Warning a long read. Author goes into the reasons that it has been impossible to get NYPS improved. Names such as Moses, Clinton, Cuomo, many others all had a hand of derailing plans and implementation.
https://news.yahoo.com/why-holiday-travel-awful-130157035.html
Like any other ‘public works’ project it only takes two things to pull off.
Money and the will to accomplish the project, throw in engineering skills to implement it.
One thing without the other is failure.
I thought the plan to convert the Farley post office to the Moynihan station was supposed to fix all that. Is that still happening?
The parasites killed off the host.
Greener pastures elsewhere.
Call it the Moynihan Train Hall.
Here is the SOM page for the project. They still show a completion date of 2020 for the work, but I believe it has been pushed back to some time in 2021. If things are otherwise, please provide actual references.
Meanwhile, the improvements to “Penn Station” itself are also coming along, although I remain underwhelmed:
So is the movement to re-build the old Penn Station officially belly-up?
Rebuilding the old Pennsylvania Station (designed by Stanford White) would be unlikely since you would have to demolish Madison Square Garden.
Regardless of the practicality, there is/was a movement to rebuild the station. Has it officially been 86ed?
Madison Square Garden will be demolished…in about 18 or 20 years or so.
As I recall from the New York Times, the owners of MSG were just finishing expensive renovations there a few years ago when the City started agitating again for them to leave the site. As a compromise, and because the plans for the station weren’t/haven’t been finalized, and because funding wasn’t/isn’t solved, the owners of MSG were given a further 20 years’ lease on the site. The MSG needs time to find another location and the City needs time to plan for a new station.
No one is seriously considering rebuilding the old station for a host of reasons. Instead, there are plans to either: 1. design and build an all-new station, or 2. strip off the walls of MSG and re-use the steel structure for a new station. The second proposal not only would be less expensive and more innovative, it is visually more interesting. Maybe someone here can post those two proposals.
The tunnels situation is by far the more imperative project at this time.
As for the demolished station, it wasn’t that lovely, anyway. It was impressive, yes, but really it was just a great heap of stones. It didn’t charm users as GCT did/does and was not particularly loved by New Yorkers the way GCT was from the start. And no one then or now ever enjoyed the two-floors thing at Penn Station.
In the meantime: Keep on scuttling.
I don’t really get it.
Will the Moyhihan Train Hall essentially be the lobby/grand hall/whatever for the entire complex? But many train travelers (all Amtrak passengers?) will still have to walk from there to/thru the existing shabby, cramped waiting room to get to their trains?
I guess what I’m mainly asking is: is the MTH the gateway to all the trains, or only some of them?
And re what I read about renovations in Penn Station, is that essentially sprucing up the old waiting area (which will become a walk-thru concourse for people using Amtrak trains)?
If I take Amtrak from Boston to NYC, how will my experience be different?
I guess I’m asking this: how will the MTH and the existing Penn Station relate to each other?
If you can answer that question I think they will make you project manager
If I understand your question correctly, at the present time MTH is for the use of Long Island Railroad trains and passengers; Amtrak uses Penn Station.
[:D]
That’s depressing.
Thanks for answering, though.
Thanks. Would you happen to know if the movement to re-build the old Penn Station is officially belly-up?
No, sorry. I haven’t seen it proclaimed as “officially belly-up” anywhere. But neither have I seen it discussed anywhere since it was first proposed (by no one with any clout). The other two proposals, yes, but not a re-build.
Check the New York Times archive (or Google it) for complete and accurate information and status on this subject.
There’s little point in even considering a ‘historic re-creation’ of Penn Station with the air rights over the site being so valuable. Note in very specific particular that the rebuilt roof in the Moynihan Train Hall is intended to ‘recreate the experience’ of the old building – arguably a much better experience than the original, with its wacky interior layout, would likely do.
There are certainly some improvements to the existing station layout, but they are largely ‘peripheral’ or internal, and the effective scuttling from the street to any point in the station’s actual rail infrastructure other than at Moynihan is likely to continue in that sense.
I had been laboring under the impression that the actual track access to Amtrak arrival and departure platforms would be provided through MTH by the time it has been completed. I certainly haven’t found any evidence that that has changed.
I was briefly active in a design proposal to re-create something like the Penn Station space “under” a new air-rights building to replace MSG. This would involve considerable expense which, again, is provided via MTH considerably more cost-effectively even if there were to be no effective re-use of the MSG internal structure in any new construction in the air rights. It was given a pretty definitive kibosh back in the day when MSG started doing the extensive renovations on their spaces … whether you think they were cost-effectively justified or not, they made them, and would expect to be paid for them in any station rebuilding project.
Thanks. I couldn’t tell if the newer developments effectively superceded the rebuild proposal. I hadn’t heard much about it recently, which is why I asked.
[quote user=“Overmod”]
Shock Control
Thanks. Would you happen to know if the movement to re-build the old Penn Station is officially belly-up?
There’s little point in even considering a ‘historic re-creation’ of Penn Station with the air rights over the site being so valuable. Note in very specific particular that the rebuilt roof in the Moynihan Train Hall is intended to ‘recreate the experience’ of the old building – arguably a much better experience than the original, with its wacky interior layout, would likely do.
There are certainly some improvements to the existing station layout, but they are largely ‘peripheral’ or internal, and the effective scuttling from the street to any point in the station’s actual rail infrastructure other than at Moynihan is likely to continue in that sense.
I had been laboring under the impression that the actual track access to Amtrak arrival and departure platforms would be provided through MTH by the time it has been completed. I certainly haven’t found any evidence that that has changed.
I was briefly active in a design proposal to re-create something like the Penn Station space “under” a new air-rights building to replace MSG. This would involve considerable expense which, again, is provided via MTH considerably more cost-effectively even if there were to be no effective re-use of the MSG internal structure in any new construction in the air rights. It was given a pretty definitive kibosh back in the day when MSG started doing the extensive renovations on their spaces … whether you think they were cost-effectively justified or not, they made them, and would expect to be paid for them in any station rebuilding project.
Someplace else? Such as?
Stop trying to recreate the past. Build a modern, light, airy structure that has good access and egress.