New Penn Station no longer dream

Developers chosen for $818M project

BY PAUL D. COLFORD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

State and city officials yesterday named the developers who will replace one of the city's lost jewels - the old Pennsylvania Station - with a new gem.

After years of delay, the city, state and two big developers are all aboard with a design to turn the main post office on Eighth Ave. into a grand transit hub recalling the elegant Pennsylvania Station that was razed in 1963.

The $818 million plan will preserve the handsome facade of the James A. Farley Post Office, erected in 1913, while adapting the building as the new Daniel Patrick Moynihan Station, to honor the late U.S. senator, who pushed hard for the idea.

"This is going to be a magnificent gateway for New York," Gov. Pataki said at yesterday's unveiling of the design, which also calls for shops, restaurants and a boutique hotel.

Pataki noted that more than 500,000 subway, NJTransit, Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak riders a day now use Penn Station, a bland hub located across Eighth Ave. He called the current location "horribly inadequate." It's "certainly not an appropriate gateway to the greatest city in the world," he added.

As envisioned by James Carpenter Design Associates, in collaboration with Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, the new central train hall will mirror the old Penn Station through the addition of tall, steel arches on which will sit a huge, yet lightweight, skylight.

A second, so-called "grid shell skylight" will be set atop a hall to be located roughly in the middle of the building, between Eighth and Ninth Aves., that will serve as a taxi station and baggage dropoff.

The winning plan for the project was submitted by a team of major New York developers, The Related Cos. and Vornado Realty Trust, which has extensive holdings in the area.

The companies will put up about $300 million of the projected $818 million cost at different stages before the work is completed in 2010.

The city, state and federal governments and the Port Authority are also helping to fund the project, whose main transit beneficiary will be NJTransit trains.

The congestion that commuters now face in reaching the track level in Penn Station will be relieved with the addition of staircases and other access to 11 platforms that already sit under the Farley building.

The Postal Service will occupy 250,000 square feet.

Up to 1 million square feet of air rights will be applied to the northeast corner of Eighth Ave. and 33rd St., where a Duane Reade store now stands. A residential tower is expected to rise there, next to Vornado-owned 1Penn Plaza.

"The completion of the Moynihan Station gives a second chance to recapture the extraordinary station that once was Penn Station," said Charles Gargano, chairman of the state Economic Development Corp.

Gargano's agency spearheaded the plan and arranged for the planned purchase of the Farley building from the Postal Service for $230 million.

Yesterday's unveiling was the latest chapter in a long-running effort to give the Farley building new life as a transit hub.

Moynihan's dream project seemed far along six years ago, when then-President Bill Clinton came to New York to join Pataki and the senator in introducing plans for "the new Penn Station" in the Farley building.

Amtrak, the owner of Penn Station, was then onboard, but has since pulled back its planned financial contribution.

Mayor Bloomberg said the project will create more than 10,000 construction jobs, more than 3,300 permanent jobs and more than $50 million a year intax revenue, and provide an anchor destination amid plans for new West Side development.

Applause as urban
wrong is righted

BY PAUL D. COLFORD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

There'll never be anything like old Penn Station - but preservationists yesterday cheered the attempt to right a four-decade wrong by turning the main post office into a majestic transit hub.

"I'm also thrilled that it will be a train station, not a development site," said New York Landmarks Conservancy President Peg Breen. "The train hall, evoking the old Penn Station, is a masterful touch. I think all New Yorkers should be very happy.

"Now, let's get going with it."

The razing of the original Penn Station in 1963 galvanized the preservation movement in New York, and led to the creation of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission, which protects historic buildings.

The use of the post office - an architectural twin to Penn Station, designed by the same firm, McKim, Mead & White - has drawn wide praise.

Municipal Art Society President Kent Barwick, whose organization helped lead the fight to preserve Grand Central Terminal in the 1970s, said the design for the new hub is "an exciting beginning."

"The significance of this building has been underappreciated in overall planning for the West Side," he added.

Aurora Wallace, who teaches in the culture and communications department at New York University, said: "Insofar as this is an attempt to right the wrong of the current Penn Station, the design should be applauded.

"I've never met an architecture historian who didn't think the destruction of the old Penn Station was a disaster. This new design looks more monumental and important than what's currently in use."