Archinect - News

Foster + Partners finishes work on revamped Penn Station entrance

2023-11-20T16:49:00-05:00

A dramatic new makeover of Penn Station’s entrance at 7th Avenue and 32nd Street in Manhattan has been completed by Foster + Partners and AECOM for clients Amtrak and the Vornado Realty Trust.

The rebuilding project expands the entrance’s width by 50 percent while making it safer and fully ADA-accessible for 600,000 daily users of what is considered the nation’s busiest train station.

Image: Fernando Sandoval/MW

A new canopy and LED display were constructed at the entryway, which now features a wider staircase, new interior lighting feature, improved elevator access, and an added third escalator for enhanced circulation. Outside sidewalks and the surrounding plaza were also expanded. The project complements part of Vornado and MdeAS Architects’ redevelopment of the adjacent PENN 2 Tower while creating what Amtrak describes as a “sense of place and civic monumentality.”

Image: Fernando Sandoval/MW

In a press statement, Foster + Partners’ Head of Studio, Nigel Dancey, commented: “We h...

Skanska, AECOM, and SOM announce the completion of Penn Station's Long Island Rail Road concourse renovation

2023-07-10T17:47:00-04:00

Skanska, AECOM, and SOM have announced the completion of Penn Station’s $414 million Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) concourse renovation. The project, which began in January 2021, set out to modernize and widen LIRR’s 33rd Street train hall corridor, all while maintaining the station’s daily operations and train service.

"In order to best accommodate and enhance the commuting experience for the 600,000 passengers that utilize LIRR’s 33rd Street corridor daily, deciphering a path to improving the station’s circulation and traffic flow without disrupting daily train service was paramount,” said executive vice president of Skanska’s East Coast civil operations, Michael Viggiano. “We’re thrilled to be celebrating the completion of this project and to have played a crucial role in reconstructing one of New York City’s most highly trafficked transit hubs.”

The design-build project included the design and construction of the concourse, with a widened corridor, raised ceiling heights, upgrade...

Michael Kimmelman looks for signs of hope in Penn Station’s proposed renewal

2023-07-07T13:17:00-04:00

The only thing everyone seems to know for certain is that nothing meaningful ever really happens to improve North America’s busiest and most miserable train hub, despite decades of demands and promises. Hope has long gone to die on the 6:50 to Secaucus. But now may actually be different.

Kimmelman complimented the new PAU/HOK/ASTM North America P3 plan as “the disruption needed to get Albany moving", and one that “lets daylight, dignity and circulatory logic replace the rat’s maze beneath Madison Square Garden.”

“ASTM’s architecture at this early stage is a little stiff and self-serious but it clearly conveys the all-important point that a gateway worthy of New York, and of the millions of working people who rely on it, needs to offer more than high ceilings, clear signage and hot bagels. It needs to be a source of public pride," he added.

Juxtaposed to this is the more bland but Albany-backed MTA plan (with drawings from FXCollaborative) whose full details won’t be unveiled until next year. The West Side native says the scheme presents a vexing problem over the involvement of Madison Square Garden, which he predicts would lead to crippling lawsuits if the MTA's adversarial position remains unchanged.

Penn Station redevelopment: New York State cancels office component in reverse of direction

2023-06-27T13:10:00-04:00

New York officials are calling on design firms, engineers and architects to draw up a plan for a new Penn Station design that keeps both commuters and the community in mind. [...] In a dramatic about-face, the governor announced plans to redevelop Penn Station without touching the neighborhood surrounding it. With soaring glass ceilings and a broad marble concourse not unlike the Moynihan Train Hall directly adjacent to it.

The scrapped 10-tower office component of the $7 billion plan was ultimately done in by the consequences of post-pandemic economics that have profoundly affected the commercial real estate market in Midtown and other parts of Manhattan.

Gone also are the 1,800 housing units included in the original plan, though New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at Monday’s press conference the state would “entertain all concepts” for the scaled-back redevelopment that’s set to move forward under the auspices of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority despite sustained opposition from local residents.

Italian firm proposes glass-wrapped alternative to Penn Station redevelopment

2023-04-05T13:10:00-04:00

The race to author an alternative solution to the recently-halted redevelopment of Penn Station may now have a top contender after the Italian firm ASTM Group released its plans for a proposal that would radically alter New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden.

Last week, the New York Times reported on the newly-proposed alternative, which calls for the storied sporting “Mecca” to be wrapped in an aluminum-and-steel curtain while replacing the existing station with a two-hall glass-enclosed structure at its podium. The plan is said to be less expensive than the state’s Vornado-backed original proposal, and, if approved, would be completed no later than the year 2030.

According to the Times, several officials have already voiced their support for the alternative, making it into a “frontrunner” among those in power.

Last month, Vornado called off the already-maligned redevelopment scheme, citing economic conditions as a decisive factor in their postponing of the plan that would h...

Penn Station's planned redevelopment could be going nowhere for a while

2023-02-27T14:07:00-05:00

Vornado Realty Trust, the developer hoping to remake the skyline around Pennsylvania Station with a bundle of new office towers, has put the brakes on the massive redevelopment plan for now as interest rates remain high and the real estate market struggles to recover from the pandemic. Plans for the Penn site, a roughly 18 million-square-foot project that could include 10 new skyscrapers of mostly office space around the transit hub, could be delayed for at least two to three years.

Despite her recent mum on the status of the $7 billion project, the Empire State Development agency said it remains confident in New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s commitment. Vornado, which owns half of the sites included in the scheme and in January was delisted from the S&P 500, reportedly considered high lending rates and the city’s lagging return-to-office crisis as a cause for the delay.

Right now, ten office towers are planned alongside only 1,800 units of housing in an area the state controversially declared blighted in December. “We should spend those once-in-a-lifetime dollars on a 2050-type vision as opposed to a 1970s vision,” State Senator Leroy Comrie said presciently at the last update. “We need to make sure that whatever happens aboveground is actually something that will help finance the project.”

Penn Station's proposed redevelopment is raising the specter of 'blight'-backed urban planning tactics in Manhattan

2022-12-29T14:46:00-05:00

The congested, chaotic section of Manhattan near Pennsylvania Station is undeniably drab. Does that make it blighted? New York State has decreed that it is, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has recently likened the Penn Station area to “a Skid Row neighborhood.” She was defending the controversial plan to allow developers to build 10 towers around the decrepit train station — the busiest transit hub in the nation — in exchange for some of the $7 billion the state needs to renovate it.

The same tactic was used in the urban cores of major American cities such as Los Angeles to break apart mostly residential areas and redevelop them into high-rise-laden commercial districts, a practice which may now be boomeranging in the post-pandemic economy. New York is claiming “economic stagnation” (in addition to “blight”) in the redeveloped area. However, opponents say only 8 of the total 61 lots targeted by the project meet the definition outlined by the state’s apparently vague threshold.

“It’s so extreme in this case, I don’t think they can get away with it,” an attorney representing various opposition groups’ legal challenge to the plan told the Times.

Previously on Archinect: Empire State Development approves massive Penn Station redevelopment proposal

Eventually, the redevelopment — which was approved in July — will yield ten skyscrapers, 1,800 units of housing, and the $73 million expansion of Penn Station led by Arup. CRE titan Vornado owns half of the sites included...

Penn Station redevelopment takes another step forward following financing approval

2022-07-28T16:06:00-04:00

A key state oversight body approved the financing plan to redevelop Penn Station and its surrounding neighborhood Wednesday, greenlighting one of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s loftiest projects, which is estimated to cost a total of $22 billion.

Yesterday the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB), a state entity behind granting financial approval for proposals from statewide public authorities, approved how the multibillion-dollar Penn Station Redevelopment Plan will be funded. A day before the vote, a document was released detailing where the money for the project would come from. Half of the expenses would be covered by federal funds, with New York and New Jersey splitting the rest. Additionally, a part of the financing plan includes charging the developers of the 10 skyscrapers planned for the site a fee instead of collecting city real estate taxes.

Previously on Archinect: Empire State Development approves massive Penn Station redevelopment proposal

As noted by Gothamist, Wednesday’s vote is the first of many for the project as each of the eight project sites within the redevelopment will need PACB approval. Critics of the approval highlight the PACB not having an exact figure for how much in fees developers would pay...

Empire State Development approves massive Penn Station redevelopment proposal

2022-07-22T18:58:00-04:00

New York State officials on Thursday approved a sweeping redevelopment of Midtown Manhattan that would transform Pennsylvania Station, the busiest transportation hub in North America, from a run-down transit center into a city centerpiece. The eight-member board of Empire State Development, the state’s economic development agency and the group steering the project, unanimously voted in favor.

The Penn Station Redevelopment Plan is set to be one of the largest real estate projects in U.S. history. The project, spanning approximately 18 million square feet, includes the construction of 10 skyscrapers surrounding the station that will host office and retail space, 1,800 housing units, and a hotel.

It also includes a long-overdue renovation of Penn Station. Improvements to the station include cosmetic upgrades, the reconfiguration of the train hall serving NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road, subway improvements, and the construction of a rail tunnel under the Hudson River. This is estimated to cost $7 billion, with the cost of the rest of the redevelopment adding an additional $13 billion to the bill.

The project’s approval allows an application to be made for federal funding. The proposal now heads to the Public Authorities Control Board, a state body responsible for granting financial approval for applications from statewide public authorities, which will review and vo...

Arup will lead Penn Station’s new $73 million expansion project

2022-06-30T09:00:00-04:00

Arup has been placed in the lead for MTA/NJ Transit and Amtrak’s planned redevelopment and expansion of Penn Station in New York City. The tender was announced recently by the rail service and is part of a larger Gateway Program aimed at improving a critical infrastructure clog situated in a ten-mile stretch along Amtrak’s overworked Northeast Corridor.

The multinational engineering concern is now tasked with designing the first new tracks, platforms, and concourses at the 117-year-old station in over a century. The project will relieve an ugly bottleneck at the western end of Penn Station, doubling its capacity in a process that also generates a much-improved customer experience for commuters to the country’s busiest transportation hub.

Previously on Archinect: Gov. Cuomo's renovation plan for NYC’S Penn Station takes shape

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said: “This announcement represents significant progress in the much-needed expansion of Penn Station and the modernization of our...

Two options for the "new" Penn Station proposed

2021-04-22T20:35:00-04:00

Governor Cuomo has unveiled two new reconstruction options for transforming Penn Station into "a world-class, 21st-century transportation hub." New images released Wednesday afternoon show how transit officials hope to reinvent the dreary subterranean Midtown labyrinth into a modern, light-filled transit destination. The proposal lays out two distinct options, both of which would retain Madison Square Garden, but also require its purchase.

The designs are the work of FXcollaborative and WSP.

More than two decades in the making, SOM's new Moynihan Train Hall opens in NYC

2021-01-05T19:12:00-05:00

With the beginning of the new year, New York City also celebrated the opening of a major infrastructure project: the Moynihan Train Hall, situated between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and West 31st and 33rd Streets, expands the notoriously crowded Pennsylvania Station complex with a 225,000-square-foot rail hub inside the landmark James A. Farley Post Office Building.

Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM

The new rail hub's signature feature is the vast skylight arching over the 31,000-square-foot train hall, the former mail sorting room, as a direct reference to the architectural heritage of the original Pennsylvania Station demolished half a century ago.

Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM

"We’ve designed a place that evokes the majesty of the original Penn Station, all while serving as a practical solution to the issues that commuters in, to and from New York have endured for too long," said Colin Koop, Partner at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the architecture firm that has been working on the...

Gov. Cuomo's renovation plan for NYC’S Penn Station takes shape

2020-01-09T09:00:00-05:00

Empire Station

New York State officials led by Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled a plan this week to expand rail capacity at Penn Station in New York City by as much as 40% through the addition of a new bay of passenger rail concourses just south of the existing station.

More specifically, the so-called Empire Station Complex plan would bring four new train concourses (and eight lengths of track) to an adjacent site currently packed with existing buildings, lending the chronically under-sized Penn Station complex an opportunity to grow and absorb an anticipated jump in rail traffic set to take shape over the next few decades. The plan would take over the entirely of the block situated between 30th and 31st streets and between 7th and 8th avenues immediately south of the station, enabling capacity at the station to grow by an estimated 175,000 passengers per day when fully completed. The station currently funnels over 650,000 commuters through its low-ceilinged and circuitous passages ...

Michael Kimmelman reflects on NYC's old Penn Station: 'The gateway it deserved'

2019-04-29T14:49:00-04:00

Conceived to handle fewer than 200,000 passengers, the replacement Penn Station is today the busiest transit hub in the Western Hemisphere, through which more than 600,000 commuters pass each day — an experience as humiliating and bewildering as Grand Central remains inspiring and exalted.

NYT architecture critic Michael Kimmelman takes a look back at the triumphal arrival of the former Pennsylvania Station by McKim, Mead & White in 1910, its steady decline in the following decades, the consequential replacement with the current solution—a disappointing product of mid-century modernist pragmatism—followed by a call for a better gateway.

Aerial view of the former Pennsylvania Station shortly after it opened in 1910.

"When Penn Station became during the mid-1960s a subterranean rat’s maze, the city seemed to be heading very definitely south," Kimmelman writes. "The historic preservation movement, which rose from the vandalized station’s ashes, was born of a new pessimism."

Get an up-close look at Moynihan Train Hall’s massive new skylights

2018-09-08T17:52:00-04:00

The transformation of the historic Farley Post Office into a bright, modern transportation hub known as Moynihan Train Hall is on time and on budget for its late 2020 opening. To date, 800 people working every day have logged more than one million hours of labor, and the four, 92-foot-high skylights crowning the 225,000-square-foot LIRR and Amtrak concourse are perhaps the most stunning example of their efforts. Get an up-close look at these feats of engineering.

Cuomo reveals new LIRR entrance and public plaza at Penn Station

2018-09-06T17:50:00-04:00

At a well-timed press event this morning, Governor Cuomo announced that the dire safety, security, and circulation situation at Penn Station cannot wait two more years. While construction wraps up at the LIRR and Amtrak’s future home at the Moynihan Train Hall, the state will build a new LIRR facility in the existing Penn Station. The proposal will double access to the trains with new entrances and an enlarged concourse and will create a permanent public plaza at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue.

Going from bad to worse: Penn Station's massive tunnel system is aging rapidly

2018-01-11T17:35:00-05:00

I’d been assigned to write a story about Pennsylvania Station, but I wanted to get a caboose-eye view of the decaying tunnels leading up to it, because the only imaginable way the station could be any worse is if it were underwater. Penn, the Western Hemisphere’s busiest train station, serves 430,000 travelers every weekday—more than LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark airports combined.

"As the gateway to America’s largest city," Devin Leonard writes in his piece for Bloomberg Businessweek, "Penn Station should inspire awe, as train stations do in London, Paris, Tokyo, and other competently managed metropolises. Instead, it embodies a particular kind of American failure—the inability to maintain roads, rails, ports, and other necessary conduits."

Cuomo releases new renderings of Moynihan Station as major construction gets underway

2017-08-18T09:04:00-04:00

At a press conference this morning in the under-construction space, Governor Cuomo announced that major work has begun on transforming the James A. Farley Building into the state-of-the-art, 225,000-square-foot Moynihan Train Hall. Along with the news that the $1.6 billion project will create 12,000+ construction jobs and 2,500 permanent jobs, come new renderings of the station, showing more exterior views and looks at the 700,000-square-foot shopping and dining concourse.

Via office of Governor Cuomo

Will NY Governor Cuomo be able to fix Penn Station's problems?

2017-05-01T14:39:00-04:00

The urgency to fix the station has reached a peak. But this also creates a great occasion to get something done — something grander than Mr. Cuomo's current plan, a project born of political expediency.

For the majority of commuters in New York, New Jersey and the surrounding areas, Penn Station has been the source of many headaches, late arrivals to work, and chaos as of late. Throughout the month of April, multiple trains have been derailed, a train got stuck at Penn Station, there have been ongoing power problems, and a false-alarm of a gunshot caused a stampede injuring 16. All of these incidents have caused massive delays further congesting an already cramped transit system and instilling fears of safety. The issues have been so disruptive that there is even a social media push, #NoPayMay, for commuters to use April's tickets stubs in May due to the substandard service in the past month.

On Thursday, Amtrak officials revealed they would be closing several tracks over the summer but have yet to say how many, or for how long. While the need for improvements are highly recognized, many fear that Amtrak's approach to tackling the deteriorating infrastructure will strain the alread...

An ambitious plan to overhaul Penn Station, by moving Madison Square Garden

2016-09-30T13:21:00-04:00

Penn Station is much more than a transportation center. As the heart of the Northeast Corridor rail system, it has the potential to link downtown to downtown along the Eastern Seaboard in a way far more economical, expedient and environmentally sustainable than air travel. But while the governor’s recently announced plan is a step toward this goal, more must be done. What we propose in addition is a completely new commuter station on the site of Madison Square Garden

The proposed plan for Penn Station's redesign comes by way of Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism. Previously, Chakrabarti was the director of Manhattan's Department of City Planning under former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where he also oversaw prior refurbishment plans for the station.

Previously, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had released a plan to bring Penn Station up to speed (it was designed for a third of its current 650,000 daily commuters). But while the Governor's plan, headed by SOM, is focused mostly on utility, Chakrabarti's plan (as he writes for The Times) aims to provide the city with a grand public space—by physically relocating Madison Square Garden (an idea that has been floated before) to honor the original station's legacy where travelers "entered the city like a god".

Related on Archinect:

Governor Cuomo Announces New Penn Station Private-Public Partnership RFP

2016-01-06T17:34:00-05:00

Governor Cuomo unveiled the sixth signature proposal of his 2016 agenda: transform Penn Station and the historic James A. Farley Post Office into a world-class transportation hub. The project, known as the Empire Station Complex.... is anticipated to cost $3 billion – will be expedited by a public-private partnership in order to break ground this year and complete substantial construction within the next three years.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced another piece of his proposal to revitalize New York's transportation infrastructure at Madison Square Garden this afternoon. Looking towards a private-public enterprise to develop the site, the proposal is budgeted at $3 billion and take three years to build.

While the details are unclear, the proposal calls for utilizing the Farley Post Office site in concert with the current Penn Station and Madison Square Garden site. The two blocks will be connected below 8th Avenue via a subterranean connection. Expanding north, the plan will shut down 33rd street adjacent to Penn Station/MSG and create a pedestrian focused entry along 33rd as well as 7th and 8th Avenues.

Selective memory: Old Penn Station, ruined before it was ruined

2015-12-30T13:50:00-05:00

What they weren’t trivializing or coarsening with commerce, railroad executives were simply neglecting. Whether desperately or cynically, they seemed to understand that redevelopment of their money-losing, nine-acre station would be more palatable if the public could be made to forget the glories of Mr. McKim’s original design. Pink granite walls were allowed to turn gray. Straw-colored travertine looked nicotine-stained. Jules Guerin’s murals disappeared under veils of grime.

The destruction of Old Penn Station in favor of its soulless, uninspiring replacement has garnered an ample share of outraged pixels—but what if the long-accepted narrative has a twist? Apparently, the inspiring sweep and elegance that is so often attributed to Penn Station had fallen victim to maintenance shortfalls and a corporate indifference (as well as the ghastly glare of modern technology, like Coke vending machines). Which makes us wonder: how frequently do we glamorize buildings or places that weren't actually all that? More importantly, as Rem Koolhaas explored in his 2011 exhibition "Cronocaos" at The New Museum, is our desire for preservation choking off genuine architectural innovation?

Editor's Picks #415

2015-05-14T09:32:00-04:00

Nick Cecchi penned a review of ‘Lina Bo Bardi: Together’ on view at the Graham Foundation through July 25th. He found the

"narrow focus wisely limits Together to investigating the conditions and experiences that helped shape Bo Bardi’s mature approach to architecture...Bo Bardi’s work and life resist reduction and compartmentalization into terms easily digested. To experience and understand Together is to experience the sum of conflicting experiences, opinions, and buildings Bo Bardi brought into this world".

midlander commented "that drawing of chairs is beautiful! I love her work. It's rugged and big without being standoffish. Knew nothing about her background - interesting".

Plus, Nicholas Korody published Getting Lost in the Ozone, the third installment of the recurring feature Architecture of the Anthropocene.

News
This week at the AIA National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, NCARB aims to settle the debate over the title “Intern Architect” with an address by CEO Michael Armstrong ...

The new $2.5 billion plan to rebuild the historic Penn Station

2015-05-04T15:38:00-04:00

It's been over 50 years, but for many, the destruction of Charles Follen McKim's original Pennsylvania Station still stings (hey, even Mad Men mourned its passing). But now, there is a hopeful (if improbable) plan from Richard W. Cameron—principal designer at Atelier & Co—to bring back the civic jewel of a long-gone New York. According to Traditional Building's's Clem Labine, Cameron's plan has three main goals [...]."

Previously

An ode to the old Penn Station, where travelers "entered the city like a god"

2015-01-06T13:40:00-05:00

“Penn Station did not make you feel comfortable; it made you feel important.” [...] Unlike McKim’s monument, today’s Penn Station — where many visitors, both domestic and international, encounter New York City for the first time — certainly does not make you feel important. Comparing the vanished terminal with this tawdry replacement, the Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully once wrote, “One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat.”

Previously

Urban Planners Propose Moving Madison Square Garden to Nearby Post Office

2014-10-23T12:22:00-04:00

If there’s one thing that all New Yorkers can agree on it’s that Penn Station is pretty awful. And if we’re ever going to get a new home for NJ Transit, Amtrak, and the LIRR, Madison Square Garden will have to move (just don’t tell any die-hard Rangers fans that).

The Alliance for a New Penn Station is proposing in a new report that the world-famous venue Madison Square Garden be relocated to the nearby Morgan Post Office and Annex, which occupies the block bound by 9th and 10th avenues and 28th and 30th streets. They say the mail sorting facility site is large enough to accommodate a new state-of-the-art arena and it's just a quick walk to Penn Station.

Penn Station was designed for 200,000 passengers a day and now sees 600,000, making a redesign necessary.

50th anniversary of NYC Penn Station demolition to be honored by staged reading and panel highlighting the debate on historic preservation

2013-10-31T14:49:00-04:00

The Eternal Space will visually recreate the marvel of the former Pennsylvania Station using the actual photographs that documented the station’s demise. [...] Using the latest in projection technology these arresting photographs will speak to the tragic demolition of an American architectural masterpiece [...] On the 50th anniversary of that great loss, The Eternal Space will pay tribute to the station and the gifted photographers who worked to immortalize it.

Architects, historians, and all urban enthusiasts are invited to a free evening event that will acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the demolition of NYC's Pennsylvania Station on Nov. 6 at the AIA | NY Center for Architecture. Hosted by AIA | NY, the program will begin with a live reading of selected scenes from The Eternal Space, a two-man stage play set during the Penn Station's demolition, which began on Oct. 28, 1963.

The play presents a dialogue on the value of old vs. new, past vs. present, and all the timeless arguments that come with them that last to this day. The Eternal Space also points out the ongoing yet overlooked debate on the preservation of historic structures in New York and throughout the U.S. Never-published photography of the demolition from some of the subject's most notable photographers will provide the scenic backdrop for the staged reading.

The reading will be followed by a panel discussion — moderated by Curbed NY Senior Editor Hana Alberts ...

Prentice Hospital Could Become Modern Architecture’s ‘Penn Station Moment’

2013-10-15T12:58:00-04:00

This week, as Goldberg’s famous work is pulled apart by wreckers, nothing about its loss seems symmetrical or graceful. Within 40 years, the building transitioned from a proud symbol of civic renewal and design innovation to the victim of old-fashioned Chicago politics. The controversy surrounding the demolition of Prentice, however, injected the preservation movement into an urban design discussion with a presence not seen in a long time.

NYC Council votes to limit Madison Square Garden's permit to just 10 more years

2013-07-26T19:57:00-04:00

Yesterday, led by Speaker Christine Quinn, the New York City Council voted to limit Madison Square Garden’s permit to operate on top of Penn Station to just 10 more years. Building a new Penn Station and the next Madison Square Garden will not only improve the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people who use the station every day – it will revitalize the surrounding area and bring tremendous long-term economic value to the region.

Thinking Big - Four Visions of a New Penn Station

2013-05-29T15:00:00-04:00

The Municipal Art Society asked four design firms to draw big: Reimagine the ideal Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. The proposals — by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture — will be introduced on Wednesday at the TimesCenter. All plans expect the new station to include high-speed rail.

SHoP ARCHITECTS Expands the existing site with a lightweight concrete structure that is meant to evoke the old Penn Station and seeks to make the station a social meeting spot. “When’s the last time you heard someone say, ‘Let’s meet for a drink at Penn Station?'” asked Vishaan Chakrabarti, a principal. “People say that about Grand Central all the time.”

SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL Moves Madison Square Garden off site and expands the station to four city blocks from two. Above ground: green space four times the size of Bryant Park; housing twice the size of Tudor City; more offices than Rockefeller Center; and more cultural spaces than Lincoln Center. “We saw Madison Square Garden as a sideshow,” said Roger Duffy, a design partner. “The primary purpose of the site is for the public and transportation.”

DILLER SCOFIDIO & RENFRO Moves Madison Square Garden across Eighth Avenue next to the James A. Farley Post Office building; Penn Station becomes a multilevel publi...