We can’t miss our moment to fix Penn Station
New York is, by all measures, the greatest city in the world. You can start your day with the best dim sum you’ve ever had in Flushing and end it with Sunday gravy on Arthur Ave. Or hit the Met, the Guggenheim and the 92nd Street Y without even walking a mile. And it’s the only place where a lifelong resident can have a hard time telling whether they’re walking into the largest transit hub in the Western Hemisphere — Penn Station — or a Sbarro. It’s true: Penn Station is unique, but for all the wrong reasons. That’s a real disservice to New York, and to all the New Yorkers who pass through it each day and deserve better.
Instead of the soaring skylights at Moynihan Train Hall or Grand Central’s iconic Great Hall, Penn travelers are greeted by a dizzying warren of dingy passageways and too-low ceilings. The status quo just doesn’t cut it. Not for the hundreds of thousands of regular New Yorkers who rely on Penn Station every day, nor for all the commuters, tourists and day-trippers who inevitably start their visit on a sour note.
Fortunately, we have a window of opportunity not just to make incremental changes, but to actually reimagine Penn Station from top to bottom, inside and out.
In her first months in office, Gov. Hochul unveiled a transformative plan to give New Yorkers the Penn Station they deserve while laying the groundwork for sustainable, transit-oriented growth in the area. It starts with a blueprint for Penn Station that rights the wrongs of its current design, replacing the multi-level labyrinth with a single-level main concourse flush with natural light. Greatly expanded circulation areas with intuitive wayfinding will help you get from point A to B faster, without the mass confusion that predominates today.
The improvements will extend beyond the walls of the station and into the surrounding neighborhood, giving New Yorkers one of the city’s most prized commodities: public space that is designed with people in mind. The vision prioritizes pedestrians and cyclists over vehicles through reclaimed shared streets, new plazas, protected bike lanes and expanded sidewalks. In the backdrop, new, privately funded developments will revitalize the area’s aging commercial office stock, enliven the streetscape and add quality housing to the neighborhood — including hundreds of permanently affordable units.
The state has conducted more than 100 meetings with community members, government agencies, elected officials and civic organizations to develop and refine the governor’s proposal, yielding a stronger plan. Her call for lower overall density, public realm enhancements, targeted social services, more affordable housing, better transit access and a safer streetscape is a direct result of public input.
Of course, every plan has its detractors, especially in New York. And yes, in an alternate universe, maybe the reconstruction of Penn could go forward without the surrounding development — just like there have been dozens of proposals that gained steam before petering out over the decades.
What that scenario lacks, however, are so many of the key elements that make this a plan worth pursuing: new in-building entrances to Penn and the subway, 30,000 square feet of public open space, and a broad pedestrian concourse connecting Penn to the train lines at Herald Square. And, critically, we would lose private sector funding, instead asking the government and the taxpayers to foot the entire bill. The revenue generated by the surrounding developments keeps the city whole in terms of taxes, helps offset taxpayers’ bill for the Penn projects, and supports the integral transit and public realm improvements. This is a smart way to fund public infrastructure and it has worked before, for example, with Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Finally, as much as this proposal reflects an improvement in the vocabulary we policy wonks like to throw around — increased levels of service and expanded passenger volume — it also represents something much more basic. At its essence, the new Penn Station this plan envisions is nice. It’s the kind of place you will be able to pass through easily without your heart rate spiking, perhaps even a space you’ll stop to admire. Anyone who has flown through the new LaGuardia Airport will tell you that it’s head and shoulders above the outdated facility it replaced.
Now imagine that right in the heart of Manhattan, accessible to all New Yorkers and essential to the better half of a million people every day.
When it comes to Penn, New Yorkers have been sold a bill of goods so many times they’ve lost faith that anything meaningful will ever happen. I disagree. I think we deserve — and we can have — nice things. We have a plan to finally rewrite the narrative around Penn Station, and Gov. Hochul brings the vision and the tenacity required to get it done. So let’s get to work.