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nodeThe Municipal Art Society of New York knows something about train stations. In the 1970s, together with board member Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, we successfully rallied New Yorkers to save Grand Central Terminal from the wrecking ball.
It's time to rally again. But this time, it's not about a wrecking ball. It's about ensuring that we get a first-class Moynihan Station as a truly grand work of public architecture and a transportation center that really works.
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New Penn Station
The civic travesty of razing the original Penn Station MUST be reversed. MSG needs to be rebuilt on the west side (NOT in the Farley P.O.) and the No 7 train extended west; tear down 2 Penn Plaza and rebuild Penn Station right where it was. It needs entrances on 7th (LIRR) and 8th (Amtrak) avenues. Turn Farley into Moynihan Station, as the new home of NJ Transit and Path. This is the busiest commuter hub in the country, it needs both stations. Amtrak owns Penn Station and wants to keep the name, which it should. An underground people mover to connect New Penn and Moynihan would be nice. I hope this gets done in my lifetime. The needs of the greedy real estate moguls at Related, Vornado, et al should not be driving this process, the citizens of NYC should.
New Penn Station
What are you talking about, Mark? Don't you realize that the plan is a go & nothing in your proposal makes sense? Who do you think you are, a transit engineer? There are highly educated & well compensated urban planners & transit engineers here at NJT who have studied proposals & already eliminated inefficient designs & proposals such as yours. Please re-think your suggestion & get on right track. The train has already left the station. BTW, nice hat.
Moynihan Under One Roof
First, I would like to respond to that which has been posted already and say that I think that Mark's suggestion makes sense in that he is attempting to envision something that HE feels makes sense. That in and of itself adds value to any project. And Josh, while urban planners may have thought through this project already and ruled out designs that are "inefficient" these same "highly educated and well compensated" planners have let us down before and I am afraid that by the looks of the current plans they may be failing us once again.
To move on though, I would like to throw my own crazy notion into the ring and ask if it would be possible to create a Moynihan Station that is all housed under one roof in the Post Office and Annex buildings? In a discussion yesterday at MAS the idea was floated and the technical issue of a narrow track width under the annex was raised. From a layman's perspective this seems as though it would require adjustments, but that it could be adjusted. If anyone could comment on this I would greatly appreciate the insight on the issue.
From my own perspective it seems that overcoming this challenge would be well worth the effort. I believe that it was Senator Moynihan's original intention in conceiving of a new Penn Station that it be a great public space that would not only serve the need of commuters, but also to inspire and serve as a grand civic space. In reviewing the current plans with Madison Square Garden placed in the Annex I can't help, but be overwhelmed by the irony of the situation, but I am also concerned that such a juxtaposition will take away from the intended effect of creating a place that we can be proud of as a society.
Unfortunately, there are only a few of these truly grand architectural gems in our city that remain to serve the public good including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 42nd Street Library, Grand Central Station, Museum of Natural History, and the US Custom House. Can anyone even imagine what the effect would be of saying let's take the west side of the 42nd street library and convert it into a Verizon Office/Store so that we could free up the property on the other side of 6th Avenue? It would destroy the appearance of the building and it would take away from the grand public purpose that the Library serves.
I hope this gets some ideas rolling on the issue and I look forward to hearing back from the experts on the possibilities of keeping Moynihan Station under one roof to best serve the public good. Thanks.