Yeah, the Garden has to go. As the area around Penn gets more developed, Manhattan West, 15 Penn, and there are lots all around Penn zoned for big new towers, the station is going to get even more crowded, if that's possible. So to make Penn Station even just humane, let alone a grand experience depicted in some of the renderings in this thread, the Garden's gotta move. The Farley building still makes the most sense, as the Dolan's wouldn't want to move too far from all the transit convenience of Penn Station, and you could fit an arena there.

While I agree with everything you said, I was wondering if you could expand on the eminent domain idea. After a quick google search I could only find one, brief article that mentions it from 2008.

I hope the mayor does take MSG via eminent domain. (Granted, I'm not a NY taxpayer, but they may use Federal grants).

Penn Station shouldn't have to hunker beneath a skyscraper, arena, or anything else.

You could probably build a skyscraper over a new penn station without having it feel horrible inside. The station would fit in the base of the tower and would have glass walls on all sides and high ceilings. The tracks could be open to the light. The bulk of the tower's shaft could be cantilevered over the station section or raised by some other method, with the main lobby being high-up above the station and having its own access points. The only problem would be less light coming in from the roof to the station below (it would be difficult to separate the tower from the roof of the station). However, enough light from the side walls should be enough to illuminate the tracks below. Not ideal, but if a tower is required to make a new Penn financially doable and to not waste valuable air rights, It could be done while still vastly improving the ugly situation today. Cost would probably be an issue though, as this would probably be complex to build.

I don't know if it's possible but I'd like to see 2 Penn demolished in favor of building 2-4 high rises in the corners around MSG like the Barclays Center development. You could then use the land 2 Penn sat on for a new grandiose Penn Station building (would probably have to dig quite a ways over to the rails underneath MSG though).

Article in the NYTimes yesterday about the permit renewal. Remember, City Council, Forever Is a Really Long Time, worth a read.

"...The Council could grant a 10-year permit, enough time so that the Garden and the various parties responsible for the station can come up with an appropriately aggressive plan to improve the site, a plan that should include discussions about a possible future home, elsewhere, for the arena. Renewal of the permit is one of the few points of leverage the city has over the Garden..."

I hope the city would really start to force the Dolan's hand here. Penn needs a massive upgrade to be a humane and sanitary station for today's passengers to speak nothing of what it'll be like in a 10+ years, it sits on millions of sf of air rights which could be used to partially fund the project, but nothing can be done while this utter POS sits on top of it.

I didn't know they built a stadium there... Waste of space!

Location right on top of a major station, access for people from the suburbs. At that time, there was no demand for skyscrapers at that location so it was not considered a poor use of space. We still don' know if there is demand for scrapers there, given the lack of movement on the surrounding towers. It may take years before this area is ripe for large scale development.

It's a no brainer. I hope that they don't give them the unlimited option. MSG must move!

Do any of you, especially the ones who are not from New York, understand that they are completing a renovation of the Garden that is approaching $1 BILLION??

The building on the outside is dated, yes. It is far from what I would call first class from the outside. It interferes with the ability to make any worthy and beneficial changes to upgrade Penn or build a new Penn. I agree with your sentiments on this, but one needs to be realistic.

The inside of the Garden is phenomenal now and has one more phase of renovation to go next summer. The entire building was gutted inside - the seating bowls, the concourses, the service spaces - were all completely removed and rebuilt. Yes, the exterior remained and could use a major remodel, however, it is a brand NEW building inside an existing shell. I'm all for more Scrapers and a new Penn Station, however, far too much $$$ was just spent to basically build a new MSG. To think that this Garden is going anywhere anytime soon is a fools errand and pipe dream.

Surely that has nothing to do with the Dolans arguing that MSG should be granted a permit in perpetuity.....

Launching such a costly renovation before you get the permit renewal is a risk the Dolans have decided to bear. Trying to blackmail the city into an eternal renewal because they spent the cash should be relatively low on the list of considerations. I'd say the city should issue a 10 year extension and imply strongly that future renewals will be for shorter terms (if approved at all) and it's in their best interest to start thinking about relocation further west either to Farley or on to part of the Javits site.

^

Agreed, I'd add that the Dolan's are likely not only advocating for a perpetual permit, but also a permanent tax exemption along with the permit.

Who cares, even with the renovation it will still be a crappy arena. In the end its just a stadium. The needs of millions of NY commuters and the gateway to the city (i.e, one of its major lifelines) is far more important.

That's the Dolans' problem, not the city's. Virtually everyone agrees that this is a poor location for an arena, and this sentiment existed before the Dolans decided to drop $1 billion on a renovation.

This is not to mention that Penn Station, and the economic activity it enables, is worth way more than $1 billion.

In its current state, Penn Station is probably worth way less than that (sarcasm) but, as already mentioned, just because the Dolan's dished out a billion dollars on renovations doesn't make it any more or less viable to an area that needs new development. It's still an arena atop the nation's busiest commuter hub that desperately needs expansion. But ultimately, it was the city's fault back in the 1960's for allowing the demolition of the old Penn in favor of the monstrosity that sits there now.

Which makes it all the more important that the city rectify their stupid error. It is incumbent up them to take the matter in hand. It is now or perhaps, never? Sad thought that MSG be here for another 50+ years, and people will still be scurrying around like rats in a cave underneath in 2050.

MSG is in the middle of a $1 billion renovation. It will probably outlive all of us.

Unless everyone here is on Social Security, I seriously doubt that.

meanwhile, full court press on farley!!!

Madison Square Garden, Permit Lapsed, Faces New Planning Pressure

By DAVID W. DUNLAP
February 15, 2013, 6:54 pm

"... The expiration of the permit is more than a matter of administrative arcana, however. It has been seized on by advocates of a comprehensive planning process for Penn Station and the Garden. They want the City Planning Commission to use the permit renewal as leverage to compel serious discussion about moving the arena to a new site, and getting it off the top of the train station — an idea that surfaces and sinks again with some regularity...

...On Thursday, as the Garden’s application began its journey through the city’s land-use procedure, Community Board 5 voted 36 to 0, with one abstention, to deny the permit extension, as well as the Garden’s accompanying request to install much larger signage on the Eighth Avenue facade.

Instead, the board proposed that the permit be extended only for 10 years, enough time for a thoughtful plan to be developed, but not so much time as to allow Garden executives and city officials to ignore or shrug off the idea. The board said it believed that a new arena at a different location would be “in the long-term interests of the tens of millions of people who travel through Penn Station every year,” as well as nearby property owners, New York City generally and the region as a whole...

...Robert D. Yaro, the president of the Regional Plan Association, a private organization, said in an interview: “I have this old-fashioned idea that New Yorkers are entitled to having a world-class arena in Manhattan and a world-class train station. We’ve demonstrated convincingly that you can’t have both of these on the same site.” He said that a shorter extension of the special permit was a “pretty good idea” as a planning measure."

Madison Square Garden's Permanent Renewal Opposed by Community Board

February 15, 2013 10:18am | By Alan Neuhauser, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

"...CB5 instead recommended at its full board meeting to approve a 10-year permit for MSG, giving the community time to develop plans to relocate "The World’s Most Famous Arena." Members want the arena to move in order to give room to expand the overcrowded Penn Station below.

"The committee thought that rather than granting the Garden a renewal in perpetuity, we thought we should create a planning period — a 10-year planning period …to find a better location for Madison Square Garden,” Raju Mann, acting chairman of the board’s land-use committee, explained Thursday night.

“We don’t have a world-class arena, frankly, and we don’t have a world-class [train] station. And we should have both.”

...The CB5 recommendation will next go before the borough president, who has 30 days to weigh in, and then to the city planning commission, before going officially before the City Council."

They have their priorities in the right place. NY absolutely needs a better main train station. Penn is the train station, not GC, that most people see when travelling to NYC from other major cities. It needs to be world class, not this embarrassment. MSG was just renovated, but that does not mean it deserves to tie up the future of NYC rail travel for the next century. Give them a time limit to begin to explore other options, that is the sensible thing to do. The renovation did not fix the main issues with the arena, and they should begin to realize that as MSG gets more and more out of date in 10 years.