Move Madison Square Garden to Hudson Yards!
I recently read an article that discussed the future of Madison Square Garden. Here are my thoughts:
For more than 60 years, the destruction of the original Penn Station – McKim, Meade and White’s 1910 Beaux Arts masterpiece – has relegated proud New Jersey Transit, Long Island Railroad and Amtrak commuters to an existence akin to that of a sewer rat (or perhaps, more appropriately, a subway rat) for at least a few minutes every working day of their lives.
Alliance for a New Penn Station Proposal
Yesterday, the Alliance for a New Penn Station, a collaborative effort from the Municipal Arts Society and the Regional Plan Association (an influential voice in the City Council’s decision not to renew Madison Square Garden’s right to operate in its location in perpetuity), released the second in a series of reports. This report is entitled Penn 2023. It proposes solutions to ameliorate the horrid conditions that over five hundred thousand unfortunate souls endure on a daily basis. It proposes to better connect the station and Madison Square Garden to the rapidly changing Hudson Yards and the greater West Midtown neighborhood and become a real economic driver for the City.
The key proposal in this report, which is not original but discussed with more compelling arguments than before, is to move Madison Square Garden to the Morgan Postal Facility site. The site is a superblock bounded by 28th Street, 30th Street, 9th Avenue and 10th Avenue. This move would facilitate the arena’s contribution as an anchor of the new Hudson Yards neighborhood (and perhaps even connecting to the High Line). It would also allow for the development of a brand new Penn Station that will improve the lives of many and be a catalyst for economic growth and the improvement and evolution of West Midtown.
The full report can be found here.
Contact Digs
I would love to hear your thoughts on this proposal as well! Please reach out!
dan@digsrealtynyc.com
