An article entitled "Ground Zero Money is Sought for Penn Station" by Peter Kiefer in today's edition of The New York Sun said that "the multibillion-dollar PATH station planned for ground zero could end up on the chopping block when a new executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is named in the coming days, according to several sources familiar with the plans."
The article said that "Governor Paterson is said to be leaning toward replacing the Port Authority's outgoing director, Anthony Shorris, with the managing director of the General Contractors Association of New York, Christopher Ward, who previously headed the city's Department of Environmental Protection and served as chief of planning and external affairs at the Port Authority."
"Several planning and development analysts," the article stated, "said the change in leadership would present the governor with an opportunity to change course on the PATH station, where cost estimates have soared recently to an estimated $2.5 billion and could reach $3 billion, according to a recent assessment report on the project. The original cost was $2.2 billion."
Much of the financing for the PATH project, which was designed by Santiago Calatrava to resemble a bird, is to come from a $1.9 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration that was part of the larger $20 billion post-September 11, 2001, recovery package created by the Bush administration.
Any shift of funding from the PATH project to the Penn Station project would require a lot of political approvals including that of Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the State Assembly, who has been a staunch promoter for Lower Manhattan and opposed Mayor Bloomberg's plans to build a football stadium west of Penn Station.
Mr. Kiefer's article quoted a Port Authority spokesman, Steve Sigmund, as stating that the authority is committed to the PATH station and it was "critical to the building of downtown."
"The World Trade Center PATH station designed by Spanish starchitect Santiago Calatrava has gone from celebrated symbol of Ground Zero's rebirth to an annoying party crasher that the Port Authority doesn't know how to tell to leave. The bird-like terminal was clipped to look like a stegosaurus, then it was clipped again, then last week it got reconfigured yet again due to mounting budget concerns," observed Curbed.com today in commenting on Mr. Kiefer's article.
The article said that "Governor Paterson is said to be leaning toward replacing the Port Authority's outgoing director, Anthony Shorris, with the managing director of the General Contractors Association of New York, Christopher Ward, who previously headed the city's Department of Environmental Protection and served as chief of planning and external affairs at the Port Authority."
"Several planning and development analysts," the article stated, "said the change in leadership would present the governor with an opportunity to change course on the PATH station, where cost estimates have soared recently to an estimated $2.5 billion and could reach $3 billion, according to a recent assessment report on the project. The original cost was $2.2 billion."
Much of the financing for the PATH project, which was designed by Santiago Calatrava to resemble a bird, is to come from a $1.9 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration that was part of the larger $20 billion post-September 11, 2001, recovery package created by the Bush administration.
Any shift of funding from the PATH project to the Penn Station project would require a lot of political approvals including that of Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the State Assembly, who has been a staunch promoter for Lower Manhattan and opposed Mayor Bloomberg's plans to build a football stadium west of Penn Station.
Mr. Kiefer's article quoted a Port Authority spokesman, Steve Sigmund, as stating that the authority is committed to the PATH station and it was "critical to the building of downtown."
"The World Trade Center PATH station designed by Spanish starchitect Santiago Calatrava has gone from celebrated symbol of Ground Zero's rebirth to an annoying party crasher that the Port Authority doesn't know how to tell to leave. The bird-like terminal was clipped to look like a stegosaurus, then it was clipped again, then last week it got reconfigured yet again due to mounting budget concerns," observed Curbed.com today in commenting on Mr. Kiefer's article.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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