(rshsdepot) New York, NY

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

From today's New York Times.

Artist's conception available at:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/02/25/nyregion/station.span.jpg 
(may require free registration)

Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications Newsletter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications

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3 Designs Submitted for Midtown Train Station
By SEWELL CHAN


New York State officials announced yesterday that they would choose from 
among three developers to transform the city's central post office into a 
new Midtown train station serving commuters on New Jersey Transit and 
possibly the Long Island Rail Road.

The selection of one of the three design proposals submitted Friday is 
expected to take place by June and would mark an important step forward for 
the plans to create a new train station in memory of Senator Daniel Patrick 
Moynihan, who championed the effort before his death in 2003.

The project, across Eighth Avenue from Pennsylvania Station, has proceeded 
in fits and starts for the last decade, but officials now hope to begin 
construction by the end of this year and complete the station by 2010.

"The quality and scope of the various proposals put forth for Moynihan 
Station show the importance of this project as a gateway to New York City," 
said Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development 
Corporation.

The design proposals all incorporate what has playfully become known as the 
potato chip - a shapely glass and steel canopy that will encompass the new 
station's entry lobby. That canopy, designed by David M. Childs of Skidmore, 
Owings & Merrill, would envelop a series of concourses that slip under the 
post office building, letting light flow onto the train platforms below 
ground.

The three proposals also include a well-lit atrium and a passageway along 
32nd Street linking Eighth and Ninth Avenues.

The agency has secured $600 million in public funds to build the 
400,000-square-foot train station. In addition, the site will include 
250,000 square feet for the Postal Service and 750,000 square feet for 
retail, office or residential use.

The developers are Boston Properties, Tishman Speyer and a partnership of 
the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust.

Whoever who wins the competition will also acquire the rights to privately 
develop and control the 750,000 square feet under a long-term lease. Mr. 
Gargano would not specify the features of each proposal, but he said they 
included a warehouse-type store, a boutique or business hotel, a museum, 
public space for exhibits and live performances, a rooftop banquet hall and 
space for retail stores.

The project effectively dates to 1963, when the former Pennsylvania Station, 
a Beaux-Arts masterpiece designed by McKim, Mead & White, was demolished 
over protests by preservationists and architects. The current Madison Square 
Garden was built on the site over a labyrinthine terminal for Amtrak, the 
two commuter railroads and two sets of subway lines.

In 1998, officials announced they would lease 400,000 square feet of space 
in the James A. Farley Post Office Building, built in 1914, for a new 
station. But in 2002, the agency agreed to buy the entire site, on Eighth 
Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets, for $230 million.

The current Penn Station serves 550,000 passengers a day. "It is horrible 
right now," Mr. Gargano said. "It is congested, not roomy, not pleasant to 
look at. It's like walking through a cave."

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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