MANHATTAN — Vowing to build a soaring 160-foot glass dome as part of a revival of rail transportation in Manhattan, officials came together yesterday to celebrate a deal for a new Penn Station, the New York Daily News reported.
Based at the main post office, being sold by the feds for $230 million to the state, the new terminal on Eighth Ave. and 33rd St. will be a magnet for 21st-century transportation to and from Manhattan, they pledged.
“When you stand in the middle of the ticketing hall of the new Pennsylvania Station, you will be able to choose from every transportation means imaginable: high-speed rail, airline counters, commuter trains, subways, taxis — everything will come together in one spot,” said Charles Gargano, chairman of the Pennsylvania Station Redevelopment Corp.
“No matter where you’re going — from Wantagh to Weehawken to Warsaw to the West Side — you can start your journey from this great room,” Gargano said.
The state and the U.S. Postal Service deal to transfer ownership of the two-block-long neo-classical structure, known as the Farley Building, has been years in the making.
A $750 million renovation — including retail shops, office space and a soaring, midblock glass dome — is set to begin in 2004 and take five years. The federal government will pick up most of the costs.
Most postal operations will be relocated — with the main exception the historic front lobby open to customers along Eighth Ave.
Remembering a time when Penn Station was a gleaming gateway into the city, former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said yesterday “there was a time over there when you arrived at the train platform, you went up, and it was as if to heaven, or make that Manhattan.
“Then, the walls came down,” Moynihan said, recounting how the original station was demolished in the 1960s.
Gov. Pataki said the city deserves better.
“As people come to New York City and New York State, instead of entering somewhere over there,” said Pataki, gesturing to the station’s current, unimpressive home, “they will enter into a magnificent facility worthy of the legacy and the future of this great city and this great state.”
Mayor Bloomberg said “we just have to have an entry point” that’s “befitting of the Big Apple.” He said the plan would be a major boost to the city’s quest for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.