Hochul revives
altered Penn Station
reconstruction project
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Governor Kathy Hochul revived a
massive redevelopment project
around Penn Station, promising
to beautify the beleaguered transit hub
fi nanced by the development of 10 skyscrapers
around it.
“This day is a long time coming and I
believe that we have the opportunity here
to reimagine the entire future of Penn Station
and the neighborhood,” Hochul told
reporters during a Nov. 3 press briefi ng at
her Manhattan offi ce.
The governor unveiled the $7 billion
proposal on Nov. 3, slightly altered from
her predecessor Andrew Cuomo’s Empire
Station Complex scheme, which the
disgraced ex-governor fi rst announced in
January 2020.
Hochul’s proposal pared back the building
height of the new towers and reduced
the density by 1.4 million square feet, while
building 1,800 residential units, including
540 restricted to certain income brackets.
The original plan under Cuomo faced
heated opposition from advocates and
preservationists, who took issue with the
large-scale development and feared the
destruction of historic structures within
the project’s radius.
The new project is set to take 4-5 years
once construction starts and focuses fi rst
and foremost on reconstructing the 1968
train station, the busiest transit hub in the
Western Hemisphere that carried 600,000
Renderings showing the redesigned Penn Station.
travelers a day pre-COVID, more passengers
than LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark
airports combined.
Other connected projects like the southward
expansion and the Gateway Project
tunnels underneath the Hudson River to
New Jersey will continue on their previous
timelines.
By moving Amtrak operations to the new
Moynihan Train Hall, the state can eliminate
the bulk of the fi rst underground level of
Penn, creating a single-level double-height
train hall that allows more light to fl ow into
the notoriously dark and labyrinthine station.
The plan creates a new underground
corridor to the Herald Square subway station
on the B, F, M, N, R, and W lines, and
adds eight new entrances to Penn Station,
18 more escalators or stares, and 11 new
elevators to platforms.
Hochul also said she wants to give the
station a new name.
“Has anybody ever asked the question why
we have the largest transit hub in the Western
Hemisphere named after a neighboring state,”
she said. “I believe the new station for New
York should be named for a New Yorker or
RENDERINGS COURTESY OF GOVERNOR’S OFFICE
something to do with how iconic New York
State and how amazing it is.”
“There’ll come a time when people say,
‘I never even heard of Penn Station,’” she
added.
The station was named after the Pennsylvania
Railroad which owned and built
the iconic original station in 1910, which
would be demolished in 1963 to make way
for its much-reviled replacement.
The new plans also add about eight acres
of open space around the station, including
on reconfi gured roads on 31st, 32nd, and
33rd streets.
There the proposal calls for widened
sidewalks, bike lanes, bike parking, seating,
and slower vehicle speeds, also known as
“shared streets.”
“People want to know what are cities be
like after the pandemic. This my friends
is the beginning of what it’s going to look
like,” she said. “It’s more livable, it’s going
to focus on New Yorkers, it’s going to right
the wrongs of the past, fi nally, it’s going to
jumpstart something that should have been
done a long time ago, it’s forward-looking
for decades to come.”
A redesigned 33rd Street next to Penn Station.
Group attacks man outside Chelsea restaurant
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
The NYPD is looking for a group of suspects who
attacked a man in front of a Chelsea restaurant in
October.
According to police, at 4:10 a.m. on Oct. 30 a 37-yearold
man was in front of Tao, located at 92 9th Avenue,
when an unknown individual got into a verbal dispute,
which escalated into a physical altercation between the
victim and two suspects. As the fi ght continued, three more
individuals began to assault the victim as well.
The suspects then fl ed the scene. The victim was taken
by paramedics to Bellevue Hospitalwhere he was treated
for a fractured orbital and multiple lacerations.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident
is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at
1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA
(74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging
onto the Crime Stoppers website or on Twitter @NYPDTips.
All calls are strictly confi dential. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NYPD
Schneps Mediia November 11, 2021 3
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