Fighting For Moynihan Station
October 21st, 2006
Yesterday, the Daily News blamed Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for helping to kill the current plan for Moynihan Station. (The title of the editorial was Sheldon Silvers Wrecking Ball) But today, an editorial in the New York Times sees a different villain Governor George Pataki. The Times backs Silvers decision to reject the current plan, which, it says, does only part of the work renovating a third of the Farley Post Office building into an alternative entrance to Penn Station. Its obvious that a better approach would be to consider the bigger but still mostly unformed proposal that would move Madison Square Garden to the back of the Farley building, renovate the front part of the building, raze the hideous current Garden and redevelop that site to restore the entire Penn Station complex to some of its former glory.
Yet Pataki is threatening to kill the project altogether, and his appointee, Charles Gargano of the Empire State Development Corporation, has been calling the project dead.(This kind of comment “only risks losing $230 million in federal financing for Moynihan Station.”) While the Times understands why Pataki is angry, frustrated, and disappointed, he has no right to take his feelings out on the city Mr. Pataki has no choice but to let a new governor pick up this project and have the chosen developers submit a better plan.
By Jonathan Mandell on October 21, 2006, 11:56 amIn category: Albany, Gotham City, Land Use, Public Finance, Transportation | 1 Comment »


