SOMs are mediocre at best. I would like to see other architects chime in.
Some of the general SOM criticism seems valid to me, boxy and boring. But this is a refurb of a classic building, not a lot of architectural originality to be done. What design elements are there look great to me. This is going to be a great station.
Which do you think Penn Station should shoot for: Modern, Space age design or Classical, Elegant design?
The current plan is fine. If you ask me, however, it would be a good idea to just raze that POS Madison Square Garden and ask Zaha Hadid or Peter Eisenman to design the replacement. Someone who's not done a project in New York yet.Originally Posted by alex ballard
Agreed. Madison Square Garden is really old and outdated. It could really use a fixing up. Maybe start on renovation/reconstruction once the Brooklyn Arena opens, so the Knicks have somewhere to play at least. I wouldn't mind just seeing it clad in an attractive glass facade. Right now I think it just brings down the area.
The new Penn Station should make the most out of the existing architecture. I vote for Beaux-arts on steroids, and forget all that trendy and odd glasswork. The station plans as originally announced a few years ago looked dated the very day they were announced!
February 25, 2005
3 Designs Submitted for Midtown Train Station
By SEWELL CHAN
One design for a new station in the Farley post office on Eighth Avenue - by a partnership of the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust - uses a glass and steel canopy that will encompass the entry lobby.
ew York State officials announced yesterday that they would choose from among three developers to transform the city's central post office into a new Midtown train station serving commuters on New Jersey Transit and possibly the Long Island Rail Road.
The selection of one of the three design proposals submitted Friday is expected to take place by June and would mark an important step forward for the plans to create a new train station in memory of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who championed the effort before his death in 2003.
The project, across Eighth Avenue from Pennsylvania Station, has proceeded in fits and starts for the last decade, but officials now hope to begin construction by the end of this year and complete the station by 2010.
"The quality and scope of the various proposals put forth for Moynihan Station show the importance of this project as a gateway to New York City," said Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation.
The design proposals all incorporate what has playfully become known as the potato chip - a shapely glass and steel canopy that will encompass the new station's entry lobby. That canopy, designed by David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, would envelop a series of concourses that slip under the post office building, letting light flow onto the train platforms below ground.
The three proposals also include a well-lit atrium and a passageway along 32nd Street linking Eighth and Ninth Avenues.
The agency has secured $600 million in public funds to build the 400,000-square-foot train station. In addition, the site will include 250,000 square feet for the Postal Service and 750,000 square feet for retail, office or residential use.
The developers are Boston Properties, Tishman Speyer and a partnership of the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust.
Whoever who wins the competition will also acquire the rights to privately develop and control the 750,000 square feet under a long-term lease. Mr. Gargano would not specify the features of each proposal, but he said they included a warehouse-type store, a boutique or business hotel, a museum, public space for exhibits and live performances, a rooftop banquet hall and space for retail stores.
The project effectively dates to 1963, when the former Pennsylvania Station, a Beaux-Arts masterpiece designed by McKim, Mead & White, was demolished over protests by preservationists and architects. The current Madison Square Garden was built on the site over a labyrinthine terminal for Amtrak, the two commuter railroads and two sets of subway lines.
In 1998, officials announced they would lease 400,000 square feet of space in the James A. Farley Post Office Building, built in 1914, for a new station. But in 2002, the agency agreed to buy the entire site, on Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets, for $230 million.
The current Penn Station serves 550,000 passengers a day. "It is horrible right now," Mr. Gargano said. "It is congested, not roomy, not pleasant to look at. It's like walking through a cave."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
How much retail is going to be in the Farley building? Personally, a new upscale mall like at the Airports or suburbs would be a good fit. I mean, can you imagine the incomes that pass through that station every day?
Also, is this simply a new waiting room or is this really going to expand the amount of platforms and trains at Penn Station?
This project will not affect the platform level of the station. It will increase the passenger waiting and circulation capacity of the station by providing new waiting areas, staircases, passageways, and entries/exits. I believe there will be no new tracks or platforms.
But separate projects will address the train capacity of the station. "East Side Access," which will connect the LIRR to Grand Central, will free up a lot of capacity at the station so that other LIRR (and potentially Metro-North) services can be expanded. "Access to the Region's Core," which would build a new trans-Hudson tunnel and a new deep-level terminal just north of Penn Station, would allow more rush hour Amtrak and NJ Transit service. The Moynihan Station project is needed to allow passengers to enjoy the full benefits of these other projects.
The towers proposed in the renderings look pretty ho-hum but great project overall nonetheless.
Right now they look very One-Penn-Plazaish but with the roster of architects I have faith we'll see more interesting designs, especially if we get a Foster building.
I like the first design but the second it hideous! I wasnt expecting towers for this site. I was just expecting a new trans. hub. Nothing big.
I wasn't expecting towers either. I believe they should sell the air-rights and keep Moynihan station the same general structure that it is - similar to the original renderings with the potato chip. The economics of the building will probably require a tower or towers, however.
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