinimby]

Wouldn't you know in this twisted city, 2 Penn lives on while the Hotel Pennsylvania gets the death penalty.

[Bob]

2 Penn is a waste of valuable airspace. It's such a low-rise where there ought to be something in the 1200' range on the site. Perhaps the market didn't justify a whopper here back in 1964, but it sure does now. Time to move on!

[NYguy]

who is designing the MSG towers? Is it KPF?


Looks like SOM


http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/070716PennStation.asp
Planned new structures might include 5.5-million-square-feet of retail, restaurant, hotel, and office space designed by SOM.

[NYguy]

To my knowledge -- 2 penn is merely being re-skinned...

Quoted and noted above.

[sfenn1117]

Separately, plans were announced last winter for the destruction of McKim Mead & White’s 1918 Pennsylvania Hotel, located at the northeast corner of 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, to make room for a hotel tower to be designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates and developed by Vornado.

So the Hotel Penn is going to be demolished for.....a hotel? Gotta be incorrect reporting.

[NoyokA]

So the Hotel Penn is going to be demolished for.....a hotel? Gotta be incorrect reporting.

Not necessarily, with all this new office space coming on the market there will be demand for high end hotel rooms, not the budget hotel rooms the Hotel Penn currently offers. Also the site with the air-rights from the Manhattan Mall can accommodate 2.5 million square feet, I don’t know how many square feet the Hotel Penn is but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was less than half that. I was thinking though, although I support the Hotel Penn's demolition, since Vornado owns the Manhattan Mall wouldn’t it be easier from a logistic stand point and a preservationist standpoint to demolish the Manhattan Mall and replace it with a new tower, there is after all subway access right there.

[ManhattanKnight]

^I suggested that six months ago: http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=140226&postcount=130. No interest in that then and surely none today.

[Adyton]

....wouldn’t it be easier from a logistic stand point and a preservationist standpoint to (save Hotel Penn) demolish the Manhattan Mall and replace it with a new tower, there is after all subway access right there.

I agree with ManhattanKnight and Stern... Save/refurbish Hotel Penn... and build the large 2.5 million sq. ft. tower where the Manhattan Mall is. Then you would have the best of both worlds:D!!

Plus, Vornado / Related should look at adding 30-50 more stories to the existing Hotel Penn i.e., refurbishing the existing lower floors and adding larger/more hotel rooms plus luxury condos, in the original Beaux Arts architectural splendor. The refurbished larger building would be fantastic... an instant NYC architectural landmark!

[ASchwarz]

Why on earth would Vornado demolish the trophy Manhattan Mall bldg., which is super valuable and 100% occupied by prime tenants? The office space (which takes up the bulk of the bldg.) is leased out long-term at high rent, and the retail leases are all long-term.

The previous owners spent hundreds of millions rebuilding the structure, and the office space has huge floorplates and is top-notch.

They aren't going to demolish a trophy building and keep a dump.

[jarod213]

Did I hear you correctly? You think a mall is a trophy, and the hotel is a dump? The Hotel Pennsylvania was built by 3 of the most famous American architects.

[ASchwarz]

Did I hear you correctly? You think a mall is a trophy, and the hotel is a dump? The Hotel Pennsylvania was built by 3 of the most famous American architects.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Manhattan Mall = Trophy, Penn Hotel = Dump.

I am talking about value ($$$) you are talking your aesthetic judgements.

The Manhatattan Mall office space is 100% leased to a major bank for many, many years. It was completely rebuilt a few years back. I think they spent almost a billion dollars on the original revamp in the 1990's and then even more a few years ago when the current bank tenant moved in.

It's essentially a "new" building and would be valued like other new office towers. It isn't going anywhere.

[TREPYE]

Yes, you heard me correctly. Manhattan Mall = Trophy.

Dude you must be a developer....:rolleyes:
Out of respect for things that actually are are trophies do not refer to Manhattan Mall as a trophy; call it what it is to the likes of yourself and that is a money making cow. Boy, thank god for previous builders of NYC's classier past for they didn't conform for the bare minimum in the name of making a few bucks.

[Ed007Toronto]

Boy, thank god for previous builders of NYC's classier past for they didn't conform for the bare minimum in the name of making a few bucks.

I see this theme pop up often. What makes you think developers in the past didn't skimp in the name of greed? Surely they were also looking to make as big a profit as possible.

[TonyO]

Dude you must be a developer....:rolleyes:
Out of respect for things that actually are are trophies do not refer to Manhattan Mall as a trophy; call it what it is to the likes of yourself and that is a money making cow. Boy, thank god for previous builders of NYC's classier past for they didn't conform for the bare minimum in the name of making a few bucks.

That's the disparity between the real estate world and the purely architectural. The GM building is considered the most valuable trophy in Manhattan but wouldn't likely make the top 10 based on looks and/or symbolism.

[ASchwarz]

Dude you must be a developer....:rolleyes:
Out of respect for things that actually are are trophies do not refer to Manhattan Mall as a trophy; call it what it is to the likes of yourself and that is a money making cow. Boy, thank god for previous builders of NYC's classier past for they didn't conform for the bare minimum in the name of making a few bucks.

Agreed, it isn't valuable for its pedigree. I never claimed it was gorgeous.

The point is that it is extremely valuable in it's current state, and it is locked in to long-term leases.

[NYguy]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118471107196669490.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

A Garden Grows

July 18, 2007

Madison Square Garden has a new team.

Tycoon duo Stephen Ross of Related Cos. and Steven Roth of Vornado Realty Trust, along with the owner of Madison Square Garden, have hired a team of architects for their planned $14 billion megaproject, which will include a new sports arena, a new train station, and a quartet of towers that will alter the New York skyline.

British architect Norman Foster along with David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, New York, collaborating on two towers and a revamped Pennsylvania Station that will rise on the current Madison Square Garden site. The towers would dominate Midtown Manhattan's skyline, one rising higher than the Empire State Building, currently New York's tallest building, at 1,250 feet.

Cablevision Systems Corp., which owns Madison Square Garden, has hired Toronto-based Brisbin Brook Beynon Architects to design the new arena, which is slated to move across the street to between Eighth and Ninth avenues, currently home to the historic James A. Farley Post Office. SHoP Architects PC, New York, will design the street scapes around the new arena.

Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, New Haven, Conn., will design an office tower with trading floors at the Vornado owned Hotel Pennsylvania site on Seventh Avenue. Merrill Lynch & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. are said to be potential tenants there. New York architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates will design a separate tower at the corner of 34th Street and Seventh Avenue.

The project awaits several layers of approval, and as conceived, wouldn't be done for more than a decade.

Related and Vornado are also floating an alternative plan that would speed their return on investment in the project by several years. Instead of building the two tallest towers on the current Madison Square Garden site, they would ask the city to let them transfer the "air rights" there to other properties in the neighborhood that could be built on faster.

[Hamilton]

I see this theme pop up often. What makes you think developers in the past didn't skimp in the name of greed? Surely they were also looking to make as big a profit as possible.

I would say that they were interested in making as big a profit as possible, but then again before exclusionary Draconian zoning laws toook over, there was a lot more supply in the market of available real estate, meaning that developers had to offer a unique product in order to be successful in selling their projects. Now, there is chronic artificial scarcity of both residential and commercial real estate. A shame, really.

[jarod213]

I think there was also more pride in developers' products. They made huge profits, but they built monuments to themselves.

[Fabrizio]

It was what was expected. It was simply the way things were done.

Women wore heels and men wore hats. You didn't see 40 year old men dressed like 12 year olds in shorts and baseball caps.

The same in architecture.

Also: many of the architects at the time had come straight from Europe. In fact Europe... old London, Paris, Rome, Florence and Venice were largely the architectural models. Today our model is mostly modern highway suburbia.

Look at the very humble tenements. No one forced builders to fashion decorated cornices and so forth. But they did.

Tennements on the Lower East Side:

http://www.denniscox.com/NYTenements.jpg


--

[londonlawyer]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118471107196669490.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

A Garden Grows

July 18, 2007

Madison Square Garden has a new team....Related and Vornado are also floating an alternative plan that would speed their return on investment in the project by several years. Instead of building the two tallest towers on the current Madison Square Garden site, they would ask the city to let them transfer the "air rights" there to other properties in the neighborhood that could be built on faster.

It would really suck if the City lets them build a less ambitious project.

[kliq6]

Did I hear you correctly? You think a mall is a trophy, and the hotel is a dump? The Hotel Pennsylvania was built by 3 of the most famous American architects.

Its a trophy not because it is not designed by great architects, its a trophy becasue as a business address it has been very successful and the mall itself makes a ton of money.

On the opposite side, hotel penn has lost money five straight years for Vornado.

Plus all this talk about designing this and that is noce, fact is they still havent even had a official meeting about moving the MSG tax breaks to the new site, something that if it doesn not happen, this project will be totally different

[NYguy]

Its a trophy not because it is not designed by great architects, its a trophy becasue as a business address it has been very successful and the mall itself makes a ton of money.

On the opposite side, hotel penn has lost money five straight years for Vornado.

Plus all this talk about designing this and that is noce, fact is they still havent even had a official meeting about moving the MSG tax breaks to the new site, something that if it doesn not happen, this project will be totally different

You're right about the Hotel Penn and the mall. The Hotel Penn is not the building people seem to think it is. Maybe it was once, but no more. Still, you could probably make a case for saving it and turning it into luxury condos of some sort - if it were uptown somewhere along CPW or 5th Ave where something like that would make sense. You don't create that at what will be the core of the City's newest and expanding business district.

As far as who will be designing what for the MSG site, you certainly do need to talk about it now, the developers anyway. This is something they have been working on for a while, and even if the Garden didn't move (which it will), you've got all those development rights surrounding it. It's a key to what is being built, but only the final part.

[Dynamicdezzy]

It would really suck if the City lets them build a less ambitious project.

I doubt they would allow that. It would ruin the whole purpose of this entire project.

[NYguy]

It would really suck if the City lets them build a less ambitious project.

The City should throw cold water on that option immediately:


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1184...googlenews_wsj

A Garden Grows

July 18, 2007

Madison Square Garden has a new team....Related and Vornado are also floating an alternative plan that would speed their return on investment in the project by several years. Instead of building the two tallest towers on the current Madison Square Garden site, they would ask the city to let them transfer the "air rights" there to other properties in the neighborhood that could be built on faster.

It's understandable that Vornado and Related want to get in on some of that "BofA" money Durst has been getting by building as quickly as possible (and getting a jump on the competition just to the west - Brookfield). But the 2.5 msf Hotel Penn tower and the proposed 2 msf tower at 34th & 7th should be sufficient until work could begin on the MSG site. Amanda Burden is a fan of "critical mass", the City should hear her opinions on it. At the very least, if they want to shift some of the 5.5 msf planned for the MSG site, let them do it by first demolishing 2 Penn Plaza and building up from there. The City needs to build as much office space as possible as close as possible to Penn Station, especially with all the transit upgrades and expansions.

[londonlawyer]

The City should throw cold water on that option immediately:



It's understandable that Vornado and Related want to get in on some of that "BofA" money Durst has been getting by building as quickly as possible (and getting a jump on the competition just to the west - Brookfield). But the 2.5 msf Hotel Penn tower and the proposed 2 msf tower at 34th & 7th should be sufficient until work could begin on the MSG site. Amanda Burden is a fan of "critical mass", the City should hear her opinions on it. At the very least, if they want to shift some of the 5.5 msf planned for the MSG site, let them do it by first demolishing 2 Penn Plaza and building up from there. The City needs to build as much office space as possible as close as possible to Penn Station, especially with all the transit upgrades and expansions.


I agree. They can start on the Hotel Penn and the other 7th Ave. site (presumably the site that houses Tourneau and the Foot Action store) now.

They want to build shorter presumably because it's cheaper to do.

Let's hope that Gene Kohn of KPF keeps his grubby hands off of this project since his current project at the WTC sucks.

[TREPYE]

I see this theme pop up often. What makes you think developers in the past didn't skimp in the name of greed?

Dont gimme that BS :rolleyes:
Back then did they eliminate the spires from the ESB, Chrysler, Metlife (on 23rd) buildings; the gold pyramid a top of the New Yotk Life building, the setbacks and beaux arts/gothic facade of the Woolworth, reliquish the setback off the GE building all in the name of profit????

They would have made a hell of alot more money had these components of these buildings been removed. They didnt, and the fact that they did this inspite of the extra expense showed that they had lot more class and pride than some of the slob developers that we get today.

[TonyO]

I agree. They can start on the Hotel Penn and the other 7th Ave. site (presumably the site that houses Tourneau and the Foot Action store) now.

They want to build shorter presumably because it's cheaper to do.

Let's hope that Gene Kohn of KPF keeps his grubby hands off of this project since his current project at the WTC sucks.

We need the next mayor to be more like Mayor Daley of Chicago in that he encourages developers to build taller.

I like Bloomberg, especially with regard to his rezonings, but he seems indifferent to crossing the 50 story plateau we have reached across midtown and downtown. It's surprising in that it is in line with his plan for 2030.

Before anyone tells me about building costs above 50 stories, save it. If Chicago can make their new projects that are taller than NY's work, then they can do it here too.

[kliq6]

We need the next mayor to be more like Mayor Daley of Chicago in that he encourages developers to build taller.

I like Bloomberg, especially with regard to his rezonings, but he seems indifferent to crossing the 50 story plateau we have reached across midtown and downtown. It's surprising in that it is in line with his plan for 2030.

Before anyone tells me about building costs above 50 stories, save it. If Chicago can make their new projects that are taller than NY's work, then they can do it here too.

It costs half to build anything in Chicago to start so youve already saved. They can take that extra saved money and can add a few more stories on. NY Unions are really whay things are out of conrol more then build material costs and other related issues

[BrooklynRider]

I'd live and work in a uniob built building before I'd opt for a non-union building. Underpaid, overworked and untrained crews are a danger in a city of this size and density.

[londonlawyer]

We need the next mayor to be more like Mayor Daley of Chicago in that he encourages developers to build taller.

I like Bloomberg, especially with regard to his rezonings, but he seems indifferent to crossing the 50 story plateau we have reached across midtown and downtown. It's surprising in that it is in line with his plan for 2030.

Before anyone tells me about building costs above 50 stories, save it. If Chicago can make their new projects that are taller than NY's work, then they can do it here too.

New York residents don't want tall structures. Consider how people in the slum tenements on 2nd Ave. went nuts when Solow sought to build an 850 tower. As a result, a bunch of 500 foot, soulless boxes will rise among the filty, broken down tenements that line 1st and 2nd Aves. near the Midtown Tunnel entrance.

[kliq6]

I'd live and work in a uniob built building before I'd opt for a non-union building. Underpaid, overworked and untrained crews are a danger in a city of this size and density.

Not saying they dont build well, believe me I know they can. Its just that it costs more since Unions here are very very powerful and get way to much. Elevator operators get over 160 per hour for example.

Also 9/11 has scared this city from building 1000 foot towers. If the Sears came down instead of the twins, Chicago would not be building anything

[londonlawyer]

Not saying they dont build well, believe me I know they can. Its just that it costs more since Unions here are very very powerful and get way to much. Elevator operators get over 160 per hour for example.

Also 9/11 has scared this city from building 1000 foot towers. If the Sears came down instead of the twins, Chicago would not be building anything

Unions is NYC are absurd. That people working in MTA token booths make $75k/year with OT is ridiculous. Unions have crippled the US auto and aviation industries, and they're crippling NYC due to absurd demands.

[kliq6]

That about sums it up!

[TonyO]

It costs half to build anything in Chicago to start so youve already saved. They can take that extra saved money and can add a few more stories on. NY Unions are really whay things are out of conrol more then build material costs and other related issues

That is completely out of line with reality. NY is higher but by no more than 10-15% higher than Chicago. We use the Means Square Foot Costs for our estimating here and its accurate.

[TonyO]

Also 9/11 has scared this city from building 1000 foot towers. If the Sears came down instead of the twins, Chicago would not be building anything

That's likely where we are at. But it starts from the top down. With an advocate in City Hall, things could be different since enough time has passed.

[TonyO]

New York residents don't want tall structures. Consider how people in the slum tenements on 2nd Ave. went nuts when Solow sought to build an 850 tower. As a result, a bunch of 500 foot, soulless boxes will rise among the filty, broken down tenements that line 1st and 2nd Aves. near the Midtown Tunnel entrance.

I think it's more grey than that. Kliq pointed out 9/11, which I concur with. But that east side neighborhood has a lot of residential, with lots of nimbots.

[kliq6]

That is completely out of line with reality. NY is higher but by no more than 10-15% higher than Chicago. We use the Means Square Foot Costs for our estimating here and its accurate.

Union labor rates are 35% higher and transportation costs ( of materials) are almost 50% higher in NY.

[TonyO]

Union labor rates are 35% higher and transportation costs ( of materials) are almost 50% higher in NY.

Those are components of total costs, and they seem higher (assuming they are accurate), but if you look at overall costs NY is only 10-15% higher than Chicago. NY's construction costs index for 2005 was 195, while Chicago's was 170.

[kliq6]

Are you in the industry?

[elfgam]

Let's hope that Gene Kohn of KPF keeps his grubby hands off of this project since his current project at the WTC sucks.

Give the guy a break... that project was going to be crap no matter what... a lot of it has to do with client and regulations. KPF has done amazing building all over the place, including NYC (the new CIT HQ on 42nd)...

[TonyO]

Are you in the industry? I just sent you a PM.

[antinimby]

^ Why so secretive? :D


Give the guy a break... that project was going to be crap no matter what... a lot of it has to do with client and regulations. KPF has done amazing building all over the place, including NYC (the new CIT HQ on 42nd)...Have you ever heard of the expression, "make lemonade out of lemons?"

Talented people make the best out of a tough situation, not throw their hands up and give in.

[TonyO]

^ Why so secretive? :D

:) I'm the only one around here who uses my real name. That's my version of openness.

[lofter1]

Unions is NYC are absurd. That people working in MTA token booths make $75k/year with OT is ridiculous. Unions have crippled the US auto and aviation industries, and they're crippling NYC due to absurd demands.

Lawyers and financial ltypes in NYC are absurd. That people working at a desk and yelling into a telephone make hundreds of $$ / hour is ridiculous. Lawyers have gutted the true meaning of We the People and financial types are crippling everyone due to their absurd bonuses.



:cool: :p

[londonlawyer]

Lawyers and financial ltypes in NYC are absurd. That people working at a desk and yelling into a telephone make hundreds of $$ / hour is ridiculous. Lawyers have gutted the true meaning of We the People and financial types are crippling everyone due to their absurd bonuses.

:cool: :p

But lawyers have to go through years of academic training, have to invest a lot of money for that training and then have to work ridiculous hours. By contrast, some 18 year old guy in the construction union shouldn't be getting $50/hr.

Also, many lawyers make very, very low wages (even in private practice).

[kliq6]

Lawyers and financial ltypes in NYC are absurd. That people working at a desk and yelling into a telephone make hundreds of $$ / hour is ridiculous. Lawyers have gutted the true meaning of We the People and financial types are crippling everyone due to their absurd bonuses.



:cool: :p

Without the lawyers and the finacial types high salary ) thus high taxes paid) this city would be bankrupt and the Unions would be getting paid nothing since there would be no building)

[BPC]

I think Lofter was just joking / trying to demonstrate the absurdity of the anti-union argument. Everyone knows lawyers rule.

[lofter1]

But who are you to judge what an individual should or should not earn?

Isn't that what meritocracy is all about?

Doesn't the market -- with all its complications -- decide?

Or should there be a committee which designates the amount of money that each and every position is entitled to, no matter the trade?

[ASchwarz]

But who are you to judge what an individual should or should not earn?

Isn't that what meritocracy is all about?

Doesn't the market -- with all its complications -- decide?

Or should there be a committee which designates the amount of money that each and every position is entitled to, no matter the trade?

But the market has nothing to do with union salaries. In many cases you could get better workers at a third the price.

The market has everything to do with law and finance salaries.

[ablarc]

But who are you to judge what an individual should or should not earn?

Isn't that what meritocracy is all about?

Doesn't the market -- with all its complications -- decide?
So that's what a meritocracy is?

(No wonder all those worthless teachers make so little.)

[lofter1]

ablarc: 10 points

lofter1: zero


:cool:

[212]

The market has everything to do with law and finance salaries.

Yes and no. Frequently in RL, the closer you are to who's deciding the salary, the higher your pay will be. It's human nature, and it goes beyond what the market decides: We take care of our own.

Unions are a corrective. In a union shop, people get paid a decent minimum for their work even if they're far from HQ.

[Derek2k3]

Random photos from the last 2 days. I can't wait until 2074 when Vornado starts demolition.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1163/860459210_3c61db0f68_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1188/860459176_37a891e087_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1041/860459250_4ada1a52ef_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1130/860459316_4975899ecd_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1302/859600433_f221f58e05_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1196/859600409_dac045888a_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1217/859600447_4859207364_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1032/859600455_4fd5e1118c_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1272/860459418_88f1a79b45_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/860459232_7c47b193d1_o.jpg

[ablarc]

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1188/860459176_37a891e087_o.jpg

Big ads are proliferating.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1302/859600433_f221f58e05_o.jpg

Are they legal?

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1196/859600409_dac045888a_o.jpg

If so, why? If not, why are they not removed?

[ASchwarz]

Yes, they are legal in Penn Station area, and IMO a great relatively recent improvement to a formerly drab streetscape.

[antinimby]

I agree. A few tasteful ads add color to an area that otherwise might come across as dour.

For example, the commercial parts of Park Ave. looks just way too serious and low on excitement.

[ablarc]

^ How do you identify the tasteful ones?

[antinimby]

There isn't one defining way to tell. One just knows if something is okay or if it's over the top (for the area and the building its on of course).

It can be a combination of content, color, size, design that determines the ad's appropriateness.

Nothing I see in those pictures are out of place or done in bad taste.

[lofter1]

Nothing I see in those pictures are out of place or done in bad taste.

I love that we greet guests arriving via rail to our city via by addressing them as "Mitchum Man" -- and talking to them about their body odor as soon as they step out of the station.

Now that's a welcome!

[antinimby]

Hey, that's good ol' in-your-face, no non-sense American capitalism! :)

[ramvid01]

I've always liked the Nelson Building (I think that is the name of the white topped building).

Wonder if its landmarked. :confused:

[Eugenious]

http://images.businessweek.com/gen/logos/bw/bw_255x65.gif (http://www.businessweek.com/)

News & Features July 18, 2007, 12:13PM EST text size: T (http://www.businessweek.com/print/innovate/content/jul2007/id20070718_307657.htm#)T (http://www.businessweek.com/print/innovate/content/jul2007/id20070718_307657.htm#)
Penn Station Will Get Its Makeover

SOM, Foster + Partners and KPF have been retained to overhaul the entire Manhattan area

by Russell Fortmeyer (http://www.businessweek.com/print/bios/Russell_Fortmeyer.htm)
Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), Foster + Partners, and Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) have been retained as architects for a multi-billion-dollar-project to redevelop New York City’s Pennsylvania Station district, parties close to the deal confirmed on Friday.

Bud Perrone, a spokesperson for the project’s developers, a joint venture of the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust, acknowledged that the three architecture firms are involved. Another source involved in the design of the project told us that Foster will prepare the master plan for a site that includes the existing Penn Station, Madison Square Garden (MSG), and two office towers, One and Two Penn Plazas. This plan calls for razing MSG and capping the subterranean train station with a large glass dome.

Errol Cockfield, a spokesperson for the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC)—the state agency involved in organizing development between private and public interests—confirmed much of the project’s scope. The redevelopment plans include SOM’s previously announced transformation of the Farley Post Office, which the ESDC purchased in March at the southwest corner of 33rd Street and 8th Avenue, into a new Moynihan Station that would augment Penn’s existing—and at-capacity—infrastructure. Cockfield says that the low-rise podium of One Penn would likely be razed, but that the tower would remain and that Two Penn would only be re-skinned.

Cockfield says that the ESDC has yet to assemble a timetable for making the designs public, or for the phases of development, but he did say that a scoping session would occur before summer’s end. This session will establish the amount of square footage that the development might contain and prepare rudimentary drawings for how it will be divided. “Some of this is still in flux and people want answers and there is frustration in some corners,” Cockfield says. However, other sources tell us that environmental review hearings are expected to begin this fall. A draft Environmental Impact Statement was completed for the Moynihan project in 2006.

The destruction of McKim Mead & White’s original 1910 Penn Station, in 1964, is largely credited with establishing the historic preservation movement in the U.S. Charles Luckman Associates designed the replacement station, MSG, and office complex, but the public has never quite embraced them. Historian Vincent Scully once wrote that in the old Penn Station, “one entered the city like a god,” while in the new subterranean complex “one scuttles in now like a rat.”
In recent years, the site has been the subject of much speculation. A source involved in the design of the redevelopment has told us that Two Penn Plaza would also be razed to allow for wholesale redevelopment of the area. Planned new structures might include 5.5-million-square-feet of retail, restaurant, hotel, and office space designed by SOM. Additionally, for a site at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue, KPF would design a 2-million-square-foot skyscraper that will be taller than the Empire State Building, located just two blocks away.

SOM’s plan to turn the Farley Post Office building—designed by McKim Mead & White and completed in 1913—into Moynihan Station could act as the front door to a relocated MSG to the west, as well as house retail space that may include a large department store. Cockfield would not confirm whether or not other architects are involved in this project, but he said that Amtrak or New Jersey Transit will likely call Moynihan home. Currently, those two rail services and the Long Island Rail Road jockey for space in overcrowded Penn underneath MSG. Six adjacent subway lines add to the congestion.

David Childs, FAIA, a partner with SOM, says that his firm is mainly focusing on the Moynihan project. “It’s going to be one of those great stories, but if we finish by 2012, we’ll be lucky,” he says. After numerous starts and stops, that project was put on hold in 2006 when state government officials, including assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, withheld approval until a plan for the entire district could be put forward for review.

Perrone, who is with Rubenstein Communications, says that there are on-going discussions between the developers and various state and local agencies, including the ESDC, the City of New York, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the railway services, and the state government.

Separately, plans were announced last winter for the destruction of McKim Mead & White’s 1918 Pennsylvania Hotel, located at the northeast corner of 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, to make room for a hotel tower to be designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and developed by Vornado. That building’s demolition will leave only the Farley building as the last vestige of the celebrated architects’ legacy in the Penn Station district.

[ablarc]

Cockfield says that the low-rise podium of One Penn would likely be razed, but that the tower would remain and that Two Penn would only be re-skinned.

...A source involved in the design of the redevelopment has told us that Two Penn Plaza would also be razed to allow for wholesale redevelopment of the area.
So which is it?

[lofter1]

I'm praying for the 2nd option -- raze that ugly sucker called 2 Penn Plaza.

[Bob]

I was at Penn Station this past weekend...the place is truly miserable. Dimly lit, tacky, dirty, you name it. New York deserves better. The only highlight of my visit was seeing remnants of the original Penn Station. If I interpreted what I saw corrrectly, the staircases leading to the platforms appear to be original. Super-cool. I was in the old Penn Station sometime in 1963, just as they started to tear it down. I'll never forget that vast open space, the vaulted glass ceiling, the pigeons flying around (and through) the broken glass, and seeing the Empire State Building for the first time through an open wall, beyond a 50 foot pile of demolished bricks. Big impression for a 7 year old kid.

[ld876]

I was at Penn Station this past weekend...the place is truly miserable. Dimly lit, tacky, dirty, you name it. New York deserves better. The only highlight of my visit was seeing remnants of the original Penn Station. If I interpreted what I saw corrrectly, the staircases leading to the platforms appear to be original. Super-cool. I was in the old Penn Station sometime in 1963, just as they started to tear it down. I'll never forget that vast open space, the vaulted glass ceiling, the pigeons flying around (and through) the broken glass, and seeing the Empire State Building for the first time through an open wall, beyond a 50 foot pile of demolished bricks. Big impression for a 7 year old kid.

Hey, there is a Cinnabon there, that's almost enough to make 2 Penn Plaza and the dark corridors all ok! Well, maybe not, but they do have great cinnamon rolls.

[TonyO]

NY Times
August 4, 2007

Complications Hindering Moynihan Station Plans

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
The proposed overhaul of Pennsylvania Station, Madison Square Garden and the surrounding neighborhood has long been described by the developers as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It is also a project that is getting more complicated with each passing month.

The developers — a joint venture of Stephen M. Ross and Steven Roth — are already grappling with the delicate and daunting task of building over the country’s busiest transit hub. But the latest problem revolves around the role of Amtrak, the national passenger railroad, which operates Penn Station.

Amtrak has insisted in recent meetings with the developers and other transportation agencies that it has veto power over plans to build a new station because it owns Penn Station and the property below Madison Square Garden. Amtrak executives have also said that the railroad is considering moving its operations from Penn Station to the James A. Farley Post Office building, a move that could force out the anchor tenant, New Jersey Transit, or require a major realignment of space.

The developers were taken aback by Amtrak’s seemingly new position, which comes after more than a year of planning and dozens of meetings with New Jersey Transit, the Long Island Rail Road, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Amtrak, according to government officials and real estate executives.

“We’re very concerned about being the voice for the public improvements of the project and the benefits to the railroads and the traveling public,” said Anne Witt, vice president of strategic partnerships and business development at Amtrak. “There is not yet a deal between Amtrak and the venture or the other parties. We were belatedly brought to the table in recent months.”

A spokesman for the developers declined to comment, as did the state economic development agency, which is overseeing the project.

The project has had a tortured history in the decade since former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan first suggested converting the Farley Post Office to a train station. Amtrak dropped out of the project in 2004, replaced by New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road. A year later, the state selected Mr. Ross and Mr. Roth to be the developers.

The $900 million Farley Post Office project grew into a major redevelopment plan after the developers struck a tentative deal with Madison Square Garden in 2006 to move to a new $1 billion arena in the post office building, freeing up the current site for a train station and a commercial complex.

The current $14 billion plan centers on building a monumental train station to replace the crowded and confusing underground corridors of Penn Station. Madison Square Garden would be demolished to make way for a new station, stores and possibly two skyscrapers that could rival the Empire State Building in height. At least two other office towers would be built nearby.

A new Garden arena would be built inside the western end of the post office, across Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets. The rest of the post office would become an annex to Penn Station, with a grand train room.

Despite more than a year of work, continuing negotiations with state and city officials, newspaper editorials and endorsements by a half-dozen of the city’s most prominent business organizations, the developers have yet to show their plans to the public. Mr. Ross and Mr. Roth have said they want to wait until they have a solid plan and support from public officials.

Before construction can begin, there must be an environmental review, state approval and agreements with Madison Square Garden and the transit agencies that use Penn Station.

Most recently, the developers began looking at an alternative, after assessing the difficulty and expense of building over an active train station. Instead of building the two skyscrapers and a shopping mall over the train station, the developers would ask the city to create a special tax district that would allow them to transfer 4.5 million square feet of development rights to nearby parcels. In that way, the developers could build a million square feet of retail space and a train station on the columns currently holding up the Garden over the train tunnels.

State and city officials say that the project could transform a dowdy neighborhood into the city’s next thriving commercial district. It would also be a boon for the developers, especially Mr. Roth, the chairman of Vornado Realty Trust. His company already owns 5.6 million square feet in the neighborhood, including Nos. 1 and 2 Penn Plaza, the Hotel Pennsylvania and the Manhattan Mall.

If the city agrees to allow the transfer of the development rights, presumably to the Hotel Pennsylvania and the Manhattan Mall sites, Mr. Roth would build several other towers, bringing his holdings in the area to roughly 12.2 million square feet, which would be larger than the original World Trade Center.

Preservationists have focused on another aspect of the project, the design for the arena, which they say would overwhelm the post office and reduce train operations to a sideshow. The Municipal Art Society recently released a poll of Penn Station commuters, with 80 percent saying they wanted public oversight of the renovation and 75 percent saying they would prefer to use the historic interior and grand entry hall at the Farley Post Office rather than turning them over to the Garden.

“This is a gigantic project that’s going to have enormous consequences for the developers and, hopefully, great improvements for the public,” said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, a private group focused on historic preservation. “But the public needs to know what’s going on. Since it started with the notion of a great station in the Farley, that’s what the public should get.”

[ablarc]

^ The perils of big and bigger pictures.

They should have proceeded with Moynihan, and let the rest straggle in incrementally.





We'd at least have a train station under construction by now.





To hell with the big picture.

[Eugenious]

This is turning into a bigger and bigger boondoggle by the day and by the minute. You can go back and see that what I predicted is happening exactly. This project is going to make Boston's Big Dig look like a sandbox playground and it will be a huge windfall for the developers. But in the end the outrage from the city taxpayers and Albany will stop this in it's tracks and it will forced to be scaled down again.

So in the end we'll end up with another crappy train station due to countless redesigns and budget cuts (due to huge inflation in costs) that will be nowhere as good as Moynihan station would've been, a whole bunch of bland cheaply designed 'scrapers that will be not as tall as they need to be (because of cost of labor inflation and unavailability) and a huge raping of taxpayers to the tune of upwards of 5-6 billion dollars.

New York, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[lbjefferies]

^ The perils of big and bigger pictures.

They should have proceeded with Moynihan, and let the rest straggle in incrementally.

We'd at least have a train station under construction by now.

To hell with the big picture.




You were right all along, and I was wrong. Silver hosed us again.

[ASchwarz]

I'm not sure what warrants all the negativity. There's absolutely nothing new in that article.

Also, I'm mystified at the lament that the project is supposedly not grandiose enough (nothing has been officially revealed) and at the same time too heavily subsidized (no numbers have been released).

This is an especially odd lament since the level of subsidization is directly dependent on the level of grandiosity.

Seems like some forumers just like to complain.

[ablarc]

^ Someone complained about insufficient grandiosity?

[Eugenious]

The only thing that's going to be Grandiose is the check we as tax payers will have to fork over to Related co. and Cablevision. Anytime a developer uses words like "Grandiose" or "Monumental" it means pull down your pants Mr.Taxpayer and bend over.

Grandiose stupidity is more like it.

It's August 2007, there's no new train station, no construction, no public plans, no environmental review, no public hearings. There's still a post office in he Farley building, and the MSG still stands in all it's horror.

[elfgam]

This is turning into a bigger and bigger boondoggle by the day and by the minute. You can go back and see that what I predicted is happening exactly. This project is going to make Boston's Big Dig look like a sandbox playground and it will be a huge windfall for the developers. But in the end the outrage from the city taxpayers and Albany will stop this in it's tracks and it will forced to be scaled down again.

So in the end we'll end up with another crappy train station due to countless redesigns and budget cuts (due to huge inflation in costs) that will be nowhere as good as Moynihan station would've been, a whole bunch of bland cheaply designed 'scrapers that will be not as tall as they need to be (because of cost of labor inflation and unavailability) and a huge raping of taxpayers to the tune of upwards of 5-6 billion dollars.

New York, you ain't seen nothing yet.


You know -- i think it sad that we are reduced to telling people that they think too big... certainly it is a possibility that many of the alternate futures (stubby towers and cheap train station) may come to pass... but this isn't the fault of those who think big, but of everyone who keeps spouting the conventional knowledge that "this just can't happen in ny." maybe not, but maybe it could, and it definately SHOULD. NYC became great because of expensive "potential boondogles" such as the Eerie Canal, the Van Cortland aqueduct, olmstead's central park, the "empty" state building, rockefeller center, original WTC and so on... one can only hope we've turned the corner on four decades of mediocrity and instead of banding together to say that this can't happen, that we band together to make sure it does.

[Bob]

Indeed. And, these sentiments are echoed exactly in a post I put up a few moments ago in a different topic. Our age calls out for the great men of the past who took risks and built New York. Sadly, none has come forward.

[Eugenious]

http://www.nysun.com/images/logo_new.gif (http://www.nysun.com/)

August 2, 2007 Edition > Section: New York (http://www.nysun.com/section/1) >

Preservation Tax Credits Crucial to Moynihan Bid

BY ELIOT BROWN - Special to the Sun
August 2, 2007

URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/59682

Plans to expand Pennsylvania Station and move Madison Square Garden could hit a financial obstacle relating to a tax credit for historic preservation.
New York's State Historic Preservation Office has raised concerns about preliminary designs for the project with its developers, who are said to be seeking up to $250 million in federal historic preservation funds. The state will issue a recommendation to the National Park Service, which could block the money if it fails to meet certain preservation criteria.

The project involves the Farley Post Office, the postal facility that is the planned home of a new train station to be known as Moynihan Station, which would connect to Pennsylvania Station, and a relocated Madison Square Garden.

"There's concerns that the historic characteristics of the building need to be maintained," a spokeswoman with the State Historic Preservation Office, Catherine Jimenez, said.

While Ms. Jimenez did not provide details about the concerns, she said the state is working with the developers at this initial stage. "This is a very preliminary review," she said. "It's too early to say how those concerns may impact the tax credit."

While the concept behind the project seems to have broad support, preservationists have been raising issues with the post office plans for months, claiming that some of the proposed alterations by the developers are too invasive. "They're going to take down the original walls and put up glass," the president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Peg Breen, said of proposed changes to the interior. "Any changes to the post office lobby could be impediments to the tax credits, based on these standards."

A spokesman for New York's Empire State Development Corporation, Errol Cockfield, said the state is committed to preserving historic character in the project, calling the tax credit "crucial funding."

The discussions about the tax credit between the state and the developers, Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust, underscore the integral role of federal funding in the project. Both the developers and the Spitzer administration have undertaken a strong lobbying effort in Washington, where the developers listed lobbying expenses of about $120,000 in the second half of 2006.

A spokeswoman for Governor Spitzer, Jennifer Givner, said state-employed lobbyists are working "to advocate for the necessary federal funding to move the project forward."

People familiar with the plans say the state and developers are pushing for at least $600 million in federal transportation funds for the station. Taken with a historic tax credit and any money that comes directly from Amtrak, much of the costs for the station, which the Spitzer administration has said could cost up to $2 billion, could come from Washington.

While the plans have yet to be publicly unveiled, the developers have been showing officials and community groups renderings of the proposed project, which would total $14 billion in investment.

The state has not finalized a plan for the development, though it hopes to release a scoping document for the project this summer. A spokesman for the developers declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Madison Square Garden, which is said to have not yet reached a final agreement to move to the Farley building.

[212]

I love the Vornado plan. I really do. Can't wait for the next set of renderings. Can't wait for it to get built.

But asking for historic preservation funds to demolish half the post office?

chutz·pa http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium.gif http://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pnghttp://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif (https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2 Fchutzpah) /ˈxʊthttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngspə, ˈhʊt-/
Slang. 1.unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall. 2.audacity; nerve.

[Dynamicdezzy]

They just unveiled in San Fran 3 plans for a new super tall and transportation hub. Look at it..... If we can't beat that.....


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=4&f=/c/a/2007/08/07/BATMRD67A1.DTL

[elfgam]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/07/BATMRD67A1.DTL

Back to Article

SOARING PLANS FOR TRANSBAY TERMINAL
The West Coast's tallest building: 3 competing ideas show audacity that adds to the city's rising skyline
John King, Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writers

Tuesday, August 7, 2007


Three competing proposals for what would be the tallest building on the West Coast were unveiled Monday in San Francisco amid architectural fanfare and political buzz.

There's no guarantee that any of the towers will be built, or that the design to be selected next month by public officials will reach the heights envisioned by the development teams. But the audacity of the designs - and the favorable response from elected officials - showed that the recent startling changes to the city's skyline are only a prelude to what could lie ahead.

"There they are," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said with a wave of his right hand as black mesh was pulled from three lavish large models. The event was held in a crowded event room at City Hall filled with dozens of people and several television crews. "Today is an historic day."

The three proposals range in height from 1,200 feet to 1,375 feet - each extending well past the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid, the tallest tower in San Francisco. And each is accompanied by a transit terminal that is intended to become a major civic gateway.

The competition is being held by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, a regional government body created in 2001 to bring about the construction of a new transit terminal in San Francisco that backers say could become the regional equivalent of Grand Central Station.

The authority would sell or lease the tower site to a developer, with the proceeds helping pay the estimated $983 million cost of the terminal and related elements such as new bus-only ramps from the Bay Bridge.

After the unveiling, the hearing where each team made its presentation attracted an overflow crowd to the Board of Supervisors chambers in City Hall, with more than 100 people watching a video hookup in another room.

But public officials aren't stressing the architectural flourishes as much as the transportation payoff of the new terminal located one block from Market Street and BART.

"Through this facility, we can create a statement to the rest of the world while creating a seamless transportation network connecting the Bay Area to the rest of the region and state," said San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, who chairs the Transbay authority's Board of Directors.

Long-term plans for the transit complex include extending commuter rail lines from where they now stop at Fourth and King streets. The design would also allow for high-speed rail service from Southern California, although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has delayed putting a bond for the service on the ballot.

In the early planning for the new terminal, it was assumed that any tower alongside it would climb no higher than 550 feet. Now, though, public officials say the extra height is merited - not just to boost the land sales, but to show that San Francisco continues to measure itself against other cities of global status that are seeing super tall towers proposed or built.

The three proposals are similar in several ways: Each cloaks the terminal in glass, and each tops the tower with a translucent or open crown with wind turbines tucked inside it. Each would be roughly the height of the Empire State Building, which is 1,250 feet high.

Also, with an eye toward environmental issues, each project emphasizes sustainable design elements such as the turbines, which would generate power for the complex.

Finally, each team played its presentation to the hilt - with elaborate models and videos as well as with assurances that a new civic landmark waited off stage.

"In a single stroke, this design will redefine for the world San Francisco's architectural, urban and environmental intentions," said architect Craig Hartman of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, echoing a theme struck by the other teams.

The Skidmore firm joined with Rockefeller Group Development Corp. to propose a 1,200-foot tower that would twist and fold as it rose, while a glass "crown" would extend another 175 feet. On the ground, the tower would be punctuated by an open-air passage 70 feet wide and 103 feet tall leading to the terminal concourse.

By comparison, the design by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects for Houston-based developer Hines is a 1,200-foot-high obelisk-shaped office tower with a sleek silhouette. The most dramatic element is a 1,300-foot-long park, designed by Berkeley's Peter Walker and Partners, that would sit atop the terminal at the sixth-floor level and measure more than five acres.

The third proposal is from a team including Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners with developers Forest City Enterprises and McFarlane Partners. The metal tower includes exposed elevators for a sense of movement, and rises 1,100 feet - but the steel frame would continue another 125 feet and enclose a wind turbine that would be visible on the skyline.

For all the hoopla connected to the tower, there's no guarantee that any of the visions unveiled on Monday will be built - or even that they'll be the deciding factor in determining which team wins the right to conduct exclusive negotiations with the authority.

Each proposal was evaluated in private last week at Fort Mason by an appointed jury that includes architects and engineers as well as a transportation expert and a real estate analyst. The jury will present its recommendation to the authority board on Aug. 30.

In evaluating the three proposals, jury members are directed to base 60 percent of their evaluation on the design for the transit station and on "functionality and technical issues," according to the evaluation sheet. As for the tower, economics are every bit as important as aesthetics, with such directives as: "The jury will focus on the timing and amount of revenue to the TJPA."

Another unresolved issue: how tall the tower will be allowed to be.

City planning officials aren't shy about wanting an extremely tall tower, and they encouraged the boldness seen in the three proposals. But a full environmental study is needed before zoning can be changed - and the planning work to test such heights only now is getting under way.

Whatever proposals do emerge will be scrutinized by potential foes in a city long wary of high-rises. Indeed, a voter-approved proposition from 1984 makes it difficult to erect any tower that cast shade on a public park.

Still, support for the tower is considerable.

Besides public officials, it includes a number of environmental groups who in the past have fought for height limits but now see mass transit as a critical issue for the region. There's also support from civic groups that want to concentrate development in the core of the city - the same impulse that prompted the residential towers now rising between Mission Street and the Bay Bridge.

But the tallest such tower - One Rincon, which was recently topped off at Harrison and Fremont streets - is 605 feet tall. That's less than half the height of what the three development teams are proposing.

The Transbay authority is scheduled to vote on Sept. 20 to select the development team. The goal is to have the new transit station in operation by 2014.

The models and other details of each proposal will be on display today from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. next to the rotunda in San Francisco City Hall.

Online resources

For more information about the Transbay Terminal competition:

links.sfgate.com/ZOG


PLAN A
The proposal: An 82-story tower topped by a wind turbine that includes offices, housing and a hotel next to a transit center that would have fresh food markets and cultural facilities.

The architects: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. The London firm's current projects include a tower for the World Trade Center site in New York City. Founder Richard Rogers is the winner of the 2007 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the profession's highest honor. Assisting the Rogers team is SMWM, a San Francisco firm.

The developers: Forest City Enterprises with MacFarlane Partners. Cleveland-based Forest City was a developer of Westfield San Francisco Centre. McFarlane Partners is headquartered in San Francisco and is working with Forest City on the Uptown housing project in Oakland.


PLAN B
The proposal: A mixed-use obelisk-shaped tower along a transit terminal that would be topped by an open-air, 5.4-acre rooftop park with vast skylights that allow sunlight to shine onto the floor below.

The architects: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. The Connecticut firm's work includes 560 Mission St., a 31-story tower in San Francisco. Founder Cesar Pelli is best-known for such high-rises as Petronas Towers, the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004. Pelli is working with WRNS Studio of San Francisco, which also is involved with the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

The developer: Hines. Based in Houston, Hines has developed a number of high-rises in San Francisco during the past 25 years, including 101 California St. and 560 Mission St.


PLAN C
The proposal: A 1,200-foot-tall tower with a torqued shape. The first floor would be raised 100 feet above the ground to allow for a public plaza next to a full-block park.

The designer: Skidmore Owings Merrill. The architects are in the San Francisco office of this storied firm. They include Craig Hartman, the lead designer of the International Terminal of San Francisco International Airport, and Brian Lee, the designer of two towers taller than 1,000 feet in China, both under construction.

The developer: Rockefeller Group Development Corp. The name is synonymous with urban icons - think Rockefeller Center - but the firm now is owned by Japan's Mitsubishi Estate Co.

E-mail John King at jking@ jking@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/07/BATMRD67A1.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

[kliq6]

As ive stated on this thread a few times, nothing is happening on this site till at least 2010 as even if everything was to fall into place, the Mayor will NOT extend the MSG tax breaks to the new site and Dolan wont move to the site without it.

On a side not and this is one mans opinion, this thread is really pointless to discuss as there are many many more projects underway now that are worth our attention

[Rokafella]

I think that the Moynihan Station is a good idea, and moving the Garden is a important part of the project being completed. I think many peolpe involved have lost sight of one important factor in regards to the project. The James A. Farley Building(former General Post Office) was named as a act of Congress in 1982 as a monument, and permanent testement to the political career of James A. Farley, who was Franklin Roosevelt's "Kingmaker". The Postal Service will soon be obselete..the Farley Building(G.P.O.) is the "Flagship" Post Office of the United States of America. Farley was Postmaster General, which might not sound like much today, but in his day he had as much power as F.D.R. because Farley controlled the Patronage of the Party. Farley is the man who stood against F.D.R.'s third term, and rewrote the Law on Presidential term limits when he served on the second Hoover Commission. Farley was also Chairman of Coca-Cola Export from 1940-1973 meaning...he basically put Coke around the world single handidly. Putting the Garden in Farley is really not out of place at all because Farley was Athletic Commisoner of NYS during the 20's and 30's and he was Boxing Commisoner. Farley and the Garden therefore are completly compatible. Regardless of the Station...which IS a GREAT idea, we must not loose sight that the Farley Building is...regardless of what is built in it....Jim Farley's monument.
Whatever is done to this Landmark will have implications for all of our monuments, it will set a precendent! Farley also oversaw construction of the Western Annex, and was personally responsible for the Art in the "Farley Annex". Farley also supplied all the Building supplies for the Empire State Building which was finished in 1932. It is very important to the History of our nation that Farley's monument is protected, it is very deep political stuff that has to do with the decline of the Party organization, at the hands of the Lawyers who took the power away from the real politicians like Farley. If you noticed most politicians today are lawyers. They say patronage was corrupt and thats why it is no longer used, but Interest group and lobbyist dominated politics is more corrupt then the patronage syatem any day. Point being....there is more going on here then what seems. Read this book "Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, The New Deal, and the Making of Modern American Politics, its written by an Oxford PH. D named Dr. Daniel Scroop he is British.
Dont wait for our government to tell you the truth.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Whatever is done to this Landmark will have implications for all of our monuments, it will set a precendent!LMAO

"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."
General Philip Sheridan - 1869

Christopher Park, Greenwich Village
http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/monument_pics/manhattan/philip_h_sheridan_christoph.jpg

At least they didn't name the park after him. Oh wait, that's around the corner.

Yes, Farley was a bad man. A very, very bad man.

[Eugenious]

I think that the Moynihan Station is a good idea, and moving the Garden is a important part of the project being completed. I think many peolpe involved have lost sight of one important factor in regards to the project. The James A. Farley Building(former General Post Office) was named as a act of Congress in 1982 as a monument, and permanent testement to the political career of James A. Farley, who was Franklin Roosevelt's "Kingmaker". The Postal Service will soon be obselete..the Farley Building(G.P.O.) is the "Flagship" Post Office of the United States of America. Farley was Postmaster General, which might not sound like much today, but in his day he had as much power as F.D.R. because Farley controlled the Patronage of the Party. Farley is the man who stood against F.D.R.'s third term, and rewrote the Law on Presidential term limits when he served on the second Hoover Commission. Farley was also Chairman of Coca-Cola Export from 1940-1973 meaning...he basically put Coke around the world single handidly. Putting the Garden in Farley is really not out of place at all because Farley was Athletic Commisoner of NYS during the 20's and 30's and he was Boxing Commisoner. Farley and the Garden therefore are completly compatible. Regardless of the Station...which IS a GREAT idea, we must not loose sight that the Farley Building is...regardless of what is built in it....Jim Farley's monument.
Whatever is done to this Landmark will have implications for all of our monuments, it will set a precendent! Farley also oversaw construction of the Western Annex, and was personally responsible for the Art in the "Farley Annex". Farley also supplied all the Building supplies for the Empire State Building which was finished in 1932. It is very important to the History of our nation that Farley's monument is protected, it is very deep political stuff that has to do with the decline of the Party organization, at the hands of the Lawyers who took the power away from the real politicians like Farley. If you noticed most politicians today are lawyers. They say patronage was corrupt and thats why it is no longer used, but Interest group and lobbyist dominated politics is more corrupt then the patronage syatem any day. Point being....there is more going on here then what seems. Read this book "Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, The New Deal, and the Making of Modern American Politics, its written by an Oxford PH. D named Dr. Daniel Scroop he is British.
Dont wait for our government to tell you the truth.

Wow, you've taken my breath away with your deep knowledge of the American politics, history, architecture and pure un-adulterated passion for the cause of conservation.

I'm serious!

[jarod213]

I don't care what you say, Farley was AWESOME. He is from Grassy Point, NY in Stony Point, NY; where I live. Plus, my middle school is named after him. Before he got into politics, he hung out with my great grandfather, who used to talk about him all the time. Farley's nickname was "slim jim"! The post office IS a monument (just like the original Penn and the Hotel Pennsylvania). I'm tired of the American Society: we blow off history at every chance we get. We don't even teach our children about history in school. They learn NOTHING!

[ZippyTheChimp]

So, which of these accomplishments merited Farley a monumental building:

AWESOME
from Grassy Point, NY
Middle school is named after him.
Hung out with your great grandfather.
Nickname was "slim jim."

Or was it the weight of all of them.

[TonyO]

^ Zippy, obviously the guy is proud of Farley as he is from his hometown. I don't know anything about Farley, but apparently they named a pretty important building after him. What is your point with this?

[ZippyTheChimp]

That there is no standard of worth of an individual in naming a building, a park, whatever, and calling it a monument.

My point addressed Rokafella's ridiculous rant, and jarod213's response.

Your response is also my point

I don't know anything about FarleyRight, who cares?

[jarod213]

That there is no standard of worth of an individual in naming a building, a park, whatever, and calling it a monument.

My point addressed Rokafella's ridiculous rant, and jarod213's response.

Your response is also my point
Right, who cares?

Farley was likely one of the greatest campaign manager's to exist. Farley always had his heart set on a political career. In 1911, he officially began his service as a politician when he was elected town clerk of Grassy Point. After helping Alfred E. Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Smith) become Governor of New York State , Farley served as port warden of NYC . Farley was later appointed Chairman of the NYS Athletic Commission and became Boxing Commissioner of NYS from 1923 until the early 30's. Farley also was named secretary of the Democratic State Committee in 1928. Introduced to Franklin D. Roosevelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt) (FDR) by Ed Flynn (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ed_Flynn&action=edit), FDR asked Farley to run his 1928 campaign for New York governor. Farley orchestrated FDR's narrow victory in the 1928 gubernatorial election, and his reelection in 1930. Farley helped bring to Roosevelt's camp the powerful newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst) and helped Roosevelt win the 1932 nomination and election. This was due to the Farley's ability to corale the Catholics, Unions, and big city machines into the New Deal Coalition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_Coalition) . Farley repeated this process in 1936 and correctly predicted the states Roosevelt would carry.

FDR appointed Farley Postmaster General (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postmaster_General) and chairman of the Democratic National Committee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_National_Committee) in 1933 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933). Farley controlled patronage in the new administration and was very influential within the Roosevelt's Brain Trust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Trust) and the Democratic party throughout the United States. Farley was conservative in private, yet politically liberal and masterfully used the patronage machine to line up support for the New Deal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal)'s liberal programs. He helped to bring about the end to Prohibition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition) and the defeat of the Ludlow Resolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ludlow_Resolution&action=edit), a 1939 attempt by isolationists to limit the foreign affairs powers of the president. Farley's close relationship with FDR deteriorated in 1940 because Farley opposed FDR's pursuit of a third term and because of Roosevelt's "purge" of Democratic Party regulars. In 1940, Farley resigned as Postmaster General and party chairman to mount an unsuccessful presidential bid. Eleanor Roosevelt flew to the convention to try to repair the damage in the Roosevelt-Farley relationship, and although Farley remained close to ER, he felt betrayed by FDR and refused to join FDR's 1940 campaign team. Farley also ran for Governor of New York in two unsuccessful bids and the Senate.

In 1938 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938), Farley wrote his autobiography, Behind the Ballots. After leaving the administration, Farley worked for the Coca-Cola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola) Export Corporation until his retirement in 1973 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973). Remembered as one of America's greatest campaign managers, political bosses, and business minds. Farley remained active in state and national politics until his death at age 88 on June 9, 1976 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976), in New York City. Prior to his death, Farley had been the last surviving member of FDR's Cabinet. James Farley is interred at Gate of Heaven Cemetery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gate_of_Heaven_Cemetery) in Hawthorne, New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne%2C_New_York).
It was Farley who, after Roosevelt's overwhelming victory over Republican (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Republican_Party) Alf Landon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alf_Landon) in 1936 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936), quipped, "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Maine_goes%2C_so_goes_Vermont)." Farley, the former chairman of Coca-Cola export, was the only man to serve as National Party Chairman, New York State Party Chairman, and Postmaster General simultaneously. At the time, the Postmaster General was a patronage position. ______________Was Athletic commissioner of NY during the 1920s and early 30's, and was known as the "KingMaker", and "Mr. Democrat". Combined five building supply firms in the late 20's to form "General Builders Co." which supplied building supplies for projects such as the Empire State Building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building). Farley's respect crossed party lines. Towards the end of his career, Farley the elder statesman pushed for campaighn finance reform, and less influence of interest groups and corporations in party business and political activity.

"The James A. Farley Award" is the Boxing Writers Associations highest honor, awarded to those who exhibit honesty and integrity in the Sport of Boxing
James A. Farley was also the first guest on NBC's Meet the Press (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Press), the longest running show in television history.
Farley is also known for his eponymous device, the Farley File (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_File).
In 1962 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962), Mr. Farley received The Hundred Year Association of New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Year_Association_of_New_York)'s Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York."
Farley's Law- Voters will decide the Presidential candidate they are most likely to vote for by mid October
As explained in the book, "How to make friends and influence people", Jim Farley was known for his ability to remember names and details of almost every person he met. He is said to have used the name-picture association method.Zippy, do you not agree with Monuments to important individuals? You must hate Europe.

[jarod213]

Maybe there should be no monuments, or individuality, or greatness for that matter? Maybe everything should be built in the International Style; maybe all craftsmen should be killed or forbid to work? Maybe there should be no religion, no culture; should we genetically engineer all humans to act, look, and think the same? Should we not honor greatness? If we fail to honor greatness, there is no reason to be anything but mediocre.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Zippy, do you not agree with Monuments to important individuals? You must hate Europe.Did I state anywhere that important people don't deserve or get monuments?

Or was it that not all monuments are named for worthy people?

Your long-winded tribute could have been drafted for Bill Gates or Donald Trump. Farley was the postmaster. They named the post office after him. It's not like he was a hero or anything.

Question: Would the building be less monumental if it had simply been called The General Post Office Building?

At least Woolworth built his.

[Rokafella]

My point is..is that Congress dedicated the the super-block as a monument and permanent testement to the political career of Farley. Period! Its the Law.

H.RES.368
Title: A resolution calling upon the United States Postal Service to designate the General
Post Office Building, New York City, as the "James A. Farley Building".

Its not even the James A. Farley Post Office Building, that is the 8th ave side, while the 9th ave side is the "Farley Annex". The Combination of the Farley Post Office, and Farley Annex constitute the James A. Farley Building. The text is explicit, the Building is Farley's Monument.



A BILL

To dedicate the new Amtrak station in New York, New York, to Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. DESIGNATION OF DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN STATION.

The Amtrak station to be constructed in the James A. Farley Post Office Building in
New York, New York, shall be known and designated as the `Daniel Patrick
Moynihan Station'.

SEC. 2. REFERENCES.

Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the
United States to the Amtrak station referred to in section 1 shall be deemed to be a
reference to the `Daniel Patrick Moynihan Station'.


The "Station" in Farley..acording to the Law, is to be named in honor of Moynihan. The Landmark is Farley, the Station is Moynihan. The RPA released a New Moynihan East/ West project plan today its on their website.
They state that the Garden is to be built in the Farley Annex, later in the text of the plan they say the Garden is in "Moynihan West". Someone involved with this project is trying, using subversive means, to disaccociate Farley, who is a important Historical figure, with the Landmark congress named after him. The RPA among others under the "Moynihan West" guise are trying through the use of propaganda to rename the Post Office, when its clear from the above legislation that the Amtrak station/NJ transit Station is to be named after Moynihan, not the post office. Moynihan went so far as to say before his death that "Good old Jim Farley's name should stay there"!

The Landmark takes Precedence over the station, but not in their eyes. They dont care about the history of the Post office, the State of New York, or our Nation, or they wouldn't be so addament about renaming the Post Office. All they care about is the Architecture. Who hired hired the Architects to build the Annex...maybe Postmaster General Farley? Mind you, Jim Farley Built the NYS and National Democratic Party to what it is today. If the Post Office stays...would they call it the "Moynihan Station Post Office". If the Station were being built in Rokafeller Center would we rename it Moynihan Center...Hell no. It would be Moynihan Station at Rokafeller Center.

Only a Communist would want Farley's name off the post office, and its just that simple!

[Citytect]

So, which of these accomplishments merited Farley a monumental building:

AWESOME
from Grassy Point, NY
Middle school is named after him.
Hung out with your great grandfather.
Nickname was "slim jim."

Or was it the weight of all of them.

Thanks, Zippy. That really made me laugh.

[Rokafella]

Zippy,
Farley built the Annex as Postmaster general, he is a hero, he bailed out the country from the depression, Roosevelt would have gotten nothing done without Farley's patronage. Thats my point, many people have no idea who this great man was and powerful people want it to stay that way! Jim Farley was a Patriot. Presidents cant run for more then two terms because of Farley. The Farley Building represents American History, the Postal Department, and the Patronage that the Postmaster General used to hand out. Like I said, anyone who wants Farleys name off his congressionally designated national Landmark is a RED, a Commi, a Communist. I dont care if they build the Moynihan Shuttle to Mars in the Landmark, its still the James A. Farley Building. The Staion should be named in Moynihans Honor, but that has nothing to do with the Landmark itself. In all do respect Daniel Patrick Moynihan will never be a important Historical figure, he is not in the same political league as Farley, they are two seperate political beast's. In his day Farley had more power in his little finger then all the politicians in NYS today combined. Farley is the Second Roman Catholic to be nominated for President, and is reponsible for assimilating the Irish immigrant class into the middle class. I think that this is very important to every Irish Roman Catholic in this country.

[Rokafella]

Zippy....you find me a politician, or better yet a President, with a greater political resume then Jim Farley Ill kiss your behind. You are dead wrong.
Who cares about Moynihan, (besides his daughter)? What did he do, he helped create a WELFARE STATE. Anyone who knows about American Political History knows why Jim Farley has a monumnet.....case closed!

James A. Farley


Al Smiths Campaign manager for governor twice

Franklin Deleno Roosevelts Campaign manager for governor twice

Franklin Deleno Roosevelt Campaign manager for President Twice

Chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, Chairman of the National Democratic Party, and Postmaster General Symotaniously

( the only man to hold all three posts at once)

Second Roman Catholic to recieve Delegates toward the Nomination of President 1940

Chairman of Coca-Cola Export from 1940-1973

Number 2 Commisoner on Hoover Commision who rewrote Executive term limits

Head of the United Nations Postal Department

Athletic/Boxing Commisioner of NYS 1923-1933

Farley was considered a General, he was called General Farley not Postmaster General Farley

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
If you have the time, read through this entire thread.

The people on this forum are generally more attuned to history and historical monuments.

Yet you won't find one reference to the word Farley as anything but the name of the building. If no one here, except you and jarrod, has given James Farley a thought, what do you suppose the reaction would be among the general public.

He may be a hero to you, and maybe he was in his time (not in my opinion though), but today he is an obscure figure.

Most of us will probably end up calling the entire complex Penn Station.

Red, Commi, Communist? Did you just wake up from a coma?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Chairman of Coca-Cola Export from 1940-1973Stop it, you're killing me!

[Rokafella]

Are you speaking of the well informed General public...of whom 60% dint even know about the plans to buld the New Station...Zippy? Its in the Papers everyday almost, and the public dosnt know.
Of course they wouldnt know about Farley. At least thats according to the Regional Planning Association. Lets just face it, you, along with the General Public are just not as politically, or historically sophisticated as a small percentage of the INFORMED public. You need people like me.....who are Historically and Politically Sophisticated enough to speak on such matters on your behalf. Go read a History book...and then come and speak about monuments and who is deserving of such.

Yeh Farley was Cahirman of Coca-Cola Export 1940-1973, and thats just one thing he did, he put a little beverage named Coke around the world..big deal right.
Farley was also Financial Advisor to the Vatican...I forgot that one!
Take some advice from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints...R.I.F. Reading is Fundemental :)

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
I thought your ID was a twist on the name, but after reading your posts...

It's Rockefeller Center, not Rokafeller Center. Glad we have such a sophisticated individual looking out for our interests.

Financial adviser to the Vatican. Ouch! That may be a demerit.

Anyway, I think we've had a thorough history lesson on James Farley. To any that might be confused, he's not this guy.

http://img.search.com/thumb/4/47/Frawley_william.jpg/180px-Frawley_william.jpg

That's Bill Frawley. Ethel's husband on I Love Lucy

[Rokafella]

There are about a billion communists in China...1st
Second the reason why those who want Farley's name brushed off of the Landmark are Communist's is Because Farley was a Capitialist....you see..on Planet earth your either a Capitialist or a Communist. Farley used Coke as a Capitialist tool to defeat the Spread of Commuinsm in Europe after WWII, Coke is a symbol of American Capitialism...its really very simple.
Even the Non-Pollitically astute can understand the concept regardless of their understanding of Farley's role in Geo-Political and Buissness matters.
Point being Yes Farley is Politically Obsecure, but since he did all of these great things....WHY. Thats my point. I don't beleive in Brushing aside the Legacy of Important Historical Figures so developers can make $$$$. I know the General Public dosnt know who he is, this is to there detrement. Maybe the Moynihan Station Project will shine a light on Farley and bring him out of obscurity....Zippy, did you know as a child of the Depression Moynihan Idolized Farley? Anyone who cares about the Legacy of the Late Great Sen. Moynihan would respect his wishes and keep "Good old Jim Farley's name there". Maybe this is what Moynihan really wanted, us to rember his political idol....BIG JIM FARLEY :)

[Rokafella]

]LOL HAHA they look alike though, I never said I was an english professor
Here is a visual aid for those who dont care to read history..im sure we can all read cartoons :)

4654

4655

4656

4657

4658

4659

4660

4661

[Rokafella]

Rokafella is the name of a record label...and it is a twist :)

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
Well, on that note....that's enough on slim jim, commies, capitalists, and what planet we happen to be on.

Back on topic.

[BPC]

I agree with Rockafella. James Farley was one of the most important historic figures of the 20th Century. Why is only a mere post office named after this giant? I propose that we rename Manhattan "Farley Island", and then just let the late Senator have his pathetic little train station.

[londonlawyer]

Rider-Friendly Measures Urged at Penn Station
By Staff Reporter of the Sun
August 10, 2007


As plans move forward to overhaul Pennsylvania Station — the busiest transit hub in America and arguably one of the least attractive — urban planners are urging the city to transfer development rights of nearby Midtown sites to Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies, the developers renovating the station.

The Regional Plan Association yesterday recommended the developers widen concourses, expand street entrances, and add real-time train information to make the station more rider-friendly.

The $14 billion plan calls for a redesign of the Farley Post Office building and a new train station where Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden now sit. The goal is to create a regional rail center in Midtown Manhattan.

[jarod213]

Let's do it. Farley Island. Zippy, when you die I hope you plan to be cremated, and spread, minus the golden urn or headstone. It seems like you'd be the kind that's against cemeteries. Honestly, New York is known all over the world for developer rape (it's probably only second to Tokyo in tackiness). There's no hope for landmarks in new york. We should totally rip out everything on liberty island, and build a walmart, with free ferries!

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
For someone who doesn't seem to even understand what I'm talking about, you sure seem to know what I'm for and against.

Zippy is against cemeteries
Zippy is against Europe.
Zippy is against peace on earth (thought I'd save you the trouble).

Now you are arguing about the building, not Farley. That's why I asked if it would be a lesser landmark if simply called the GPO. In my opinion, no. If you think so, fine. That's your opinion. They can call it the Bill Frawley Building, for all I care. It'll be Penn Station to me.

In either case, the landmark remains, free from developer rape. Now, can we move on to peace in our time?

Geez, lighten up.

[jarod213]

I know what you're talking about; I'm just busting on you. lol You really do seem like you're anti-everything don't you? haha

[jarod213]

I'm going to go back to my original preference of Pennsylvania Station East & West Concourse, with connections below the street, and the restoration of the original Penn colonnade opposite of the post office, with a super super high tech modern train room behind the classical facade. Then we'll have the architectural continuity through the station's facades, and the awesome soaring glass amazingness above the platforms.

[Dynamicdezzy]

I'm getting station envy after looking at San Fran's proposal. I really want to see the "official" renderings of the whole thing.

[NYatKNIGHT]

^So am I. This is one of those places they need to go for it.

Bill Frawley Building - LOL!

[jarod213]

William Frawley/Desi Arnaz Building! I agree about SFO. . . I think the train shed rendering (glass barrel vault) is beautiful; very reminiscent of the past. . .

[SilentPandaesq]

Zippy is against cemeteries
Zippy is against Europe.
Zippy is against peace on earth (thought I'd save you the trouble).



humm..I find your views interesting. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

On the post office, why is it that it needs a modern addition in the first place? Why not just expand the post office in the same style. Do we no longer know how to design in that style?

[antinimby]

San Francisco plans spectacular train terminal complex


http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1186701061_sfrocker2.jpg

09-AUG-07 (http://www.cityrealty.com/new_developments/news.cr?noteid=19542)

While New York City fiddles around with plans to redevelop the rather doughty James A. Farley General Post Office into a new railroad terminal and a possible site for a new Madison Square Garden, San Francisco is moving ahead with plans to create a much more spectacular terminal and skyscraper.

On Monday, three architectural schemes were presented at San Francisco's ornate and impressive City Hall for the proposed "Grand Central Terminal of the West" and the plans call not only for very spectacular terminal spaces but also for the tallest mixed-use tower on the West Coast.

The San Francisco office of Skidmore Owings Merrill, headed by Craig Hartman and Brain Lee, has designed a 1,375-foot-tall tower with a lacy, spiraling facade, shown at the right, for the Rockefeller Group Development Corporation whose first floor would be 100 feet above the street.

Rogers Strik Harbour + Partners of London, of which Richard Rogers is a partner, and SMWM of San Francisco have designed a 1,225-foot-tall tower for Forest City Enterprises and MacFarlane Partners with SMWM/Adamson/Arup/Olin Partnership. The 82-story building would have no setbacks and its corners would be brightly highlighted in red and it would be topped by a wind turbine and contain offices, apartments and a hotel adjacent to a new transit center with food markets and cultural facilities.

Pelli Clarke Pelli Associates and WRNS Studio of San Francisco have designed a 1,200-foot-tall tapering tower for Hines Interests of Houston that would have a 5.4-acre rooftop park designed by Peter Walker and Partners with enormous, soaring skylights on a scale as grand as the former Pennsylvania Station on Seventh Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets.

Currently, the tallest tower in San Francisco is the 853-foot-tall Transamerica Pyramid office building.

The three designs were submitted to a competition sponsored by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. A fourth plan, designed by Santiago Calatrava, was previously withdrawn.

The authority was created in 1981 and plans to sell or lease the tower site to help pay the estimated $983 million cost of the terminal and new bus-only ramps for the Bay Bridge. The transit complex would extend commuter lines and also accommodate high-speed rail service from southern California.

The competition's jury will make a recommendation to the authority August 30 and the authority has scheduled a vote to select the development team September 20. The authority hopes to have the new transit station operating by 2014.

On July 13, the Muncipal Art Society of New York issued a position statement about plans for the redevelopment of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan station planned for the Farley building and stated that it believes it "must be developed as an inspiring work of contemporary civic architecture," noting that "unfortunately, it has been discouraging to see the quality of successive designs for Moynihan Station decline with each new plan."

"The first renovation design gave passengers expansive interior views and visual clues to direct them to their destinations. It allowed for the restoration of the bright, spacious environment that characterized the magnificent original Pennsylvania Station. It also provided dedicated passenger entrances and internal access between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. More recent proposals fail to match the original standards with regard to these elements."

"Plans to construct a new Garden in the building's western half...create a disturbing scenario that could leave the eastern half as little more than a lobby for the arena," the statement continued.

The Farley Building and the train station are key elements in very ambitious and enormous plans to redevelop the area between 31st and 42nd Streets west of Seventh Avenue. One plan would demolish the very handsome and very large Hotel Pennsylvania on the east side of Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets.

Copyright © 1994-2007 CITY REALTY.COM INC.

[antinimby]

New transit hub studied by Regional Plan Association



http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1187032162_rpa2.jpg


12-AUG-07 (http://www.cityrealty.com/new_developments/news.cr?noteid=19562)

The Regional Plan Association issued a 22-page report Thursday on the proposed plans for the redevelopment of the James A. Farley Post Office Building and Madison Square Garden, both on Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets that cautioned that several "outstanding design and function issues" must be addressed to create a "regional rail center" that can accommodate significant future growth in traffic.

The report noted that NJ Transit will be adding a new commuter rail runnel under the Hudson River, known as the Trans-Hudson Express, or THE, by 2016, that will "double the number of travelers arriving to the Penn Station complex during peak times.

It also noted that "In 2013, when the LIRR's East Side Access project is completed and LIRR trains can access Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station's peak-period capacity will be opened up, making it possible for some Metro-North trains on the New Haven and Hudson Lines to access Penn Station," adding that "This connection will provide capacity for new 'through' services (including Long Island-New Jersey, Connecticut-New Jersey, and Upstate New York-Long Island), which will make Penn Station even more of a regional rail hub."

Furthermore, the report continued, "dedicated one-seat train service to John F. Kennedy and Stewart airports remains a possibility" and "The New York State Senate High-Speed Rail Task Force has developed a plan for increased rail service in the Empire Corridor between Penn Station and Upstate New York," a plan that "would more than double the number of daily trains and introduce express service."

In addition to such greatly increased transportation impacts, the report noted that "about 10 million square feet of office space is expected to be added in the immediate vicinity of the station in the next 20 years" and that "The entire Hudson Yards area (West of Eighth Avenue from 30th to 42nd Streets) will include an additional 24 million square of office space and 14,000 new dwelling units."

The planned new complex will be named after the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "whose vision for the Farley Post Office as a grand and welcoming train station initiated the process now underway," the report stated. The plan now refers to the development of the post office building site as Moynihan West and the Madison Square Garden site as Moynihan East.

In 2005, the Venture - a joint effort by Vornado Realty Trust and Related Companies - won a request for proposals to redevelop the Farley Building and it has since been negotiating with the Garden to move its arena onto the Farley site and redevelopment its existing site with new train station facilities and two 90-story office towers as well as new retail facilities. The towers, one of which would include a 250-room hotel, are outlined in the illustration at the right.

The Venture, however, does not have exclusive rights to the development of Moynihan East, the report maintained, adding, however, that they "have a significant natural advantage due to the fact that...they have many holdings in the immediate vicinity of the complex, which would allow them to transfer development rights...should the City allow them to do so."

The report recommended the creation of a district-wide strategy for bringing construction equipment and materials into (and demolition debris and fill out of) the Far West Side that "could cause unprecedented disruption of traffic all over Midtown Manhattan and adjoining districts for a generation or longer, with enormous implications for quality of life and economic activities throughout the city."

The association expressed concern that the Madison Square Garden and retail operations of the Venture's plan "will overwhelm the train halls visually and functionally" and urged that "efforts should be made to promote the sense that this is primarily a public space."

Copyright © 1994-2007 CITY REALTY.COM INC.

[Dynamicdezzy]

Why can't they propose a new MSG over the 1st part of the rail yards and have a connecting bridge or underground tunnel to Farley? That would open up for a Greater structure. MSG/ Moynihan/ New Penn. MSG wouldn't have to limit itself with the sensitivity of overwhelming Farley, A much larger Moynihan can be constructed and Penn is opened up.

[ASchwarz]

Why can't they propose a new MSG over the 1st part of the rail yards and have a connecting bridge or underground tunnel to Farley? That would open up for a Greater structure. MSG/ Moynihan/ New Penn. MSG wouldn't have to limit itself with the sensitivity of overwhelming Farley, A much larger Moynihan can be constructed and Penn is opened up.

Because they don't own the land, and that site is already set for millions of square feet of new development.

[Dynamicdezzy]

^it was more wishful thinking than anything....

[jarod213]

humm..I find your views interesting. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

On the post office, why is it that it needs a modern addition in the first place? Why not just expand the post office in the same style. Do we no longer know how to design in that style?

No. We no longer know how to design Beaux Arts architecture, or implement the design. It CAN be done cheaply and tastefully; but scholars claim it's not "progressive" enough. I'm tired of what people believe is progressive or not, or tasteful and not. Classicism is timeless, everyone can agree; a train station (a permanent public fixture) must be timeless in design! It's simply a must.

[Derek2k3]

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1141/1123369834_54af6578d3_o.jpg


http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1042/1123369888_7ae98f4ca3_o.jpg


http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1074/1123369822_53ad23d6e7_o.jpg

[NewYorkDoc]

Muchas Gracias Derek!

[BrooklynRider]

Classicism is timeless, everyone can agree; a train station (a permanent public fixture) must be timeless in design! It's simply a must.

I agree with you, although I think something that emphasizes natural light is economically, ecologically, and aesthetically desirable.

[jarod213]

I agree with you, although I think something that emphasizes natural light is economically, ecologically, and aesthetically desirable.

And I agree with you. The original classical train shed, of the Old Penn Station, had huge, glass barrel vaults, which emphasized natural light entirely. In fact, before Modernism, natural light was even more important because of lack of electrical lighting technology. The fact that we are moving back to utilizing natural light as much as we do today is a nod to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century's industrial nature.

[JCMAN320]

Jarod very true. Sometimes are early ancestors really had it figured out right the first time with no need for improvments.

[Derek2k3]

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/6117/retrieveassetcaauo62wzh9.jpg

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/9348/retrieveassetca2cvd6wik8.jpg

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8479/pageresized294gr9.jpg

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/8133/retrieveassetcazxh6etke9.jpg

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/5826/retrieveassetcahj70ukaa2.jpg

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/7293/retrieveassetcaw9f6bqiu8.jpg


SOM

[NewYorkDoc]

^ Where is that Derek?

[lofter1]

That ^^^^ is an alternative proposal for the Transbay Transit Center (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=182261&postcount=24) in San Francisco.

[scumonkey]

If only we could be so lucky.....:rolleyes:

[ld876]

If only we could be so lucky.....:rolleyes:

That lattice work on the SF concept high rise being integrated with farley would be amazing -- the classic marble building at one end, arching, classy lattice building at the other. Yum.

[TREPYE]

Beautiful man! Obviosly it was not designed by the same folks @ SOM who gave us the very much underwhelming Freedom Tower design. This tower screams icon a hell of a lot louder and with more credence than the FT thats for sure.
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/6117/retrieveassetcaauo62wzh9.jpg

[TREPYE]

...And that train station, my gosh, what beauty. Eons better than the plans that Vegineer showed us a few months ago for the new Penn station.
(I dont mean to hurt your delicate feelings Vegineer)

http://www.socketsite.com/The%20SOM%20Tower%20Plaza.jpg

[Dynamicdezzy]

The "Chip" was nice.

[TREPYE]

The "Chip" was nice.

Im not talking about Farley Im talking about the plan that removes MGS and opens up Penn Station again.

[Dynamicdezzy]

^ I should have made myself clearer. At least the chip design was nice from the Moynihan aspect. But even that was scrapped! And the renderings we saw from Ven don't even come close to any of the 3 proposals for San Fran. Now that I look back, Penn looks disappointing.

[JMGarcia]

...And that train station, my gosh, what beauty. Eons better than the plans that Vegineer showed us a few months ago for the new Penn station.
(I dont mean to hurt your delicate feelings Vegineer)

http://www.socketsite.com/The%20SOM%20Tower%20Plaza.jpg
That's not the train station, its the base of the tower.

Interestingly the tower has 2 cores. Its also a mixed use tower much like the Time Warner Center here in NY with offices, condos, and hotel rooms.

[TREPYE]

That's not the train station, its the base of the tower.

It is attached to the train station and the facade treament of the base (which also looks like an entry point to the train station) is in the same style as the train canopy. In essence the same thing, as per the same design style.

http://www.som.com/resources/content/5/0/4/3/7/4/3/0/images/RetrieveAssetCAHJ70UK.jpg

[lofter1]

The SF Transbay Transit Center is planned to be both a Transbay Bus Terminal and a High Speed Train Terminal (with future service south through California to LA and SD).

[NYguy]

Depending on whether or not the City agrees to the rights transfer, this may or may not be the layout...

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/84052631/large.jpg

[londonlawyer]

Depending on whether or not the City agrees to the rights transfer, this may or may not be the layout...

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/84052631/large.jpg

Do those boxes represent the shape of the proposed towers?

[lofter1]

But of course ^^^ and the color and size as well :rolleyes:

[londonlawyer]

But of course ^^^ and the color and size as well :rolleyes:

After seeing what Macklowe will build on The Drake's site, I have no faith in NYC proposals and expect the worst.

[Bobman]

Beautiful man! Obviosly it was not designed by the same folks @ SOM who gave us the very much underwhelming Freedom Tower design. This tower screams icon a hell of a lot louder and with more credence than the FT thats for sure.
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/6117/retrieveassetcaauo62wzh9.jpg

The cost of producing load bearing curved latticework of this magnitude would be ASTRONOMICAL. This conceptual design is a pipedream at best.

Think of the cost of producing a single 100+ foot steel beam bent to accuracy and multiply that by a thousand. No need to covet SF because this design will never come to fruition.

[GVNY]

While there is no disagreement about steep expense, I highly doubt the lattice is load bearing.

[jarod213]

What if the curved "lattice" is pre-cast and pre-stressed concrete? Don't say anything is impossible. . . c'mon. I'm a structural engineer, and I don't even think like that. haha

[NYguy]

http://newpennstation.org/site/

The Shroud Drops on the Farley Post Office

Submitted by Rob Johnston on Tue, 2007-09-11

Rolando Pujol at the AM New York Subway Tracker blog reports that the black shroud surrounding the Farley Post Office building has been dropped. The scaffolding is still in place, but the building and its record-setting colonnade can be seen through the structure. Rumor says the developers' plans will be shared shortly after the building is exposed, so stay tuned for the unveiling of the newest plans.

http://weblogs.amny.com/news/local/tracker/blog/2007/09/the_big_reveal.html

The big reveal

http://weblogs.amny.com/news/local/tracker/blog/moyfac.JPG

It's been fairly quiet of late on the Moynihan Station beat, but there is now a tangible sign of progress. The James A. Farley Post Office building has long been under wraps during rehabilitation of its facade, but the work is clearly moving along. The block-long shroud that covered the Eighth Avenue facade is gone, revealing only scaffolding and views of the building's landmark decorative work, including that impressive colonnade. The stairs -- always a mad scene on tax day, April 15 -- are still largely inaccessible except through narrow sheltered corridors that lead to the grand lobby.

One day, we've been long told, this will be Moynihan Station, a worthy successor to the original Penn Station that once proudly stood across the street.

-- Rolando Pujol

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[NYguy]

http://www.nysun.com/article/62521

Push Is Growing for U.S. Funding of Penn Station Redo

By ELIOT BROWN
September 13, 2007

The developers involved in remaking Pennsylvania Station are pouring money into an effort to elicit federal funding for the development, retaining the services of six Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firms for the project, records show.

In the first half of 2007, developers Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies put about $710,000 into the advocacy efforts, according to federal lobbying filings, an amount that comes on top of more than $15,000 in campaign contributions to key legislators that could affect the funding.

The efforts underscore the important role of federal funding for the project, as both the state, which is administering the development, and the developers are eager to see the expected multibillion-dollar costs offset by another party.

The project, which envisions moving Madison Square Garden to the western end of the neighboring Farley Post Office and radically overhauling Pennsylvania Station, stands to be an extremely cost-intensive investment that would create little direct financial return but could spark billions in nearby economic development. The downstate chairman of New York's Empire State Development Corp., Patrick Foye, said earlier this summer that the Pennsylvania Station project could cost about $2 billion, though plans have been altered some since.

The project, which has yet to be finalized and go through public review, would be linked to the development of a train station in part of the Farley Post Office across Eighth Avenue. The developers have termed the entire development Moynihan Station, with the post office dubbed "Moynihan West" and Pennsylvania Station called "Moynihan East."

Earlier this year, the state was aiming for at least $600 million in federal funds, people familiar with the plans said, with the developers being expected to cover a significant portion of the station's cost and the state much of the balance.

"This is probably the most important transportation hub in the country — there ought to be a federal contribution to it," the president of the Regional Plan Association, Robert Yaro, said.

Based on their lobbying reports and the impressions of congressional staffers familiar with the plans, Vornado and Related seem to be targeting two main avenues for the funding: legislation that would "reauthorize" Amtrak, providing billions for long-term projects, and homeland security funding targeted for transportation improvements.

An Amtrak reauthorization has not happened for years, though the Senate yesterday rejected cuts to Amtrak's annual funding proposed by the Bush administration, approving $1.4 billion for the rail service as part of a transportation bill. The White House has threatened to veto the bill, a similar version of which passed the House earlier this summer.

An Amtrak reauthorization bill introduced by Senator Lautenberg of New Jersey contains a provision pushed by the developers' lobbyists, one that makes money eligible for the developments of new stations, according to a congressional staff member.

Mr. Lautenberg, chairman of a Senate subcommittee on transportation, has for years been a strong supporter of the Moynihan Station project, and he has been a recent beneficiary of thousands in campaign contributions from the developers. The CEO of Vornado, Steven Roth, gave the maximum $4,600 to Mr. Lautenberg's campaign fund earlier this year, and the CEO of Related, Stephen Ross, has given $1,000, according to campaign finance records.

"The two Steves," as the developers are known in real estate circles, also gave so far this year a combined $13,000 to Rep. Jerrold Nadler and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, and political action committees associated with them, records show.

Vornado and Related's federal push comes as the plans for the project are being worked out behind-doors, as nine months into the Spitzer administration the state tries to sort out the details and juggle the needs of the numerous parties involved.

Amtrak, which for years had no desire to be in the Farley Post Office, now wants to base its operations in the building, according to an Amtrak spokesman, Clifford Cole.

In the place of the existing Madison Square Garden, the developers had been planning two skyscrapers of about 1,300 feet, though people familiar with the plans now say the state is leaning heavily against the towers at that location. The costs of physically supporting such structures above a train station are said to be prohibitive, and the state could move the development air rights to nearby Vornado-owned properties.

People briefed on the plans say the state now intends to begin the environmental review process some time this month or next, though the Spitzer administration has thus far not had a great track record of staying within such timelines, at least for its large economic development initiatives.

[antinimby]

"This is probably the most important transportation hub in the country — there ought to be a federal contribution to it," the president of the Regional Plan Association, Robert Yaro, said.I totally agree.

The damn Federal government thinks nothing of throwing tens of billions into that worthless Big Dig underground highway tunnel in Boston.

600 million is just a drop in the bucket compared to that so they've got no excuse to not help with the Penn Station project, which by the way, is exactly what they should be condoning and supporting the development of because it is mass transit.

[scumonkey]

I also agree it should get federal moneys However.....

worthless Big Dig underground highway tunnel in Boston.
Nothing worthless about that project!

[antinimby]

Well it is worthless in the sense that there wasn't any utmost urgency in the need to move those roadways underground.

Is it better for the Boston neighborhoods that they went underground? Yes but then that could be said for any arterial in any downtown area of most cities.

Is it that urgent? No, and certainly not $16 BILLION (or however much more the end cost had ballooned to) urgent.

[scumonkey]

I can agree the cost ballooned to outrageous proportions BUT.....
Having lived in Boston I can tell you it WAS needed!
And it was alot more than just some downtown arterial
Have you ever tried driving there? :o

[antinimby]

You don't seem to get it. Like I said, every city's highway system is a mess and everyone can reasonably claim that roadway improvement is needed but are they all urgently needed?

I don't see how the Big Dig is any more urgent than say, the BQE-Gowanus in Brooklyn or the highway exchanges in Jersey City or any number of aging highways across the country.

If we're going to throw $16 billion to bury highways running through every city, then how much money are we talking about here and is that money well spent?

[scumonkey]

I'm not going to quibble with you.....
IMO
Bostons was a unique problem that no other American city could claim..
Read and learn - it was hurting more than Boston
(where a lot of the trains that enter NYC come from)
http://www.masspike.com/bigdig/background/index.html
I will NOT change my mind and stand firm by my beliefs...
and YES...I DO GET IT! ;)
Now back to the original topic

[antinimby]

Every city's problem is unique but that doesn't mean we should waste $16 billion of taxpayer's money at a so called problem that wasn't even that urgent.

I'd say that bridge in Minneapolis was more urgent and should've gotten a piece of the funding that had gone to the Big Dig, which is really just a makeover.

[kz1000ps]

I won't argue with you that the federal money should have probably gone elsewhere, but to say that the Big Dig was "just a makeover" is simply wrong.

The old elevated highway was designed before federal standards were in place, back in a time when it was assumed that the more on- and off-ramps you had the better, regardless of what curves in the alignment existed (think the old West Side Highway, except not quite so antiquated). It was (relatively) unsafe, and needed at the very least a drastic redesign to get it anywhere near modern safety standards, let alone getting it up to a level where it could handle today's traffic demands.

But yeah.. $15 billion and counting :rolleyes:

[antinimby]

Well, I would certainly expect that at least some safety improvements would be made if you're going to spend $15 billion.

I'm sorry but that isn't enough justification because I'm sure every city can make the same claim about roadway safety and I'm sure some might even be in poorer conditions than Boston but I don't see the Feds handing out $15 billion to everyone.

Lastly, was there no other way to address those safety concerns in Boston other than through this ultra expensive route?

[Xemu]

Maybe when New York gets a Tip O'Neil of it's own they'll be able to wrangle $15 Billion in federal funding for Penn Station. Until then I wouldn't count on it.

[antinimby]

Lol, so true. By the way, $15 billion would get us half-a-dozen new Penn Stations.

[Eugenious]

The bastards have lost their minds, its not enough that they are porking the city for $2b+ they want federal funding too. What a bunch of crooks, all to cash in on their land and property deals. These projects are hi-jacked by special interests and have very little merit at this point. It's obvious the train station is taking a back seat to getting these guys the carte blanch to do as they please with the area and air rights..

[kliq6]

This wont get going till 2009 so no need to talk about it

[antinimby]

The bastards have lost their minds, its not enough that they are porking the city for $2b+ they want federal funding too. What a bunch of crooks, all to cash in on their land and property deals. These projects are hi-jacked by special interests and have very little merit at this point. It's obvious the train station is taking a back seat to getting these guys the carte blanch to do as they please with the area and air rights..Oh god. I think I will stay quite clear of this one.

[Eugenious]

This wont get going till 2009 so no need to talk about it

You are way too optimistic :D I say 2015

[ASchwarz]

The bastards have lost their minds, its not enough that they are porking the city for $2b+ they want federal funding too. What a bunch of crooks, all to cash in on their land and property deals. These projects are hi-jacked by special interests and have very little merit at this point. It's obvious the train station is taking a back seat to getting these guys the carte blanch to do as they please with the area and air rights..

Most ridiculous and uninformed post of the year.

[Eugenious]

Most ridiculous and uninformed post of the year.

Wow, you sure showed me where I'm wrong. All the details are just breathtaking. :D

[ASchwarz]

Wow, you sure showed me where I'm wrong. All the details are just breathtaking. :D

That's the point. You have no details, nothing. You are just hyperventilating about alleged subsidies and corrupt political deals without any tangible evidence. Nothing has been announced.

Penn Station is the nation's largest and busiest transit hub. It is MUCH busier than any airport or other major transit hub. It isn't unreasonable to expect government involvement in a massive rebuilding/expansion of the complex. Do you think airports are rebuilt/expanded without government support?

[Eugenious]

That's the point. You have no details, nothing. You are just hyperventilating about alleged subsidies and corrupt political deals without any tangible evidence. Nothing has been announced.

Penn Station is the nation's largest and busiest transit hub. It is MUCH busier than any airport or other major transit hub. It isn't unreasonable to expect government involvement in a massive rebuilding/expansion of the complex. Do you think airports are rebuilt/expanded without government support?

Do airports have skyscrapers built on top of them? :D Do you have a sports Arena inside an Airport anywhere in the US? Do unscrupulous developers control all the land near and in the Airports? And finally does an airport sit in the middle of the most coveted and expensive real estate?

Great analogy. :D

[JYanks26]

Transit projects mold city of tomorrow
By Marlene Naanes, amNewYork Staff Writer | MNaanes@am-ny.com
September 14, 2007 file:///C:\DOCUME~1\JONWHI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\cli p_image002.gif (http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/trb.newsday/news/local/ny;tk=11268;tk=12525;ptype=s;slug=am-transit0914;rg=ur;ref=newsdaycom;pos=1;sz=88x31;ti le=5;ord=57150392?)
Straphangers are hopping on the T train at Second Avenue, Long Islanders are ending their commute at Grand Central Terminal and the majestic James A. Farley Post Office is a major transit hub.

These scenarios are expected one day to be a part of New York's transportation network. Some projects are taking shape while others have yet to break ground, yet all are set to serve a growing population set to boom by 1 million in the next 20 years, by the mayor's estimates.

"This is probably the greatest spate of transportation projects since the 1920s when we're talking mass transit," said Clifton Hood, professor of history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and transportation author.
At the 75th anniversary of the A train this week, MTA chief executive Elliot Sander noted that as famed line served booming north Manhattan communities in the 1930s, its reach serves three boroughs today. He also nodded to the five major projects' on track now.

"The investments we are making in the system today will pay dividends not only to us but to future generations of New Yorkers," he said.

1. South Ferry Terminal
Status: Under construction
Completion date: August or September 2008
The MTA is putting the finishing touches on this almost $500 million, five-year project. In a perfect world, the terminal, which boasts a full-length platform that would fit all cars of a train instead of just five, would be finished at the end of this year.

But unexpected archeological finds among other delays held up the project. The terminal will have additional entrances, better access to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, a free transfer between the 1 and R and W lines at Whitehall Street and cooler air provided by a tempered air system.

The new terminal will also shave minutes from commute times, said MTA's Capital Construction Company President Mysore L. Nagaraja. Currently, rides on the Broadway lines are delayed at Chambers Street until the No. 1 train switches from Manhattan to Bronx-bound tracks.

"South Ferry will make such a big difference for the number 1, 2 and 3 riders," Nagaraja said.

2. Fulton Street Transit Center
Status: Under construction
Completion date: Early 2009
A glass-and-steel domed building here will shine light down on train platforms and keep the temperature cool in a project designed to make the commute through lower Manhattan easier.

"The Fulton Street complex will facilitate transfers among several subway lines serving lower Manhattan, and together with the South Ferry Terminal construction are part of a set of projects that clearly say to the world we are rebuilding lower Manhattan," Sander said.

A corridor under Dey Street, connecting the transit center to the R and W lines and the World Trade Center site is 80 percent done and will be complete in Spring 2008.

The $888 million project, funded by the federal government, was delayed and breached its budget limits when, among other problems, the price of the property it will sit on soared above previously forecasted levels, Nagaraja said.

In the end, the MTA will have created a unique building with retail space, rehabbed the 2, 3 station and eased the transfer system on a straight mezzanine between 2, 3, 4, 5, A and C lines. A total of 12 lines and the PATH system to New Jersey will be connected

Two new entrances for the 4 and 5 are open now and rehabilitation of the 2, 3 station there is also finished.

3. East Side Access
Status: Under construction Completion date: 2013
The tunnel-boring machine that will allow Long Island Rail Road trains to roll into Grand Central Terminal is scheduled to begin its drilling excursion in the next two weeks. The machine is being put together in a preexisting tunnel at 63rd Street in Manhattan and will drill a new tunnel from Second Avenue to Park Avenue then drill south to Grand Central.

The MTA will award a contract by the end of the year to excavate and build the LIRR terminal below Grand Central.

Another contract to bore a tunnel below Sunnyside Yards in Queens, which would connect the LIRR's Main Line and Port Washington branches to the Grand Central route, will be awarded in early 2008.

The $6.3 billion project will clear congestion at the LIRR's current city destination, Penn Station, the MTA says, and cut commute times for customers headed to jobs on the East Side.

"The East Side Access would be huge because it would eliminate bottlenecks," Hood said, adding it is one of the most significant transit projects in the city.

4. No. 7 Line Extension
Status: Contract phase
Completion date: 2013
This project will bring the line to the Hudson Yards, with the MTA set to accept a bidder on the first contract at the end of the year. Then construction will begin on a station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue that will feature platform doors.

They align with train doors to keep commuters off the track and allow a tempered air system, which would help keep the station cool. The more than $2 billion project fits in with the West Site Yard development plan.

"The No. 7 extension will help the far west side of Manhattan reach its residential and commercial potential," Sander said.

5. Second Avenue Subway (first phase)
Status: Under construction
Completion date: 2013
Plans for the future T line have been in the works since the 1920s, and now the MTA has finally begun the first $3.4 billion phase of the project. The MTA is digging up utility lines along Second Avenue between 92nd and 96th streets and is also excavating a launch box, a hole where the tunnel boring machine will begin its work below the avenue.

This first phase of the project will build stations at 96th, 86th and 72nd Street stations and expand the 63rd Street station at Lexington Avenue. New stations on the line will feature a tempered air system like the 7 line extension. Q line service will be extended from its current stop at 57th Street to the 63rd Street station and will carry a projected 200,000 weekday riders on the new Second Avenue route. The next phases will take the T from 125th to Hanover Square by 2020.

6. Moynihan Station
Status: On the drawing board
Completion date: Possibly 2018
Preliminary designs for the redesigned James A. Farley Post Office Building are set to be released soon. Preliminary plans show that the station in reality will be split into two structures. Moynihan East will sit where the existing Penn Station and Madison Square Garden are located, both of which will be razed and turned into an airy glass structure. The Farley will be redeveloped, with a glass skylight in its current courtyard, and turned into Moynihan West

While commuters will be able to access all the rail lines in either building, New Jersey Transit will have a home base in the west building and Amtrak and LIRR will have their main hub in the east.

The post office building will also house a new Madison Square Garden on the westernmost end near Ninth Avenue, but customers will be able to access the building on 8th Avenue.

Retail space will stretch throughout the complex, and it's unclear if two 90-story towers, which were part of the preliminary plan, will still be erected on the eastern plot.

"This complex would become the region's pre-eminent transportation center and a catalyst for the nation's largest transportation-oriented development district, providing New York with enormous new capacity for efficient transportation and compact, energy-efficient, high-density development," said a Regional Plan Association report about the project.

[NYguy]

This wont get going till 2009 so no need to talk about it

Didn't stop you, why should it stop anyone else???

[NYguy]

Penn Station is the nation's largest and busiest transit hub. It is MUCH busier than any airport or other major transit hub. It isn't unreasonable to expect government involvement in a massive rebuilding/expansion of the complex. Do you think airports are rebuilt/expanded without government support?

Very true. If developers just built skyscrapers around Manhattan's west side, and no one even cared what happened to Penn Station, the government would be criticized for the "awful" condition of the station.

[ASchwarz]

Do airports have skyscrapers built on top of them? :D Do you have a sports Arena inside an Airport anywhere in the US? Do unscrupulous developers control all the land near and in the Airports? And finally does an airport sit in the middle of the most coveted and expensive real estate?

Great analogy. :D

Airports are giant cash cows for airlines, courtesy of the American taxpayer. If anything, airports are much more subsidized than the wildest dreams of the Penn Station developers.

Also, the developers OWN these adjacent skyscraper sites. These sites have nothing to do with potential subsidies for Penn Station. Would you prefer they ignore the main site and simply build giant towers around the site and let the govt. pay 100% of the new Penn Station costs? They could easily do this as of right. How would the public benefit by paying 100% of the bill instead of a much smaller fraction of the bill?

I still don't understand why they are "bastards" and "crooks" because they are lobbying the state and feds. How is this any different from any other private entity lobbying govt. for favorable business terms? I guess you think most people on earth are "bastards" and "crooks" because they generally want to receive the most favorable terms from governing entities.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Airports are giant cash cows for airlines, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
Windfall profits for airlines?


How is this any different from any other private entity lobbying govt. for favorable business terms? Lobbying is a good thing?

[econ_tim]

airports make just enough money to get airlines out of bankruptcy every now and then