“Our leaders appear blithely unaware that we’ve got inside our grasp a once-in-a-century alternative to create a transit hub worthy of New York, which many people nonetheless consider as ‘the best metropolis on Earth.’”
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Workplace
The LIRR entrance at Penn Station
A vibrant New York neighborhood is a horrible factor to waste, which is exactly what would occur if the Empire State Growth Company (ESD) and Gov. Kathy Hochul prevail of their ill-conceived plans to revamp Penn Station and neighborhood.
It appears clear they wish to demolish the block between West thirty first and thirtieth streets and Seventh and Eighth avenues, amongst many different websites, in order that Vornado Realty Belief can construct a redwood forest of supertall towers. The objective ostensibly is to fund unspecified enhancements to Penn Station itself, together with its enlargement underground from West thirty first and thirtieth streets.
Thankfully, State Sen. Leroy Comrie, New York State’s Public Authorities Management Board and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli did their parts this week and didn’t let this fatally flawed proposal take to the air.
Learn The Opposing View: The Penn Station Plan is a Job Well Done. It’s Time We Acknowledge That
The neighborhood’s solely fault is is that it’s not “Park Avenue.” 1000’s of residents, small businesses, Capuchin Friars and irreplaceable architecture will probably be forged to the winds so {that a} plethora of supertall Class A workplace towers may be erected round Penn Station like a noose across the neighborhood. Empire State Growth (ESD) claims it will fulfill its unilaterally derived aspirations of getting Class A workplace towers from river to river, though monolithic enterprise districts following this mannequin fail wherever they’re tried.
Artist rendering by Patricia Melvin
The Lodge Pennsylvania, Stewart Lodge, 7 Penn Plaza, St. John the Baptist Church and the unique Penn Station Service Middle would all be eliminated underneath the ESD and governor’s plan.
Such a neighborhood “substitute” scheme was odd and aberrant earlier than COVID-19; it’s much more so now. Our folks, our small companies and our historic constructions deserve higher. They’ve as a lot proper to dwell and flourish on this metropolis as do builders.
What stays of the Penn District, if something, will probably be turned over to the Vornado Realty Belief on monetary phrases extremely favorable to the agency. In return, New Yorkers, because of the ESD and the governor, will get an uninspired, abjectly mediocre Penn Station and neighborhood that may damage the town, the state, and the area, when what they want is a shot within the arm. This plan is a blown alternative for the ages.
Our leaders appear blithely unaware that we’ve got inside our grasp a once-in-a-century alternative to create a transit hub worthy of New York, which many people nonetheless consider as “the best metropolis on Earth.” They need to be implementing a unified regional transit plan, reforming the tracks at Penn Station to accommodate it, giving the town an awesome aboveground station to enhance Grand Central and the Moynihan Practice Corridor throughout the road.
As a substitute, they’re proposing a mass transit paradigm that may have made sense in 1950 however not does. Including insult to damage, they need our nice station to stay a subterranean affair, a glorified subway cease—with all of the appeal of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. They usually inform us we must always all be grateful or be known as “NIMBYs” if we object. We all know they resort to the advert hominem as a result of their posture is indefensible.
Regarding price, on the transit aspect, there may be a minimum of $8 billion of waste of their proposal. This comes from the price distinction between implementing ReThinkNYC’s trendy through-running operating model as in comparison with the ESD/Hochul plan’s proposed enlargement of terminal tracks south of Penn Station.
Our trendy through-running plan prices $8 billion less than the ESD/Hochul plan.
Artist rendering by ReThinkNYC
An deserted publish workplace mail platform (higher left) may be repurposed to permit southern NJT platforms to maneuver westward (higher proper) and permit through-running to all tracks on the current Penn Station and save $8 billion of pointless price to develop Penn Station south of thirty first Road. The implementation of ReThinkNYC’s through-running mannequin additionally eliminates the necessity to demolish any of thirty first and thirtieth Streets.
The actual price differential will probably be far more as through-running doesn’t require the extreme, deep-tunnel build-outs of the proposed terminal tracks and station. Deep-tunnel tasks are those most vulnerable to price overruns and delays.
The expensive development of a Penn Station South would require the demolition of 1 and a half blocks in midtown, together with a bustling, mixed-use neighborhood housing 1000’s of residents, small companies, and historic constructions. The Biden administration has made clear its dedication to transit fairness. It’s unacceptable, due to this fact, that the federal authorities ought to be unwittingly complicit within the gratuitous chloroforming of a vibrant part of city.
The proponents of the challenge have declared the world round Penn Station “blighted”; it’s nothing of the sort. Everybody, together with the Daily News Editorial Board and thirty fourth Road Enterprise Enchancment District chief Daniel Biederman, acknowledges that declaring the Penn neighborhood “blighted” is successfully an enormous lie. The one blight at Penn Station is the station itself.
Grotesquely, the prime developer—Vornado Realty Belief—intends to construct its personal self-proclaimed “campus” on the rubble of the Penn Station District. The corporate’s chairperson, Steven Roth, has bragged about letting buildings fall into disrepair in order that the federal government will give them extra money for remediation. Such a lack of integrity is pervasive within the financing of this challenge. It’s the outdated bait and change, which, sadly, New Yorkers have seen earlier than; it can go away state funds in full disarray.
It’s laudable that the Division of Transportation and plenty of others try to reverse a number of infrastructure and concrete renewal errors from the Nineteen Fifties. These tragic errors have been usually inflicted on much less influential neighborhoods missing the correct zip codes. Why are the ESD and the governor visiting this discreditable observe now on the Penn neighborhood?
President Biden, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, and Deputy Secretary Trottenberg have to hold their eyes on the ball! A New York that espouses and embodies sound city design ideas for the steadiness of this century and into the following will redound to their credit score—in the event that they step as much as the plate at this important hour.
They don’t want a New York frozen in stale and out of date concepts from the Robert Moses playbook any greater than New Yorkers do. We have to rethink what makes cities livable, the way to sustainably renew them, and devise new transit plans that promote environmental sanity, regional financial fairness, and ease of use for all.
Obscenely, the ESD and the governor wish to bail out Mr. Roth who hopes to resurrect his failing inventory—already trending downward pre-COVID—by delivering the “promised land” of Midtown West to his shareholders. However we don’t want a Vornado vainness challenge when actual options at Penn Station beckon.
Please assist what continues to be “the best metropolis on Earth” and its folks—regionally and regionally—to sidestep this dated, mean-spirited, conflicted, and deeply corrupt plan.
Sam Turvey is chairperson of RethinkNYC, an advocacy and training group devoted to the broader impacts of transit infrastructure and governance points. He is also co-coordinator of the Empire Station Coalition, a gaggle of over 15 civic, environmental and neighborhood associations against Gov. Hochul’s Penn Station plans. Turvey is a longtime group activist and serves on quite a few charitable boards together with the Nationwide Jazz Museum in Harlem and the Noble Maritime Assortment on Staten Island.
