Moynihan Station project gets $83 million federal grant

Governor David Paterson announced Wednesday that Amtrak and New York State have signed a memorandum of understanding for Amtrak to move its operations into the planned Moynihan Station project that would redevelop the James A. Farley Building on the west side of Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets.

The Farley building has long been used by the Postal Service but the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan promoted its re-use as a major train terminal to replace the existing Penn Station one block to the east, a low-ceiling and uninspired terminal beneath an office building that replaced the Beaux Arts Penn Station designed by McKim, Mead & White and demolished in 1964. That demolition lead to the belated creation of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The Farley building was also designed by McKim, Mead & White, but is far less grand than the former Penn Station.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the Moynihan Station project would receive a $83 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant from the United States Department of Transportation.

According to an article by Paul Bubny at globest.com today that grant completes the $267 million cost of Phase 1 of the Moynihan project and involves below-grade rail improvements between the Farley Building and Penn Station. A second phase would build a new rail facility within the Farley Building.

An article by Eliot Brown in Wednesday's edition of observer.com said that many preservationists were thrilled with the news of the TIGER grant, "viewing the stimulus money as a move that will bring the project back to life, particularly in the minds of the public." "This will recapture the public imagination," said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, according to the article.

"All is not to say that a shiny new train hall is about to become a reality. With the project always collapsing under its own ambition, the state and Port Authority in 2009 restructured it into 'bite-size chunks,' in the words of one official, and the stimulus money is going toward just the first phase, $267 million in infrastructure work that would build new entrances along Eighth Avenue and expand an underground concourse on the western end of Penn Station's platforms," according to Mr. Brown's article.

The Related Cos. And Vornado Realty Trust formed a partnership to maximize the development of air rights in the area, a scheme that involved relocating Madison Square Garden within the Farley building, but the arena subsequently announced it would not move and simply renovate its facility.