(The Associated Press circulated the following article by Michael Gormley on October 18.)
ALBANY, N.Y. — A proposal to turn Manhattan’s main post office into a new rail gateway for commuters died in an Albany boardroom Wednesday.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver refused to support the proposal and his amendment to expand the project near Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden drew no support from representatives of Gov. George Pataki and the Senate’s Republican majority.
The decision will likely put off any project at least a year, according to discussion at the state Public Authorities Control Board meeting.
Silver said the existing $900 million Moynihan Station proposal “does not come close” to meeting the needs of the area including Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania Station and a more expansive plan is required.
The current plan “fails to renovate any space at the existing Penn Station,” Silver wrote in a letter to Pataki on Wednesday. “It does not build any new facilities for the MTA subways, Long Island Railroad, Metro North (commuter trains) or Amtrak.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had urged Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, to vote for the project.
“It would be a mistake to wait to do something as big as what’s being called ‘Plan B,’ which would involve negotiations with Amtrak, the MTA. The city would have to come up with a billion dollars, which we don’t have,” Bloomberg said. He said, however, that Silver’s alternative “is a very ambitious _ and a very desirable plan,” but starting with the current proposal would make it easier to include development proposed by Silver.
In a letter to Silver on Tuesday, Pataki had warned that the approval was needed Wednesday and that while he sympathized with Silver’s desire for a larger project, the existing proposal was the necessary first step.
“As a long suffering Knicks fan, I share your enthusiasm for a new Madison Square Garden,” Pataki wrote Silver, who, like Pataki, was once a noted high school basketball player. “And as you suggest, Moynihan Station can be the ‘first phase of the comprehensive development plan.’ Phase (One) can start now, must start now and by doing so will take the critical step to allow the pursuit of the larger plan on a dual track.”
Pataki quoted the late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Tuesday letter: “If we get into the mind-set where the good becomes the enemy of the best, we will get nothing.”
“While the governor is offering ultimatums, I have now put two alternative plans on the table in order to advance this much-anticipated project,” Silver said.
Pataki said Moynihan Station would serve New Jersey commuters as well as Long Island commuters and tourists.
The renovation of the Farley post office, which sits just across from Madison Square Garden and covers two city blocks, had been projected to be completed by 2010.
The expanded landmark would include 300,000 square feet of space for the train station, 850,000 square feet of retail space and 250,000 square feet for the post office.