By Stephen Jacob Smith 2/27 5:02pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

"It was controlled by a bunch of rich developers," David Gunn once said of Moynihan Station.

Former Amtrak President David Gunn Still Hates Moynihan Station

David Gunn was never a fan of Moynihan Station. When he was president of Amtrak during the early George W. Bush years, he pulled the railroad out of the project, which seeks to recreate the glory of the old Pennsylvania Station in the James Farley Post Office across Eighth Avenue. At the time, costs were the stated reason: Amtrak was expected to contribute to its new home, and Mr. Gunn said that the railroad had more pressing needs.

Current Amtrak President Joseph Boardman picked the project back up in 2009, and though it’s largely unfunded, Amtrak still intends to go through with the move. This, Mr. Gunn told The Observer this afternoon from his home in Nova Scotia, would be a mistake. Read More

By Marty Peretz 2/05 7:26pm

Jews in the News

Daniel P. Moynihan

Moynihan’s Moment: New Book Traces Late Senator’s Great Zionist Romance

Not all of America’s most eminent public personae are memorialized in public places. But when Pennsylvania Station is finally brought into the contemporary age, Daniel Patrick Moynihan will be, having been so honored in at least two other locations. Pat was still alive but barely out of office when the first of these buildings, the 27-story Moynihan Courthouse at Foley Square (which was named for “Big Tom” Foley, a Tammany Hall pol), was dedicated in his name. (Senior citizens among The Observer’s readers may recall that this is where the Smith Act prosecution of the Communist Party leadership and the trial of Judith Coplon for Soviet espionage took place.)

Moynihan Station will testify to the senator’s fidelity to both the commonplace functionality of public transportation and the grand aspirations of civic architecture. He rescued not only this railroad hub, but also the national capital’s Union Station. Nothing was too slight for this very big man’s attentions, neither the Smithsonian Institution nor this city’s Botanical Gardens nor Cooperstown, where he believably feigned an interest in baseball.  Read More

By Stephen Jacob Smith 2/05 5:00pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

moynihan-farley-2006_2

Related Seeks to Swap College’s Tribeca Spread for a Spot In Moynihan Station

The planned conversion of the Beaux-Arts Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue into Amtrak’s “Moynihan Station” has always been more about real estate and architecture than transportation, spurred by the city’s desperate search for atonement after the destruction of the old Penn Station. Former Amtrak President David Gunn didn’t mince words when he told Bloomberg News in 2011 that the project is “controlled by a bunch of rich developers.”

And Related Companies doesn’t seem to be doing anything to disabuse us of that notion. The New York Times reported that Stephen Ross has yet another trick up his sleeve to revive the stalled project: he wants the Borough of Manhattan Community College to move into Moynihan Station. Read More

By Benjamin-Emile Le Hay 9/11/12 9:00am

Fashion Week

Alicia Keys eyes the Edun collection.

Fashion Feeding Frenzy for Farm Stand Apples and Doughnuts at EDUN’s Runway Show

It’s not every day that you discover a makeshift organic fruit and cider farmer’s market stand outside a fashion show. But that’s precisely what had been constructed outside Skylight at Moynihan Station at EDUN’s spring 2013 runway presentation this past Saturday afternoon. Breezy Hill Orchards of Staatsburg, New York was stocked with the dozens of varietals of pears and apples freshly picked. Before the show, sweaty fashion editors, stylists and buyers could take a refreshing sip of apple cider. It was a smart pairing considering that Edun, which was founded by Ali Hewson and U2’s Bono, works with African manufacturers to give them an economic boost. Naturally the majority of attendees beelined it to their seats, but The Observer gulped down a bottle before the show. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/10/12 11:32am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

17 Photos

Moynihan Station Goes Retro

Inside the Retro-Futuristic Moynihan Station: Newest Plans Are a Throwback to the Old Post Office

Back in May, Amtrak invited bigs from both sides of the Hudson, Albany and D.C. to come celebrate the start of phase one construction on Moynihan Station—even Rosario Dawson, train aficionado, was there. Yet more striking than the silver screen star were the new renderings for Moynihan Station that Amtrak showed off.

Not just the banal concourses of Phase 1 that have bandied about before—nothing new there—but honest to god interiors of the grand train hall meant to restore Penn Station to its former glory inside the old Farley Post office. In a bid for both historical preservation and cost savings, the roof of the post office will no longer be ripped off and replaced with a new glass ceiling, but instead the existing one, with its massive steel trusses will be preserved. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/15/12 7:10pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

She's the spokesman and a rider. (Amtrak)

Rosario Dawson Rails on Moynihan Station: She’s Amtrak’s Biggest Fan Since Joe Biden

“My oldest memory of riding the train? I don’t know, that’s hard,” Rosario Dawson told The Observer last Tuesday night. “I was born in Coney Island, but grew up on the Lower East Side, so we spent a lot of time on the F-Train, going to the beach. My dad used to wear his little shorts, and the knee-high socks. He was the most handsome guy on the entire boardwalk.”

And thus the country’s most beautiful railroad buff was born.

Ms. Dawson was standing inside a post office in Midtown, there for a four-course dinner at which she was the guest of honor. She wore a form-fitting black pant suit, ruffled black shirt and black pumps that had to be nine-inches long and sharper than a railroad tie.

This was no ordinary post office, to be fair, but the Corinthian temple on Eighth Avenue known as the James Farley building, once Manhattan’s central post office, and certainly its grandest. From a staff of thousands, there is now a skeleton crew of about a hundred, which has freed up acres of space in the building for Moynihan Station. A dream since the early 1990s of the former New York senator for whom it is named, it will allow for the expansion of Penn Station across the avenue and out of the hell it has resided in for the past six decades, since Robert Moses destroyed the original Penn in 1963. Read More

By Eliot Brown 7/21/10 8:14pm

Boondoggles

Moynihan Station Approved by Key State Board

Plans for an expanded Penn Station received a boost today as the Public Authorities Control Board—a state-run board that previously blocked a different version of the project—approved a first phase for the plan, known as Moynihan Station.

With each additional approval (of which there are many), it’s actually looking like the project, which would eventually Read More