The New York State development agency today awarded Skidmore Owings & Merrill a contract for the design work for the first phase of its Moynihan Station project that is the long-awaited and controversial expansion of Penn Station into the Farley Post Office on the west side of Eighth Avenue to the west of the famous train station.
The design work covers construction documents for platforms and entrances but after years of controversy it is some progress.
At one point, numerous big players in the West Midtown game had ambitious schemes for the Farley Post Office building and other nearby sites not far from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the Garment Center and the Holland Tunnel. Two developers hoped to relocate Madison Avenue from its present site across Eighth Avenue from the Farley Building to the west section of the Farley Building, but several months ago the garden's owners announced it would renovate its existing facility.
The new contracts for SOM are not large enough to cover the costs of converting the Farley Building, with its enormous and tall, two-block-long staircase on the avenue, into a substitute for the glorious, high-ceiling spaces of the original Penn Station that was demolished to make way for the circular Madison Square Garden and a 29-story black-glass office building on Seventh Avenue over a long-ceiling train station.
An article in the observer.com today by Elliot Brown noted that "for the first time ever, it looks like Moynihan Station will get a shovel in the ground, spurred in large part by an $83 million federal stimulus grant secured earlier this year" with the help of Senator Schumer.
"The state and the Port Authority have broken up the project into phases, focusing on extending a small concourse under Eighth Avenue used currently by Long Island Rail Road, and by creating a few new entrances along Eighth Avenue," according to Mr. Brown's article that also said that Amtrak also signed a memorandum of understanding last month, "tentatively agreeing to move to the Farley building, should it ever get the money to get built."
Meanwhile, Vornado keeps raising the possibility of demolished the Hotel Pennsylvania, across Seventh Avenue from the underground entrance to Penn Station, so it can build a very large skyscraper on that side rather than on the low-rise, scruffy sites immediately it owns immediately across 33rd Street.
At the same, there appears to be no progress in changing the plans for an extension of the 7 line from Times Square to the Javits Center to accommodate a second entrance at 10th Avenue in the midst of several major new and huge residential projects.
The design work covers construction documents for platforms and entrances but after years of controversy it is some progress.
At one point, numerous big players in the West Midtown game had ambitious schemes for the Farley Post Office building and other nearby sites not far from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the Garment Center and the Holland Tunnel. Two developers hoped to relocate Madison Avenue from its present site across Eighth Avenue from the Farley Building to the west section of the Farley Building, but several months ago the garden's owners announced it would renovate its existing facility.
The new contracts for SOM are not large enough to cover the costs of converting the Farley Building, with its enormous and tall, two-block-long staircase on the avenue, into a substitute for the glorious, high-ceiling spaces of the original Penn Station that was demolished to make way for the circular Madison Square Garden and a 29-story black-glass office building on Seventh Avenue over a long-ceiling train station.
An article in the observer.com today by Elliot Brown noted that "for the first time ever, it looks like Moynihan Station will get a shovel in the ground, spurred in large part by an $83 million federal stimulus grant secured earlier this year" with the help of Senator Schumer.
"The state and the Port Authority have broken up the project into phases, focusing on extending a small concourse under Eighth Avenue used currently by Long Island Rail Road, and by creating a few new entrances along Eighth Avenue," according to Mr. Brown's article that also said that Amtrak also signed a memorandum of understanding last month, "tentatively agreeing to move to the Farley building, should it ever get the money to get built."
Meanwhile, Vornado keeps raising the possibility of demolished the Hotel Pennsylvania, across Seventh Avenue from the underground entrance to Penn Station, so it can build a very large skyscraper on that side rather than on the low-rise, scruffy sites immediately it owns immediately across 33rd Street.
At the same, there appears to be no progress in changing the plans for an extension of the 7 line from Times Square to the Javits Center to accommodate a second entrance at 10th Avenue in the midst of several major new and huge residential projects.
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.
6sqft delivers the latest on real estate, architecture, and design, straight from New York City.
