Spitzer Talks Big Projects with the Observer

The New York Observer’s Eliot Brown interviewed Governor Eliot Spitzer about Hudson Yards, Javits, Ground Zero, and Moynihan. Here’s what he had to say:

NYO: For Moynihan Station, developers Related and Vornado stand to make hundreds of millions, if not billions, on the Pennsylvania Station project and surrounding development. How much do you think they should contribute?

ES: I’m not going to put a number on the table. What I will say is that we’ve had good conversations with the development team. It is a project that we are all committed to getting built because, first, what we the public get out of it most fundamentally is a rebuild of Penn Station.
Right now, as an entry point to the metro region, the existing Penn Station is certainly not what we would desire. It’s—the metaphors I use I’m not sure I want printed. … When you go down into the depths of Penn Station, you feel that you’re descending into one of Dante’s levels of hell. … We’re in the midst of a negotiation with the developers, and we’ll come to a middle ground that I hope is fair to everybody. They will do well on the development, and that’s great. If they weren’t going to do well, we wouldn’t get the millions of square feet of office, retail and residential space built; and if they weren’t going to do well, we wouldn’t be able to afford to rebuild Penn Station.

Read “Eliot Spitzer, Builder” [photo credit: New York Observer]