My fears with this project is the presence of the Empire State Building. That beautiful skyscraper should not join in a cluster, as they should build several blocks away from the tower. The 500-800 foot buildings that were built around the ESB recently are starting to block big portions of the tower from certain areas, I like some of their designs but not their affect on the Midtown Manhattan skyline. You won’t even be able to see the ESB from Lincoln Harbor if this project happens as pictured
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I understand this concern, but the Empire State Building is already blocked by the Hudson yards and one Vanderbilt when viewed from certain angles. The best part about this project to me is that it fills in the gap in the skyline currently in midtown between Hudson yards and the Empire State Building. Then, from the East River to the Hudson, there will be a massive wall of tall skyscrapers. I think this project is perfect the way it is.
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Even the way Hudson Yards blocks the ESB I never liked. However you can get this good frame
Taken by me 01/11/2019
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I strongly agree with you Thomas, the Empire State Building is a special NYC icon, it needs some space. Building so close to it would kinda take away its majestic presence from some angles, especially viewing from the west. Hudson Yards had a good approach,
, I’m not sure if this was intentional but they left in some space to give the Empire State Building some acknowledgment, making it the center of it all (which it is). And when Two Manhattan West is built, I believe you will still be able to see the ESB. I personally think they should just focus on the station and MSG, we don’t really need anymore office buildings in that area, I thought that was the whole point of Hudson Yards. The area needs some improvement that’s for sure, but I don’t know if we need the skyscrapers, especially so close to a beloved icon.
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Going against the grain to say that while the Cuomo proposal is fundamentally flawed for the reasons GentriVacation listed, I think the Penn District absolutely needs to be aggressively upzoned to allow for the construction of multiple tall, large-floorplate modern towers. The smartest places to build tall and dense in a city are around major transportation hubs. The area around GCT now has multiple huge office towers in the works thanks to the Midtown East rezoning, and the same needs to happen with Penn Station. If anything, I think the Penn District should have been upzoned before Midtown East. Midtown East, while not as glamorous as it once was, is still one of the world’s richest business districts and didn’t really need “revitalization”. Penn District, on the other hand, is an economic, cultural, and architectural backwater that is a stain in the middle of one of the greatest cities on earth. It should have been prioritized to be aggressively redeveloped. Ideally, MSG and 2 Penn Plaza would also be torn down as well, and Penn Station given more than just cosmetic improvements.
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NYC zoning shouldn’t be guided by whether an individual building is visible from NJ. This isn’t ancient Rome, where you’re trying to align the Coliseum with the Circus Maximus, or something. NYC isn’t a planned city, and the beauty is in the chaos.
And it’s pretty clear that the state plan is thoughtfully incorporating view corridors.
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You’d be surprised in how much thought and planning, including obviously sacred geometry (Rome, Paris, Washington D. C.) making the island of Manhattan the centerpiece of Western Civilization. Pretty as Paris? Old. New York is in the making and we’ll never see it “finished”.
They removed funds for above-grade development from the state budget and I’m sorry to say I agree with that call. This project in its current state is a disaster waiting to happen and I don’t want my tax dollars anywhere near it until they fix it.
They are proposing way too much office space for this market. God knows how much I love office towers, but this is crazy. With basically all of TS and Park Ave open for leasing, who would choose the endless construction and homeless on 34th street for premium prices instead of existing, well-modernized office space in the Plaza District? Corporations would sooner anchor 3 Hudson or 2WTC before involving themselves in this project. And don’t forget about the new developments at the MTA block on Madison (which is currently beginning demolition) and Commodore hotel. There is simply no room for new office development in this market.
And even if there were, I can’t think of a worse developer to partner with than Vornado. They are shockingly cheap and incapable of even the most basic maintenance. They have stalled at every turn with the existing crap they own in the Penn district, opting for the most inexpensive and lazy renovation plans whenever possible.
I would only support this project if they could bring on SLGreen or Related, increase hotel and residential space and decrease office space. Vornado is a Cuomo donor no less. The corruption here is off the charts. They should focus on redoing MSG itself before attempting with taxpayer money to do something so grossly out of scale with current market conditions
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At the very least MSG and 2 Penn Plaza need to be scrapped, not simply given new facades. They’re both embarrassing relics of Malaise Era NYC and USA. Whenever I see the MSG complex I think of Urban’s concept for the Metropolitan Opera House:
Forgetting the issues of scale, it’s not a bad template for combining mixed use towers with a vast train hall or multipurpose arena. And that’s a tower shape that could stand next to the ESB, and a place in which to experience a heightened sense of life.
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Looks like the meeting has been postponed. Got an email:
You are receiving this email because you registered for the Empire Station Complex public hearing scheduled for May 12, 2021. Please note that the hearing has been postponed, and a new date has not yet been set. Once a new date is determined, the public hearing will be noticed in advance, and you will receive a notification of the new date and additional instructions for participating, if any. Note that Zoom only permits a cancellation notification (not postponement), which you will receive following this email. Please feel free to contact empirestation@esd.ny.gov or (212) 803-2477 with any questions. Thank you for your continued interest in the Project.
Penn District on old Pics (postcards)
Aerial view of the Penn Station 1922
end of the 60s
1973
Collection Mackensen
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How did the hearing go?
So what does Hochul’s plan change for the overall project?
Nothing, really. She’s dividing the Empire Station complex into two phases, instead of trying to get the whole thing approved at once. And she made very slight edits to the towers.
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The project is split in 2. The first phase focuses on Penn Station as a building. Then everything else. And the towers got a barely noticeable 7% decrease in sq ft.
Besides that, nothing really.
Re: Penn Station Thread.
Some nice details.
New, World-Class Train Facility
-Creates a single level, double-height train hall that doubles passenger circulation space on the new public level from approximately 123,000 square feet to approximately 250,000 square feet and eliminates the congested, cramped and crowded passageways in existing Penn Station.
-Includes a 450-foot long sunlit train hall that is the size of Moynihan’s and Grand Central’s halls combined
-Simplifies navigation
-Creates clear sight lines to exits and entrances
Adds 18 more escalators or stairs and 11 more elevators to platforms
Public Realm and Social Services
-Adds ~8 acres of public space, including a 30,000-square foot plaza comparable in size to Rockefeller Plaza and mandates public space set-asides on each building site
-Creates a Public Realm Task Force comprised of community leaders and stakeholders, which will develop a plan of prioritized public realm improvements, to be funded by a Public Realm Fund, with initial revenue from redevelopment being dedicated to this fund
-Requires community facility spaces that will prioritize much-needed social services for the neighborhood, with a particular focus on New Yorkers experiencing homelessness
-Creates underground loading/unloading for MSG, taking trucks off the street
Affordable Housing
-Allows up to 1,800 residential units, of which 540 would be permanently affordable
- Mandates one building as residential, which will include 162 permanently affordable units - more than the entire number of residences that would be displaced if the southern expansion of Penn Station occurs
Public Transit Access and Shared Streets
-Expands new underground corridors to the Sixth Avenue IND line, allowing users of the 34th Street Herald Square Station (B, F, M, N, R, W lines) seamless access to Penn Station
-Nearly doubles the existing entrances to Penn Station from 12 to 20, and requires developers to add additional subway entrances and exits directly to and from buildings, ultimately reducing density and congestion at over-crowded entrances
-Widens sidewalks throughout the neighborhood and recommends that 31st, 32nd and 33rd Streets become shared streets that prioritize pedestrians
-Adds protected bike lanes and greatly expands bike parking while reducing vehicular parking
Pedestrian-Friendly Streetscape
-Limits the size of new building commercial lobbies
-Requires that 40% of every building frontage is an “active use” such as retail and community facilities
And here are some renderings.
They’re kinda blurry after saving them, if you want you can go to the site listed and see them for yourself. Also don’t take the Skyscrapers in the first image too seriously. They’re just concepts made to give you a feel of what the area will be like in general, not actual proposals.
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I’m glad that there doing this because they can mainly focus on Penn station itself while building towers north and east and also the new tunnels, and while that’s happening they can talk to the people about the plans and see what they can do.