Update: We've added a gallery of renderings to the post!
Penn Station is finally getting its much-needed makeover. The transportation hub, the busiest train station in the country, has been the target of much ire and disdain ever since its Beaux-Arts predecessor, designed by McKim, Mead & White, was demolished in 1963, forcing the station to retreat into the dark, cramped passageways below Madison Square Garden. The ordeal lead critic and Yale University Professor Vincent Scully to memorably quip: “One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.”
But today, after years of scrapped schemes, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a fast-track plan that will give New York’s scuttling visitors and commuters some breathing room as early as 2020. Led by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the design calls for a new 255,000 square foot train hall and retail space in the James A. Farley Building, also known as the General Post Office, across 8th Avenue from Madison Square Garden and the current Penn Station entrance.
The building will contain 112,000 square feet of retail space and 558,000 square feet of office space, as well as new waiting areas for Amtrak and Long Island Railroad passengers. The plan also proposes renovating the deteriorating underground passageways and platforms that currently support nearly three times as many users as they were designed for.
Read more about the news, here.
News via the New York Times. H/T NY Yimby.
