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NY state officials are expected to release the draft scope for the Moynihan Station's environmental impact statement today, which the NY Sun calls the "Spitzer administration's first public display of forward progress" on the project.
The redevelopment of Penn Station into a Moynihan Station at the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue has been in the works for years. In fact, it was October 8 five years ago that the state officially acquired the majestic post office building for the project. And last October, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver famously blocked starting the project - a going-away gift to departing governor George Pataki.
With the clock continuing to tick, amidst rumors of skyscrapers and other development plans (such as moving Madison Square Garden to the Farley building), the Municipal Arts Society has created a website, The New Penn Station, to champion that the new station must be "an inspiring work of contemporary civic architecture." Right now, the state has been working on putting 4.5 million square feet of development in the surrounding area, which the Regional Plan Association approves of, telling the Sun, "We're pleased that they're looking for ways to spread the development density around the district."
William Low wrote a children's book, The Old Penn Station, with illustrations of what the old station looked like. And we explored the plight of Penn Station eagles last month.
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The destruction of the old Penn is probably one of the greatest urban renewal tragedies ever.
Seriously, I would have loved to see that concourse with my own two eyes.
Ph, check the obit the NYTimes wrote for the building when it was destroyed to make way for MSG ("Farewell to Penn Station"); I found it very moving when I discovered it a few months ago - condemning the city and the public for the destruction of the beautiful building, and ending in a good epitaph for throw-away culture ("And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed").
The idea that MSG might be moving into the Farley building is a travesty and an insult considering it is the reason the original Penn was destroyed in the first place.
Vincent Scully once said of the destroyed and current Penn Stations, "One [used to enter] the city like a god. Now one scuttles in like a rat."