NEW YORK — The destruction of New York’s Penn Station — built in 1910, demolished in 1963 — is often cited as a seminal moment in the movement to preserve historic buildings. Now, the processes to protect historic structures may be used to prevent redevelopment of the current Penn Station, the crowded, confusing, and largely unloved underground space currently used by Amtrak, Long Island Rail Road, and NJ Transit passengers.
Bloomberg CityLab reports New York’s Historic Preservation Office is proposing that the 2 Penn Plaza office building, the Garden, and the underground station should be added to the National Register of Historic Places, a move which would almost certainly slow the redevelopment proposed by former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and supported in reduced form by his successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul. The move reflects a law requiring the preservation office “to be consulted throughout the project planning process and have the opportunity to make recommendations.”
The historic status is sought mainly to check the redevelopment plan introduced earlier this year by Cuomo and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. That plan called for 10 new skyscrapers to be built, offsetting the cost of rebuilding the station and adding nine new tracks [see “New York governor, MTA unveil proposals …,” Trains News Wire, April 22, 2021]. Hochul introduced her revised version of the plan in November, which projects a cost of $6 billion to $7 billion to rebuild the station, cuts 1.4 million square feet from the redevelopment plan, and calls for decreased building heights. Opponents say a number of historic buildings would have to be torn down for the new skyscrapers and oppose the changes the new buildings would bring to the neighborhood.
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