Photograph of last minute-filers from the Municipal Art Society's New Penn Station website April 15 is finally here and if you haven't filed your tax returns (or for an extension), you better hustle. The James Farley Post Office at 421 Eighth Avenue and 31st Street, just west of Madison Square Garden, is where the procrastinators tend to congregate, because it is the city's only 24-hour postal facility. In fact, free Pretzel Crisps will be......

The Friends of Moynihan Station shared a rendering of what Moynihan Station will look like, according to NY State. According to FMS, the Empire State Development Corporation has been "reluctant" to share them, but FMS thinks "looks great," though there's a lot that needs to be explained. The Observer broke down what's in the rendering:In the bottom of the picture is the Farley Post Office with a new Madison Square Garden in the rear.......

Less than two weeks after Gov. Spitzer publicly reaffirmed his commitment to going forward with plans to construct Moynihan Station despite a $1 billion funding shortfall, it looks like the matter may be out of his hands. The New York Times is reporting that the whole $14 billion project, which would involve building Moynihan Station at The Farley Post Office building and constructing a new Madison Square Garden on the site, is on the brink......

The fate of the Moynihan Station in the James Farley post office building remains up in the air and it's unclear whether Madison Square Garden will also relocate to the Farley building. If MSG moves, plans say the old MSG would be razed and a new train tracks would be put on top. The Municipal Arts Society's New Penn Station campaign shares a plan from students (at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture's Historic Preservation Program)......

The NY Sun takes a look at the city's skybridges, and their place in our future. While some cities offer the plenty of the structures to their residents (Minneapolis, we're looking at you), they are often only found in parts of the country with extreme hot or cold temperatures. Do our humid summers and frigid winters warrant more indoor walkways? Apparently we're getting less! A few existing skybridges are now in danger of being torn......

Ooof. Talk about insulting. In today's Times, Clyde Haberman goes so far as to compare the Dolan clan to the Mario Puzo's Corleone family from his Godfather series of books. That comparison to the Dolans is clearly a slap in the face to the Corleones. Haberman says that any "enormously rich and influential business family would do as a replacement" and casts Jim Dolan, Chairman of Madison Square Garden, as "the hapless Fredo Corleone."......

Have some extra cash to spend around the holiday season? Even the littlest bit can go a long way in the over 80 year old Operation Santa program. Every year letters pile up at the James A. Farley Post Office from (mostly needy) kids writing to Santa Claus (read one of them here). Their wish lists don't make it to the North Pole, but with New Yorkers pitching in every year, it's as if they......

Will Macy's give its regards to Broadway? The NY Times reports that the developers who are trying to redevelop the James Farley Post Office building into the new Moynihan Station "are in the early stage of negotiations with Macy’s" to move from the store's landmark Herald Square location to the Farley building on Eighth Avenue. Charles Bagli's article summarizes the progress of the Penn Station redevelopment and Farley-into-Moynihan Station project: It's complex, given the......

As the city and state start to get to work on West Side redevelopment, the Mayor said that one entity won't be getting tax breaks if it moves. Mayor Bloomberg was asked if Madison Square Garden would continue to get $10.9 million in tax breaks if it moves West to the Farley Post Office building (that's what a map in the draft Environmental Impact Statement notes). Bloomberg decisively said, "Not if I'm mayor they won't.......

Yesterday, state officials released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station/New Penn Station project. The actual 93-page PDF is online for the public to peruse, and, yes, the plan is to move Madison Square Garden into the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue and possibly move to U.S. Post Office's operations to the current Penn Station (we highlighted those moves). Say it with us: UGH. The Sun calls this plan "a test for......

The state released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station project today, and while the details have yet to be finalized, The New York Sun outlines the document's major components. Madison Square Garden will be moved into the rear of the Farley Post Office Building, which will be renamed Moynihan Station. A remade Penn Station will be renamed Moynihan East and will feature a sky-lit train hall surrounded by a million square feet of retail......

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......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual trauma at Pennsylvania and Flatlands Aves. in Brooklyn, a church robbery on West 31st St. in Manhattan, and a found DOA on Furman St. at the piers in Brooklyn. State officials are now thinking that the best way to reincarnate the glory days of the old Penn Station is not to build two office towers on top of the Farley Post Office building. They've arrested the man......

Plans for a new Penn Station and Madison Square Garden at the historic Farley Post Office building remain as murky as ever. But a recent poll undertaken by the Municipal Art Society (MAS) suggests that Penn Station commuters overwhelmingly favor the prospect of a grand new train station--but they need more information. If and when the project proceeds, who will keep watch over the three mega-developers (the state-run ESDC, along with private companies Related Group......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Dorchester Rd. in Brooklyn, an armed robbery with shots fired on Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, and a bank robbery on Broadway and 68th St. in Manhattan. If one has been ordained by an online ministry, it's good to make sure the state you marry people in will recognize your performance at the altar. A possible problem is that even state officials in charge of issuing......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 101st Ave. in Queens, a boat in distress at the Gateway Marina off Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and an "unusual occurrence" on Wall St. in Manhattan. Brownstoner notes the arduous bureaucratic effort to get DUMBO landmarked, and developers' rush to build before that can happen. The NYPD is initiating TOMS––Total Order Maintenance Sweeps––aboard Metro-North and LIRR trains to deter terrorists commuting from the suburbs, after......

In keeping with the earlier report this week, the planned conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into a new transit center, the Moynihan Station, moved a step closer to reality. Yesterday, the Public Authorities Control Board voted to approve spending $230 million to buy the post office. While the PACB has approved this and politicians are patting themselves on the back, we doubt the drama will be over. Last October, Assembly Speaker Sheldon......

It's difficult to know quite what to say about the huge transformations on the horizon for the Far West Side. That's partly because major negotiations and plans regarding the future of Madison Square Garden, the Farley Post Office, the Javits Center, the 7-train extension, and rezoning are taking place behind closed doors. Another reason is the uneven pace at which the planning proceeds-- years of plodding speculation followed by the sudden unveiling of a proposal,......

After Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver blocked Governor Pataki's Moynihan Station plans last October, we wondered how Governor Spitzer would take up the task and spar with Silver. To refresh your memory, Spitzer's problem with Pataki's Moynihan Station plans was that they were incomplete, given that developers had more extensive ideas about a Farley Post Office and Madison Square Garden revitalization (known as "plan B"); Pataki, on the other hand, wanted to get the plan A......

Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver did the expected thing at a state Public Authorities Control Board meeting to discuss the Moynihan Station: He refused to support it, ensuring that the city is at least another year away from starting a new transportation hub for NJ Transit and LIRR commuters. Well, we guess Governor Pataki's decision to delay a vote didn't work out very well, but it's not like Silver would suddenly be convinced in three......

Today is Columbus Day, and since it's a federal, state and local holiday, there are many closings. Public schools and public offices are closed. There is no mail delivery, but the James Farley Post Office at Eighth Avenue and West 33rd Street is open. There's no garbage or recycling pick up or street cleaning. Things that are open: The stock market and many offices (based on the grumblings we've heard). The Parade will start at......

-- "Get the hell outta here!": Ralph's Discount City on Chambers Street is closing, to be replaced with condos. -- Speaking of unjust closings: Coliseum Books in Midtown is also folding. -- Pretty: a night shot from Delancey street. -- The city consumes about the same amount of water as they did in 1951, despite population growth. The difference is being made up in Starbucks coffee. -- Well, there's no way we're ever flying......

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is probably turning in his grave right now. Plans for the Moynihan Station have been "derailed" as plans to discuss it have been postponed. Officials had been hoping that the Public Authorities Control Board would approve the project this year, so it would happen under Governor Pataki's term. But with opposition to and many questions surrounding the project, the NY Times reports "the Pataki administration took the proposal off the table......

After yesterday's announcement that federal and state agencies will lease 1 million of Freedom Tower's 2.6 million square feet, the candidates for NY Governor have backed the plan as well. The NY Times reports that Democratic nominee Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Republican nominee John Faso both threw their support behind the plan, which now "signals that whoever wins the general election in November is likely to continue Gov. George E. Pataki’s plans for......

Some of the folks working on the neverending story that is the Moynihan Station (aka the new Penn Station) are starting to publicly complain about the politcal developement hell that it has become. In a letter to State economic czar Charles Gargano developers Steven Roth and Stephen Ross wrote that "the functional heart" of the station "will have its own independent utility... and therefore there is no reason to delay." In otherwords, even if......

And once again Moynihan Station has hit a bump in the road. The Times today has a story on the newest set of roadblocks for the oft-delayed station. After years of delays the problems plaguing the station can still be summed up in one word: Politics. We've been waiting for the Farley Post Office to be transformed into a grand entryway to the City in the manner of the Old Penn Station for some......

But a schedule does not mean things will happen the right way. NY State officials and the private developers have agreed to project's schedule, which means construction will start this fall, in anticipation of a 2012 opening. However, not all the i's are dotted, as there still needs to be formal approval from Albany. And then there's that whole thing about whether or not Madison Square Garden will move in the Farley Post Office space......

There's a really good article in the Observer about how the Moynihan Station may now be a new fight between the city, state, and some important real estate bigwigs. The developers in charge of the project want to move Madision Square Garden to the Ninth Avenue part of the Farley Post Office lot (Moynihan Station will take the Eighth Avenue side); the Dolans who own MSG will only move if they get tax breaks......

They say that history repeats itself, but this is re-dunk-u-lous. Moynihan Station, the long-planned Penn Station expansion into the Farley Post Office that is intended to make up for the destruction of the late, great, original Penn Station (above) hasn't even been built yet but developers are already vying to build a new Madison Square Garden on top of and around it. And yes, this would be MSG number 5 for those of you......

The latest new design (the fourth!) for the planned Moynihan train station at the James Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue was revealed yesterday, and while it is less dramatic than previous incarnations, it seems like this design might actually be the one that's built. Funnily enough, the Empire State Development Corporation can't quite keep up, as the images it has are old designs, but architect grubbykid analyzed the drafts of the general project......