Let New Yorkers pick the new Penn Station: Put all the plans on display so the public can see them
Daily News, John Massengale, August 25, 2023
CNU NYC Chair John Massengale wrote this Op-Ed in the New York Daily News:
The powers-that-be at Pennsylvania Station have new ideas about the future of the important gateway to New York. But look at what they do rather than what they say. When you go down the escalator between the NJTransit hub and the Long Island Rail Road concourse at Penn Station, you see a large, long drawing of the beautiful old station designed by McKim, Mead & White, tragically demolished in 1963. Underneath the drawing are the words “You Are Here.” Up is down, black is white, heaven is hell. We wish we were at the old station.We can have that station back again. On June 26, Gov. Hochul, Amtrak, and the MTA not only confirmed plans for the station to go ahead: they simultaneously put out a call for architects and engineers to send in their designs and ideas.There are four plans for Penn Station publicly circulating, including drawings and engineering studies from ReThink Penn Station, of the ReThink NYC Studio that proposes rebuilding McKim, Mead & White’s masterpiece.More ideas will come in. New York State and Penn Station should hold an exhibition and let the public comment on what they want.