Grand Penn Community Alliance proposal: Penn Station goes aboveground, Madison Square Garden relocated

A group is proposing that Madison Square Garden be relocated across the street and Penn Station brought aboveground with a bigger building and an adjacent park.

The plan, by a group called the Grand Penn Community Alliance, is forecast to cost roughly $7 billion and take 11 years.

"We need a station that we can love," the project’s chief architect, Alexandros Washburn, said in Manhattan on Tuesday at an event to unveil the plan. "It’s been too long."

The idea comes nearly two years after Gov. Kathy Hochul said she would hasten a promised revamping of Penn Station, which she’s called a "hellhole," to be replaced with an airy, sunny train hall to "lift the human spirit."

Plans from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a private developer have shown few signs of long-term progress.

At the same time the new plan was being unveiled, MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber was at Penn for a ceremony kicking off the Big East college basketball tournament at the Garden upstairs.

Speaking to reporters, Lieber said he had "not seen the plan," but was aware of it. He pointed to improvements made in Penn Station in recent years, including the installation of new escalators leading to 33rd Street, and said he favored "practical changes that can make it better for the riders" and could be accomplished "sooner, rather than later."

Madison Square Garden's press office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In an emailed statement, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams did not directly address the plan but said that Amtrak "is committed to improving current conditions and increasing train capacity."

The original Penn Station, a beloved beaux arts-style structure that opened around 1910, was demolished starting in 1963 and moved underground due to poor maintenance, plummeting passenger traffic post World War II, the rise of the automobile and air travel, and to make way for office buildings to bring in revenue.

That replacement — cramped, dingy, maze-like, much hated and the inspiration for the city’s landmark preservation movement — has, for decades, been the subject of ideas, most never brought to fruition, for remodeling, renovation or demolition and rebuilding.

The design for the proposed commuter hall, on the concourse level upstairs from the train tracks and platforms, is based on the original Penn Station and features a replica clock of one that adorned the original building, and possibly original statues and columns  scattered across the nation in places such as Missouri, Connecticut and upstate New York, Washburn said.

The hall would be bigger than the one at Grand Central Terminal, with restaurants and other retailers. The boarding area would be directly below, spread across 604,000 square feet; passengers would ride escalators and elevators to the trains, and the height of the boarding area would increase to 18 feet from the current 8 feet.

The alliance electronically submitted its plan for Penn Station Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Transportation, as part of the approval process.

Beyond proposing the new location, the alliance did not detail its plan for the Garden. Its owners would be in charge of its design, Washburn said.

Under the plan, the Garden would be moved from its current location across Seventh Avenue to the site of the former Hotel Pennsylvania, which has been demolished, as well as parcels where adjacent buildings are currently. The commuter hall would be connected to Moynihan Train Hall through a platform-level walkway, Washburn said.

The plan also seeks to add a public park, about as big as Bryant Park, along with increasing the number of train platforms, tunnels and emergency ventilation.

The alliance hopes that the project will be funded with a private-public partnership. Costs include $1.3 billion for the land, $2.3 billion for the new Garden and $4 billion for the new Penn Station.

Work on the project would take place in stages, with the Garden’s replacement being built before the current one is removed.

There have been four iterations of Madison Square Garden — the first opened in 1879, at the northeast corner of Madison Square Park — and the current Garden, which is between 31st and 33rd streets and 7th and 8th avenues, opened in 1968.

With Alfonso A. Castillo