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Added retail in works at NYC transit hubs

By Edmund Mander

Grand Central Terminal's happy marriage of retail, entertainment and transportation will be emulated at other terminals in New York City, if all goes as planned.

The centerpiece of the new Penn Station will be a glass-enclosed atrium featuring two levels of retail.

Retail will be a major component of the new Pennsylvania Station that is planned, and store owners are also benefiting at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which is undergoing a refurbishment of its own.

The Port Authority is also considering the construction of a multiplex movie theater atop its uptown Washington Heights bus station, which it says could reap rewards for retailers in the complex and in the neighborhood at large.

But few can argue that the planned conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office, located across the street from Penn Station, into a train station will constitute one of the most dramatic architectural events in New York during the next few years. The 1.4 million-square-foot post office stands between 31st and 32nd streets between Eighth and Ninth Avenue.

The plan calls for the Farley post office to eventually vacate about one-third of its space to Penn Station — which handles more than 500,000 people a day — with conversion to begin in 2000 and be completed in 2003.

"This is the first great public work of a generation," said Alex Washburn, president of Pennsylvania Station Redevelopment Corp., the state agency overseeing the project, shortly after President Bill Clinton launched the project during a ceremony here in May.

Many in the city still wince over the 1963 destruction of the original Penn Station, the McKim, Mead and White masterpiece built in 1910 that some say was grander than Grand Central itself. The New York Times' architecture critic Paul Goldberger called the demolition "the greatest single act of architectural vandalism New York has ever seen," referring to it as "the unconscionable destruction of one of the noblest buildings in American history."

The station has inspired at least one book — "The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station,'' by Lorraine B. Diehl — and a Website, <members.aol.com/pennsy>, is devoted to the subject by the same name.

Following a campaign spearheaded by U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., Penn Station is expected to once again become a great public space, and not only for those taking a train. The new station's centerpiece will be a massive glass-topped atrium serving as the arrivals/departure hall, with two levels of retail.

And federal officials, as of press time, were expected to announce that the project has been selected to receive $160 million in loans through a new Congressional program for transportation improvements. The loans are expected to provide an important step forward for the project.

The Postal Service, which originally resisted the plan to share its landmark building with a train station, will share quarters with the station.The Farley post office, which also was designed by McKim, was built in 1914 opposite to, and as a sister building of, the station. Railroad tracks run right underneath the building, making it comparatively easy to turn it into a station. When the Farley building opens as a station, the existing Penn Station will be retained for the core of the Long Island Railroad's and NJ Transit's commuter operations, though some will use the new station. The $484 million federally funded project is scheduled to begin next year and take 42 months.

Architects for the conversion are Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the firm that headed the renovation of Washington D.C.'s Union Station and Boston's South Station. Union Station reopened in 1988 following a complete renovation.

The new Penn Station's architecture will include a blending of modern and classic design, with a bold glass and steel roof over the main entrance and ticketing hall, which has been likened to a 75-foot-high tidal wave washing in from the Hudson River. Skidmore's David Childs is lead designer.

Meanwhile, a few blocks to the northwest, the Port Authority plans to upgrade its midtown terminal, with the relocation of some stores in the building's south wing, and proposals to add to the north wing.

The terminal has in recent years cleaned up and upgraded its facility. It now has about 28 tenants scattered through its north and south wings, including 12 food-service providers, a bowling center and cocktail lounge, RadioShack, Hallmark, Sunglass Hut and a Duane Reade drugstore. The bus terminal at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue began its overhaul in 1992, under a program called Operation Attention. The program involved removing the homeless, renovating and staffing the bathrooms, and bringing in new retail and food tenants. It has cost about $10 million a year since renovations began.

"In the north wing, the Port Authority is currently evaluating best and final offers for a major development of air rights above the bus terminal," said Gregory Trevor, a Port Authority spokesman, explaining that retail could be installed around the base of this new vertical addition.

Detailed plans for revamping the retail have yet to be worked out, Trevor said.

Meanwhile at the Port Authority's uptown George Washington Bridge bus station, linked directly with the upper level of the GW Bridge, developer McCann Cos. of Armonk, N.Y., has proposed building a 12-screen, 2,800-seat movie theater on the roof. The plan at press time was undergoing a six-month feasibility study.

The impact of a multiplex could be felt by many besides theatergoers and the retailers in the station itself, according to Port Authority officials.

"Beyond the immediate area, a project like this also has the potential to spark investment in large commercial ventures throughout Washington Heights," said the Port Authority's Executive Director Robert E. Boyle. "Just as improvements at the 42nd Street Port Authority Bus Terminal helped to promote the redevelopment of Times Square, the same can begin to happen in this neighborhood through improvements made to the GWB Bus Station."