(The New York Times posted the following Reuters article on its website on March 27.)
NEW YORK — The new railroad hub planned to replace New York’s aging Pennsylvania Station will be named in honor of the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York officials said on Thursday.
Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the station, scheduled to open in 2008, would be named the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Station, in memory of the four-term Democratic senator who died on Wednesday at 76.
Moynihan was a driving force behind the new station, to be built in the stately James A. Farley Post Office Building above the current Penn Station tracks. He had served since last year as the mayor’s representative to the redevelopment corporation directing the project.
“His passion for public works and public spaces reminded us that great things can and must happen,” Pataki and Bloomberg said in a joint statement, adding that Moynihan longed to use the Farley building “so that New York’s entryway could be as grand as the skyline that surrounds it.”
The Empire State Development Corporation, future owner of the building, is in final negotiations with the U.S. Postal Service to purchase the building, expected to be completed this summer.
Currently, Pennsylvania Station is the busiest passenger transportation facility in the United States, handling more than 600,000 people daily — more than all three of New York’s airports combined. The new station will increase Pennsylvania Station passenger capacity by 30 percent.