nice renders.

som is the best, shop the most practical, h3 looks like it continues to be too much of a rat maze and dsr is a wildcard.

Of course it can be done, but as you note, it's really difficult to get from here to there. The construction process will take several years at least, and the Knicks/Rangers will need to find alternate venues in the interim. Maybe the Barclays Center could host them, but they've already got a pretty full schedule. They could play in Jersey at Prudential or Izod, but that's difficult to access for New York fans (and Izod may be torn down before 10 years is up).

Then there's the cost issue. It would not surprise me if it proved cheaper to construct an arena and a station on separate sites rather than demolish and rebuild MSG in its place while thousands of travelers use the station underneath.

The issue is not whether an arena and train station can theoretically coexist (of course they can) but whether that combination can be built on the MSG/Penn site, with architectural dignity, for a reasonable cost, within a reasonable timeframe.

After over 50 years of scurrying, we may yet live to enter the city like gods once again.

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/06/...t-to-10-years/


"In the latest match at Madison Square Garden, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn nabbed the winning shot against the Dolan family, who control the stadium, Crain’s reported.

Two City Council committees approved a 10-year permit for MSG, with the zoning and franchise subcommittee approving the measure by a vote of 7-0. The full land use committee followed suit, voting for the measure 18-1.

The Dolan family hoped to be granted the permit in perpetuity, arguing that such an arrangement is the case for other athletic facilities in the city. But civic groups fought against the measure, arguing instead for a long-term permit that might nudge negotiations over relocating the arena so that Penn Station might be rebuilt and expanded.

The City Planning Commission previously called for a 15-year term on the permit, but Quinn, along with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and a group of activists, reduced the timeframe to 10 years.

“There is a lot of work ahead of us to build the train station NYC desperately needs, but today the City Council and Speaker Quinn in particular have joined in that effort and taken a very important step forward.” Raju Mann, director of planning at the Municipal Art Society, who was present for the votes, told Crain’s.

A spokeswoman for MSG declined to comment to Crain’s."

Well, she's got my vote. :tup:

+1
I hope NYC can keep this momentum!

Dear god, these are utterly wretched. :yuck::yuck:

I'm impressed by the city's wisdom to give them only 50 years in the first place.

They wisely knew NYC is ever-changing and the situation at Penn Station and MSG would need reviewing by a future generation.

I mean, one can imagine a bizarro alternate-reality where train usage continues to suffer, public transit is unfashionable, cars totally dominate NCY, Roller Derby is the most popular sport in the world, and MSG and the city are instead cooperating to shrink Penn Station and give MSG a fancy new underground parking garage. :)

First of all that SOM rendering is just flat out amazing. With the high speed rail boom coming I certainly hope something like that gets built some place somewhere.

With that being said, looking at the renderings, it appears the tracks go East/West underneath MSG. If that is indeed the case, the solution to me seems to be to demolish 2 Penn Plaza next to MSG and construct a new Penn Station there. This would solve two problems at once because it would create a new Penn Station while creating a new eastern entrance to the Garden. If the tracks don't go under 2 Penn, simply build the station there and construct tunnels to the existing area.

As for the tenants that would be lost with 2 Penn, it would seem possible to build 4 smaller buildings wedged in between the Garden and the corners of the block in similar fashion to the Barclays Center. But with Hudson Rail Yards and the New WTC looking for tenants it may not be needed.

I know I am the only one who thinks this but I like MSG and I like its design. Yes it was a complete shame they tore down old penn just like they tore down the original MSGs. But now that the current Garden is there, it would be a shame to lose it as well. And yes, the exterior can be made to look nice...

http://www.ellerbebecket.com/uploads...xt_aerial1.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/0...permit_war.php

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/MSGMarquee.jpg
http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/MSGMarquee.jpg

While the Garden is historic.. lets not forget.. it's not the original Garden. It's the 4th location for the Madison Square Garden.
Penn Station is a monstrosity and needs to go. There is plenty of nice options for an arena elsewhere. This should definitely be redeveloped.
However.. it was stupid to wait until after they began a $1 billion remodeling project to be underway to limit their license.

:cheers:

The Dolans better hurry up, find a new site and build fast, 2023 isn't that far off!

The special permit that allowed MSG to operate at its current location was issued in 1963, with a 50-year duration. The Dolans knew full well that the permit was to expire in 2013, with no guarantee of the length of a renewed permit, or even being granted a renewal at all.

I think the Dolans were under the impression that spending a boatload of money would all but assure them a long-term renewal, if not one into perpetuity as they requested.

Madison Square Garden gets 10 years to find new location
 

Just up on CNN. Some main points:

========================================
Madison Square Garden, one of the world's iconic sports and entertainment arenas, has been given a decade to relocate after a vote by the New York City Council on Wednesday amid efforts to renovate the equally well-known Penn Station that sits below it.

The council voted to approve a "special permit" that will allow the arena to operate for 10 years while its management seeks to relocate, according to a news release.

The 47-1 vote comes after years of advocacy from city officials and independent groups who have sought to renovate and expand the bustling Pennsylvania Station. Madison Square Garden's 50-year land-use permit expired in January

"Imagine 220 mph bullet trains that sweep you to D.C. or Boston in 90 minutes or less. These plans are on the table, but they can only be realized with a modern, renovated Penn Station," said Manhattan Borough President and city comptroller candidate Scott M. Stringer. "That is not possible as long as the Garden sits squarely on top of the nation's busiest rail transit hub."

==============================
Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/25/us/new...html?hpt=us_c1

yeah, about that $1B. this is a dolan figure. dubious. true they did spend some coin refurbishing, but they have a vested interest in overstating how much. besides, don't cry for them as its not like that won't be made up to them in whatever deal is done to get them out of there.

I hope scott stringer understands that the disastrous public/private clusterf**k of state agencies and private companies that own the NEC is the real reason why 220 MPH trains are out of the question.

Yea I would agree with that. The politics alone would kill such trains. Not to mention the time. This isn't China where talking about. The time, bureaucracy, and money it would make this happen not anytime soon. Plus the rail lines would require overhauls being antiquated for such speeds. Between that, and the incompetence that is NJ Transit, this will be a nightmare.

I'm not really holding my breath for bullet trains here given the present situation of things...a short- to medium-term solution would really be to do what Amtrak is already doing, making efforts to decently increase the speeds on the Northeast Corridor.

..and, of course, I'm holding out for Elon Musk's Hyperloop. :cheers::P

This is great news. Penn Station is an embarrassing pit and needs to go. MSG is an arena for sports and concerts. Arenas can go anywhere as is proved in other cities... or in NYC: Yankee Stadium, Giants Stadium, Flushing Meadows, etc. get sold out all the time and they're not in Manhattan. I'm sure if the Dolans can afford to spend "a billion dollars" refurbishing MSG, they can afford to finance a new arena pretty much anywhere they choose.

The hyperloop is nonsesne. Do you know how difficult it would be to maintain a near perfect vacuum in a series of tubes thousands of miles long? It's difficult to maintain a perfect vacuum in highly expensive and complicated ovens of just a few cubic yards in volume.

I'm actually on the NEC as I type this. Between private lands foolishly allowed right next to the tracks (preventing expansion) the quagmire of public and private entities involved in it's ownership, etc it would be very expensive and time consuming to do so. As anti-big government as I am, with things like infrastructure you need a consolidated agency that both implement improvements across state lines. Even continual improvements made by Amtrak wont solve the problems of antiquated centenary, lane-constrained lines and tracks not designed to take 200MPH + trains. Given the continued increase in road congestion, high speed trains make more sense (assuming they can keep costs to a reasonable level)

Would it be technically easier to maintain some vacuum in a subterranean tunnel? I believe Musk's hyper loop is envisioned to be deep below ground using modern tunnel boring technology to create straight "shots" and minimize right of way issues.

We'll know more in august when musk provides more information on his idea.

Considering he's been hamming up the cost of his idea, I doubt it'd involve (much) tunneling.

I don't see how he could say it would be 1/10 the cost of CASHR otherwise...

The only thing that would block 220mph is the lack of funding and some NIMBYs in Philly who have whined on this Board about the Amtrak plan. NJT pretty pro-NEC upgrade as they can expand their network faster... NJT has replaced most of its system except parts of the Coast line...

I don't think the NIMBY's would factor in that much if a serious proposal with billions involved and thousands of jobs. Usually they can throw lawsuits but if such a system is needed the political aspect of the proposal would kill any NIMBYism.

I travel the NYC-Boston portion of the NEC frequently. It's not just Philly NIMBY's that are the problem. Many portions of that line are directly bordered by residential, commercial or roadways. Furthermore, in addition to a patchwork of private and public owners, a great deal of work would have to be done to straighten out portions of track and update the overhead canterary to make such speeds possible. And even then, to support super high speed trains (as opposed to their slower cousins) you would need a dedicated set of tracks. Many portions of the NEC bottleneck from 4 to 2 because of space constraints.

Not to make this too political, but this is one of the few times where I feel the only real solution would be for one agency to own the entire NEC and be given power to take land where needed. I hate that concept, but development should have never been allowed so close (literally bordering the tracks in many places) to the lines.

Well not to get too political either, but I hold the complete opposite view about ownership as you. Railway corridors strategic to passenger movements should have been nationalized years ago. An interstate governing body like the RFF in France would own and maintain infrastructure and lease access to both public passenger ops and to competing private freight operations. This is the only way you can get the self serving interests of the freight RR out of the way of the larger public good of providing modern passenger service. So I guess in this regard I'm a rose donning socialist.

New Penn Station seen triggering building boom


More in article; Source: MATT CHABAN, 2013, http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...TATE/130719936

Study finds that moving Madison Square Garden to allow for a re-developed rail hub could spur development of 30 sites in the area. It also sees taxes and fees generated from development helping to pay for needed improvements.

Moving Madison Square Garden from its long-time home would not only spur a new version of its downstairs neighbor Penn Station, but an entirely new neighborhood around the rebuild rail hub. That is the case being made by the Municipal Art Society in a new report that predicts the development of 20 million to 30 million square feet of new offices, hotels and apartment buildings in the area, should it be redeveloped and rezoned in the coming years.

"One of the challenges we know of for the whole Penn project is where this money is coming from, and what does the future of the neighborhood look like," said Raju Mann, MAS' director of planning. "This starts to solve both of those issues."

Mr. Mann said the study is real, based on a 2007 rezoning proposal from the city that was never undertaken, as well as work by the state on Moynihan Station just west across Eighth Avenue up through 2009. But he also stressed that the study was not a concrete plan of how to develop the area or fully pay for fixing the train station and surrounding streets. For example, there is no provision for what to do about increasing open space to fit in with all the new density proposed for the area.

After reading BP stringers comments regarding the special operating permit and the situation surrounding Penn Station I'm more confident than ever that a solution will be reached on relocating MSG

Relocating to Farley Annex offers a developer a 20% credit for land marked building .. The space would work in terms of foot print and the 9th avenue entrance is very dramatic .. With manhattan west (where is that thread btw?) in the works and Hudson yards being populated moving MSG a block west makes perfect sense.

The juxtaposition between old school Farley acting as a modern arena and gleaming manhattan west 1 and 2 with a plaza between would be stunning and revitalize 9th avenue.

I only hope the next administration at city Hall makes this a priority.

Yeah, it's a complicated issue no doubt. One of the single biggest issues (in my mind) is the terrible space constraints faced by the NEC. In many parts, there isn't even room to expand past two tracks. Allowing development literally bordering the line was a huge mistake. That right there makes expansion extremely difficult. Remember too that high speed train tracks require even more room to allow for tilting.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/g...wgNulGVBhiA4BM

Garden wilting at No. 2 as Barclays Center named highest-grossing venue in US


http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2013...3--300x150.jpg


By DAVID K. LI
July 24, 2013

This is such a NY Post let's make a story out of a non event. The Garden has been closed for months at a time outside hockey and basketball seasons, so obviously it hasn't held as many entertainment events. It's also got two resident sports teams while the Barclay Center has only one (for now). That's one of the reasons why O2 in London ranks so high on this list: it has no resident sports teams, only entertainment acts.

I wonder what the gross receipts would be for each if sports events were factored in.

I wouldn't call it a nonevent. There's only been one arena in the City for years, and now there's a successful new kid on the block - forget about who's one or two, they're both on top. That should factor into some of the decision making at MSG in regards to its long term future.

bwahaha, well, with respect to the 60 year old dude who wrote that article, i don't think that "hipsters" are going to see "Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Rihanna and Justin Bieber" concerts. i think it's probably a combination of lower booking fees/charges, a savvy and aggressive team at barclay's trying to be successful out of the gate, a certain novelty, msg being closed, and that the space is so much newer that it just offers so much more to potential booked acts.

Prudential in Newark has also been chipping away at the Garden...

It has especially when it comes to hockey. Its becoming a common occurrence to see 1000's of Devil fans in Newark Penn. Prudential also has had many concerts and for a entertainment complex, its modern and nice. Thats what MSG is lacking and why Barclay is rising.

Yes.
That's because it's a bad plan. This has already been explained to you. But that won't hamstring development of the whole corridor. 60 mins. to New York isn't going to be made or broken by a half minute shaved off via the proposed Big Dig 2.0.

Also don't call technical activism NIMBYism. NIMBYs wouldn't want HSR, period; technical activists want it done right. There's a big difference.

Even when MSG is fully renovated, there is a limited amount of shows they can book. They have to turn away shows. There is more than enough to support both arenas and Prudential in Newark as well. And the Garden, the only arena in the city itself for so long - in Midtown no less - has been the default leader in that category. But Barclays has shown you don't even need to be in Midtown, because the City is so much larger than Manhattan. The point being that Barclays will continue to shine and is well on its way to be the equal if not superior arena to MSG in the city.

It's easy to say that it's just a "novelty because its just a new arena", because it is. But the fact is, the more people continue to go there, and realize that it is just as convenient or more so than MSG, the more it will become a destination of choice over the Garden for many. Barclays stands out as a focal point in Brooklyn and its immediate area, while the Garden, even with its current efforts, will pretty much resemble the same toilet it always has from the street. It's time they start looking to the Garden of 10 years from now. Give the legendary Garden a home it truly deserves.

While they've been working down in the "moat" along 33rd st for many months, there's actually some visible action from the street now.

33rd and 8th ave:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5472/1...4e2e2d74_c.jpg

They're demolishing the barriers between the moat and street on this corner:

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2860/1...d3577543_b.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3775/1...fba41307_b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5516/1...f27de44c_b.jpg

This is the moat closer to 9th ave along 33rd st. They've blown a large hole in the floor here (covered by the white tarp), and they have a crane set up on the street to lower things below, presumably for work on the future western concourse.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5512/1...591f7051_b.jpg

^ interesting. i noticed this work from walking by, but didn't pay much attention.

does anyone know why the moat was there in the first place?

seems like a waste of space.

^ According to Wikipedia:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...fice_c1912.jpg

Farley Post Office in 1912. There was no subway along 8th ave until 1932.

^ thx - i figured it must have been something like that.

what are they going to do with this moat space for the station? it doesnt seem like it will be needed. can it be made useful? other than just as a pedestrian plaza that is. maybe there a render of that side of the bldg?

I haven't seen any. The original plan called for the west side of Farley to become retail, but that died long ago. There are only a couple renders that do exist at all, seeing as this whole process is so protracted. Keep in mind that while the moat is more or less at street level on 8th ave, it's 20 ft or so below 9th ave.

I do think I saw something once in an old Amtrak document that suggests they'd replace a lot of the moat floor with skylights, lighting the concourse below. Seems like that would make the most sense.

"process is protracted" is a good description. Amtrak/PANYNJ also seems to a lousy job of outreach to the public via the web, compared to the MTA/MTA-CC. One person who might be worthwhile pinging is this person:
Petra Todorovich Messick
Senior Officer, Outreach & Communications
NEC Infrastructure & Investment Development
212.630.7030 | petra.messick@amtrak.com

The holes in the moat further west from 8th Ave might actually be for the fan plant/vent upgrades that are part of the this-time-for-sure Phase I upgrade. Note that I think they repartitioned the work & put out a portion of the work for bid only earlier this year.
I assume part of the reasons for the vent upgrade is that the Manhattan West overbuild will block the natural air exchange at the west/9th Ave end of Farley. This is a snip from GPPAttachment A, a 2010 document. Note the red dashed lines outlining 8th Ave for a rough scale for the scope of the construction changes.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3715/1...f8878036_o.jpg

Will this project lower my commute time to the city?

"new, greatly expanded and improved Penn Station"
 

NYC will NOT get a "new, greatly expanded and improved Penn Station" in this decade.
Nor, IMHO, with it get a new Penn in the 2020s.

The only thing it will get in this decade is west side of 8th Ave entrances through the basement of the Farley PO to a much expanded west end concourse below Farley.

The Moynihan Station in the original, east end of Farley, is an unfunded dream though politicians still mention Moynihan Station as though it's just-around-around-the-corner.

Note that there IS a reference to a vestigial, bowels-of-Penn St enhancement, in the MW 11-29-13 EAS. Namely this

"Where a pedestrian passage extending from the Eighth Avenue Subway beneath West 33rd Street to the west side of Ninth Avenue has been constructed, an entrance within the #development# shall be constructed that connects with such passage."

The Eight Avenue Subway is the divider between the small intestines (west end concourse) & large intestines (LIRR/Amtrak/NJTransit concourses) of the current Penn Station bowels. A pedestrian passageway from MW to to the 8th Ave subway under 33rd St is a connection to Penn Station, but I have no idea if even a formal proposal/study for such a structure exists...

No. They're not touching the tracks at all. Maybe if Christie didn't cancel the ARC project...

Not that it isn't a problem, but aren't many of the problems WRT to Penn's infrastructure located right below and around Penn?

Given the insane logistics, lack of funding and intractable political bullshit surrounding a potential redevelopment of Penn Station, I completely understand (and partially share) your pessimistic outlook. The thing you have to remember, though, is that the westward shift in the center of gravity in Manhattan (resulting from Hudson Yards and Manhattan West) is going to erode the conditions that have prevented a redevelopment of the station so many times in the past.

While many enthusiasts have dreamed of vindicating the destruction of the old Penn Station by replacing MSG for decades, there has never previously been a good economic justification for doing so. Hundreds of thousands of people come into the city through Penn everyday, but the vast majority just jump on a subway and immediately head to jobs in further north in Midtown or in the financial district, or go shopping on 5th Avenue or in Soho. This is obviously a massive over-simplification, but the point is that very few of the people coming into Penn Station are going to shop, work or live in the immediate, walking-distance vicinity of the station.

With people only using Penn Station as an internal transit hub (ie, not interacting with the area immediately outside of it), it doesn't make that much sense to tear down the surrounding structure just to make their subway change more pleasant. Economic (and thus political) forces mimic this reality. A new Penn Station would be a huge boon for development and local businesses in the area, but who is going to spend millions lobbying for it? The shitty bars and parking garages on 31st that people don't take the time to visit in the first place?

Thus the Dolans, with the crazy money they make off of MSG, have no competition to fight back against preserving the status quo. Likewise, both the increase in the tax base and the potential for air-rights sales (like those proposed in midtown east rezoning) that would accompany a redevelopment of the station don't presently appear sufficient to fund a project of that scale (although a recent study by Crains argues that such funding is presently a practical reality).

Here's why all of that is going to change in the upcoming decade: Hudson yards is going to do ten times more for the areas immediately around Penn Station than even the high line did for Chelsea.

Penn Station is in walking distance of the hipness of Chelsea/Flatiron while being a stone's throw from tens of thousands of lucrative office jobs in the new west side. The initial draw to those benefits will cause development that will only build momentum on itself, rapidly causing people working all over city to begin to wonder why they hadn't previously realized how convenient it would to live right next to Penn Station (which is a great commuting point to literally everywhere). Once that catches on, property values are going to go through the roof--we've seen how incredibly rapid development can happen in this city when an area passes the tipping point (look at Williamsburg ten years ago).

I don't see a world in which Jim Dolan can hold back the tides of development to preserve his heap-of-shit stadium in that kind of sea of change. The political forces will realign to follow this new, greater source of money, they always do. The air rights of the station will balloon in value, making potential funding sources more obvious. The public will be interacting with Penn Station and the neighborhood around it in a different way, and constantly questioning why MSG has to be where it is. When all of that happens, the vision of a new Penn Station will go from something only passionately followed in a subset of the community and on forums like this to something that the city as a whole views as, quite simply, an inevitability.

The engineering will be a mess, but that won't keep this project from happening once the public begins to digest just how valuable a new Penn Station would be to the city (look at Hudson Yards).

I know this sounds like a stretch, but think about how foolish it would have sounded in the 90's to suggest that we spend over 150M to build park space on abandoned rail tracks in the middle of the meat packing district.

Hard to predict the future a ~decade out
 

Thx. I think Amtrak's totally unfunded plans for Penn Station South & all that should have just been mentioned.

I'm not being pessimistic, just being what I think is a realist re timeframes. They are working on that moderate enhancement to the bowels right now, with completion scheduled in '16. Note that I think the fan/ventilation part of that enhancement is being partly driven by the Manhattan West platform overbuild blocking airflow.

Anyway, DeBlasio takes office in January, the 7 extension opens ~June '14, 10 Hudson Yards (South Tower) in '15.
IIRC the HY retail structure opens in '17 & the North Tower in '18.

If you look around in the later 2010s you'll have a FAR more accurate idea if a new Penn Station will get built above the bowels in the 2020s.

PS: Not familiar w/ the shitty bars of 31st street, but I have visited the bar in the LIRR level TGIF

Even if Manhattan West and Hudson Yards weren't being built, Penn Station would need a drastic overhaul. Aside from the dreadful aesthetics, it's already very overcrowded and poorly designed. All indications point to a considerable increase in train traffic to at least the end of the decade.

That being said, if even just the north and south towers are up by 2018, I'd imagine there will be a large increase in people going right through Penn to get there. Penn Station is already a zoo, but it's quickly approaching the point where it becomes a zoo with a few loose lions running around...i.e. a complete disaster.

WRT Penn as zoo: that's one of the reasons they have those pairs of National Guard patrolling. Keep in mind also that the upward trend in commuters through Penn should be relieved in 2019 when the LIRR ESA will start putting LIRR commuters to the East Side into ~GCT.

There's a difference between (many) needs and the many billions needed to fund an actual project. For reference, I think it's costing ~$250 million (& ~3 years) to put in two entrances through Farley, expand the concourse under Farley & upgrade ventilation.

All I'm saying, IMHO, is that anything major will not happen till the 2020s.

And I've been known to be wrong many times.