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"Overwhelming In Scale": Public Sounds Off On Penn Station Redevelopment Plans
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Dec 9, 2021
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Governor Kathy Hochul's office
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By
Stephen Nessen
Published Dec 9, 2021
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Governor Kathy Hochul’s updated $6-7 billion plan to redevelop Penn Station and the surrounding blocks, creating construction jobs and transforming the area for business and residents, faced public scrutiny at a hearing Wednesday.
More than 200 people signed up to comment on a project originally heralded by former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Their feedback ranged from "it’s a badly needed project that’s long overdue" to "it’s a destructive giveaway to developers."
Andrea Goldwyn with New York Landmarks Conservancy called for the plans to be halted. Her group supports fixing Penn Station, but cited 50 buildings in the area that are either part of a national historic registry or should be part of it in her groups’ opinion. She called the project “anti-urban.”
“The state assumes that this neighborhood should be sacrificed,” Goldwyn said. “The dynamic mix of old and new makes New York unique and successful. The renderings for a campus of new supertalls, and bland public spaces present an anodyne vision that could literally be anywhere in the world.”
The hearing was the last before the state submits its Environmental Impact Statement for federal review.
Hochul’s project, which would take four to five years to complete, still includes adding ten new buildings in the area around Penn Station, but deviates from Cuomo’s plan by cutting their size by 7%. Organizers said the updated plans, which also add eight acres of public space, results in a reduction of density from the previous by 1.4 million gross square feet. That is, they said, like the equivalent of removing an entire skyscraper.
Another component involves renovating Penn Station, to make it feel more streamlined and airy, with a 450-foot concourse and much higher ceiling heights.
Renderings of the Governor Hochul's proposed Penn Station and surrounding area update
Governor Kathy Hochul's office
Tom Wright, of the transit think tank the Regional Plan Association, supports the project, but said expanding track capacity at Penn Station is the key to truly improving the maligned transit hall.
“We've looked closely at this issue at RPA and agree with virtually all the transit operators in the region that more tracks and platforms will be necessary and expanding Penn station to the south is the best,” he said. “And really the only viable alternative, we must not forget that Penn station currently operates well beyond its design capacity and plans for new rail capacity and passenger demand cannot be accommodated without the expansion and renovation of the station.”
Vikki Barbero, Chair of Manhattan Community Board Five, raised numerous concerns about the project, including how close the 10 new towers will be to each other, how many businesses and residents will be displaced in the five block radius, and the loss of historic buildings in the neighborhood.
“While we recognize that increased density around transit hubs is desirable, the proposal is overwhelming in scale, massing and concentration. It’s negative effects remain unmitigated and would be devastating to the area,” Barbero said.
She added that if the state really wants to update Penn Station, it needs to move Madison Square Garden to truly make more space for trains, platforms and waiting areas.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really address decades of mistakes, wrong decisions, poor management and ill guided plans,” Barbero said. “We were robbed of a world-class transit hub once, let's make sure we do not get robbed of our world-class transit station a second time.”
While not too many elected officials appeared, State Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, who represents the area around Penn Station, spoke on behalf of several elected officials, including Congress members Jerrold Nadler, and Carolyn Maloney (both of whom have appeared publicly with Gov. Hochul to support her plans); State Senators Brad Hoylman and Robert Jackson; and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. Gottfried called for more housing and fewer offices, and also advocated for services for the homeless population in the area.
“The area in and around Penn station has a high quantity of unhoused individuals and illegal substance use. The solution is to use this redevelopment as an opportunity to rectify these, these injustices in our own backyard to provide supportive housing for our unhoused neighbors, to have a substantial space for social service providers to provide drop-in centers, health services, addiction, treatment, job training, and more,” Gottfried said.
He, too, called for moving Madison Square Garden.
Good government group watch dogs were on hand, calling into question the funding plan, which relies on revenue from leases in the new skyscrapers. They worry the developer, Vornado, which owns the majority of the land around Penn Station and is poised to build the majority of the buildings under Hochul’s plans, would just get a major tax abatement, but won’t improve the actual train station.
“We strongly suspect the math doesn’t add up for this project and it will be a huge giveaway to Vornado under which the City government loses either existing or potential tax revenues, and state taxpayers have to bail out borrowing for the new Penn Station,” Rachael Fauss of Reinvent Albany said. “That is exactly what happened just blocks away in Hudson Yards.”
The night before the hearing, several dozen people opposed to the project gathered for a walking tour of historic buildings that could be lost by the development. One of the two guides, Brad Vogel with The City Club of New York, carried a step stool that had the words “Call Kathy” on the back with her office’s phone number below it.
Brad Vogel (L) and Justin Rivers (R) on a tour of the buildings that might disappear with the Penn Station redevelopment plans
Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
The tour included stops at the last remaining building from the original Penn Station, the Penn Station power plant, the 150-year old church St John the Baptist, and one of the last few historic sky bridges, at 32nd and Broadway, which was reportedly featured in the background of Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story.
On the tour of the buildings around Penn Station that could be razed if the update plans move forward
Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
Stopping in front of a residential building on 8th Avenue and 30th Street Vogel pulled out a powerful flashlight to shine on the historical details of the tenement building, including the cornices, lintels, pediments over the windows.
“I think it’s important that buildings like this are shown to have value in our city,” Vogel said. “When you are walking down the street and you can see a building that gives you a sense of place, a sense of what has come before you, you feel like living in this city.”
This story has been updated to reflect that Andrea Goldwyn's last name is Goldwyn, not Goldman.
Tagged
we the commuters
midtown
new york city
manhattan
vornado
penn station
Governor Kathy Hochul
real estate
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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