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I hope the deal holds true this time. Well it is the Old Post Office building and the proposal has been on and off. As posted on Trainweb today, Bloomberg News reports that Amtrak has agreed to move to the Farley Post Office Building which will be renamed Moynihan Station. Cheers to New York City. There will also be a new Madison Square Garden Arena. Funny....I still regard this "old" arena as the new one. Sadly that ugly structure replaced the grand old Pennsylvania Station. Real estate shenanigans took precedent over city landmarks at the time. ...and shenanigans are still goin' on.
sojourner Member # 3134
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Back to the Future. Or, rather, Forward to the Past. Penn Station was once a glorious Beaux Arts Building. It was torn down in a disgraceful episode that helped spur the building preservation movement and save Grand Central Station (Jackie Kennedy was among those involved in that). NOW, Penn Station will revert to being a Beaux Arts Building again! Yay!!!
I have nothing against calling it for Moynihan TOO but I hope they still mainly call it Penn Station. I mean, tradition is tradition. And the Post Office already was named for Farley too. He was some sort of Boss Tweed type (well, maybe not THAT bad), and Postmaster General of NY. They call the tracks there the Farley Corridor too, don't they?
Now if only other cities would wise up about their stations. (Salt Lake City, this means you!!!) Plus, no more stations in the Burbs (Savannah, Charleston, Jacksonville, & esp Richmond, use Main Street!!!) And no more having a nice station but shoving the Amtrak part into some seedy corner (Indianapolis, and to a lesser degree, Pittsburgh). . . . Well, one can dream . . .
George Harris Member # 2077
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20th Century is right. shenanigans are still going on, and this boondoogle is an outstanding example. Raise the hood and look at the details. It is more facade than substance in every sense of the word.
amtrak92 Member # 14343
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sojourner I agree with you completely. Another bad station to go to is Charlotte. It is in a really bad ghetto. I wouldn't leave my car there, for a day trip. It is sad that Amtrak gets the worst locations for stations. Railroads go thru the main areas of towns and they don't use the old stations.
notelvis Member # 3071
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Another station indignity is where Amtrak is in a building adjacent to the old station - as in Grand Junction, CO or Rouses Point, NY.
RRRICH Member # 1418
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I assume the switch to the P.O. from the Madison Square Garden location would NOT involve relocating any of the massive underground trackage in NYC, right? The route from the new station down to the tracks would just be different, right? And the ticket agents, concessions, lounges, Acela Lounge, etc., would just be in a different building than they are now, I assume?
Will the LIRR and NJT also be moved to new location? (Metro-North operates everything out of Grand Central, right?)
sojourner Member # 3134
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Right, RRRich, the tracks are under all of it; this is just a different access area--through the very attractive old post office building on the other side of 8th Av. NJT is moving to the new location; in fact, they had said they woul--it was Amtrak that was holding things up.
I don't believe the LIRR is moving into this building; although maybe they would move to the old Amtrak or NJ Transit space, I really don't know details about that. . . .
20th Century Member # 2196
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Mr. Harris,the shenanigans I suspect are to get a new Madison Sq.Garden and some other building projects to happen. If you know any "hidden" details I would be interested. I think NJ Transit and Amtrak will utilize the converted post office building. Also I have read somewhere that platforms extend under the post office building where mail cars used to be loaded. You can contact the reporter. There is a link in the article which can be found at the top of the Trainweb page under "What's new at Trainweb".
sbalax Member # 2801
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Any word on what the "new" Madison Square Garden is going to be like? The current one was one of the few projects my father worked on that he wasn't very proud of. He was always proud of the Transamerica building (after it finally found a site and buyer in San Francisco) and the Theme Building at LAX. And the runways on Saipan during WWII.
Frank in sunny and warm SBA
Jerome Nicholson Member # 3116
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quote:Originally posted by notelvis: Another station indignity is where Amtrak is in a building adjacent to the old station - as in Grand Junction, CO or Rouses Point, NY.
Or St. Louis!
George Harris Member # 2077
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quote:Originally posted by amtrak92: sojourner I agree with you completely. Another bad station to go to is Charlotte. It is in a really bad ghetto. I wouldn't leave my car there, for a day trip. It is sad that Amtrak gets the worst locations for stations. Railroads go thru the main areas of towns and they don't use the old stations.
NCDOT has had a plan in place for several years to build a new Charlotte station downtown. It just needs money. You could probably build quite a few of these for less than the cost of the Moynihan Boondoogle.
There has been quite a bit written elsewhere that gives considerable detail of how the station in the Farley building will reduce patron convenience in a number of ways. Looks impressive does not equal useful.
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