Moynihan Train Hall to Open Jan 1

[40MntVrn]

Set to open on Jan 1. I managed to get a peak at the station last week and its beautiful.

 

Quote

 

Amtrak's Moynihan Train Hall in the former Farley Post Office Building across from Penn Station in New York City is set to open in January 2021, Amtrak President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Flynn said this week.

The new hall will relieve crowding and offer enhanced facilities for travelers using Amtrak and MTA Long Island Rail Road trains, Flynn said during a Nov. 23 media call regarding Amtrak's fiscal-year 2020 preliminary results.

more...

 

 

[Missabassie]

Not picking on you, but this goes in Amtrak section. All's good I guess....

[bobtehpanda]

16 hours ago, Missabassie said:

Not picking on you, but this goes in Amtrak section. All's good I guess....

What makes you say that? Moynihan is also intended to serve the LIRR.

[Kamen Rider]

Because it’s owned by Amtrak..?

[trainfan22]

I'm sure NYP sees far more LIRR riders and trains than Amtrak riders/trains so that's one reason it should stay in this subforum. 

[Cait Sith]

5 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

I'm sure NYP sees far more LIRR riders and trains than Amtrak riders/trains so that's one reason it should stay in this subforum. 

Plus....it also serves LIRR platforms, so it's staying here.

I've seen a whole lot of progress occur ever since I've started taking LIRR almost regularly now. Managed to get some pictures of it over time. As of last week, the 31st and 33rd Street LIRR entrances/exits have been closed so they can work on that level of the train hall.

 

The pictures here were taken before they closed both entrances, and the last one was taken a day after they closed them. The new signs are shown here and the blue wall with the mesh covering on the side has been torn down.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Cait Sith

[40MntVrn]

Thanks for sharing these pic @Cait Sith. 

I'm pumped to see a (somewhat) modern experience coming for LIRR/NJT/Amtrak.

[QM1to6Ave]

Typical Amtrak/LIRR...finish a beautiful new station just as ridership is waaaaay down. Could have used this 3 years ago...

[Cait Sith]

7 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

Typical Amtrak/LIRR...finish a beautiful new station just as ridership is waaaaay down. Could have used this 3 years ago...

To be fair, this is the perfect time to finish projects with minimal disruption. A lot of agencies are taking advantage of the low ridership to finish projects/repairs/ect.

[Lex]

8 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

Typical Amtrak/LIRR...finish a beautiful new station just as ridership is waaaaay down. Could have used this 3 years ago...

In fairness, the current pandemic -- and how it's been handled (read: bungled) -- is something few, if any, could predict.

[QM1to6Ave]

14 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

To be fair, this is the perfect time to finish projects with minimal disruption. A lot of agencies are taking advantage of the low ridership to finish projects/repairs/ect.

That is definitely true, it's just frustrating that this project which has been talked about for years to help reduce all the overcrowding and grossness of Penn Station, won't end up being all that useful, at least for a while. Has the MTA projected when/if ridership will return to pre-pandemic levels?

[QM1to6Ave]

13 hours ago, Lex said:

In fairness, the current pandemic -- and how it's been handled (read: bungled) -- is something few, if any, could predict.

Absolutely true

[bobtehpanda]

13 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

That is definitely true, it's just frustrating that this project which has been talked about for years to help reduce all the overcrowding and grossness of Penn Station, won't end up being all that useful, at least for a while. Has the MTA projected when/if ridership will return to pre-pandemic levels?

Generally speaking, this is true of more major projects than most.

The Empire State Building opened during the Great Depression and was not profitable until 1950. Similar story with the original and current World Trade Center complexes.

[QM1to6Ave]

11 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Generally speaking, this is true of more major projects than most.

The Empire State Building opened during the Great Depression and was not profitable until 1950. Similar story with the original and current World Trade Center complexes.

My concern is whether railroad usage will ever return to pre-pandemic levels, if WFH (or hybrid WFH 3 days, in-office 2 days) stays a permanent part of the culture). Of course it will not stay at the current super-low usage level forever, but how much better will it get?

[bobtehpanda]

44 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

My concern is whether railroad usage will ever return to pre-pandemic levels, if WFH (or hybrid WFH 3 days, in-office 2 days) stays a permanent part of the culture). Of course it will not stay at the current super-low usage level forever, but how much better will it get?

To be fair, you wouldn't have to get back to 2019 ridership to justify building Moniyhan.

Penn has been comically undersized for the commuter traffic for decades, to the point where Moniyhan was being thought up in the '90s.

[Trainmaster5]

3 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

My concern is whether railroad usage will ever return to pre-pandemic levels, if WFH (or hybrid WFH 3 days, in-office 2 days) stays a permanent part of the culture). Of course it will not stay at the current super-low usage level forever, but how much better will it get?

Those of us who were schooled in a different era were warned about this almost 60 years ago. The transit system is a relic of a different way of thinking. Take your pick of subway, bus, or railroad travel. Service to a centralized business district(s) , shopping areas, or manufacturing areas. That’s why the system was built. Although it’s taken far longer than we were taught think about the changes that have happened . Manufacturing has pretty much vanished citywide. The Financial district has consolidated, especially since the computer has turned into online 24/7/365 banking operations. Look no further than the Midtown or East Side shopping areas. Macy’s, Bloomingdales and ???. Some of the high end places are long gone, replaced by low end or here today gone tomorrow rinky dink shops. I read many papers and business forecasts and my personal opinion is that 60-70% of the ridership returns in the next 5-10 years. There’s no reason for the city or businesses to invest money in this type of market. My take. Carry on. 

[bobtehpanda]

The department stores are going the way of FAO Shwarz, in that they are cute museum pieces to look at, but not actually viable national-scale business models. Their business died when the clothing brands found out that they could make more money selling direct to customers either via their own stores or online. One quick look at pre-pandemic Flushing or Union Square shows retailing is hardly dead. Plus, small businesses drive employment numbers, since they're just generally less efficient than bigger businesses to do the same amount of work. 

As far as work, I agree, but I don't really think that we're going to have permanent remote-only. We've heard this song and dance before; the Internet is going to make commuting to work and school obsolete, companies are gonna decamp into the suburbs to save rent money, New York is gonna die. It turns out remote learning is a shitshow, and companies usually don't make the model work. UBS moved from FiDi to Stamford and then turned right back around into Midtown because they couldn't attract workers. And when the lockdowns are over I don't think the transplants are just gonna buy a McMansion in Tulsa. Also we'll see if all these remote-loving CEOs are gonna be singing the same song in two years. My suspicion is that when this is all over, people are more remote-friendly, but if push comes to shove you need to be able to haul ass to Midtown. And Midtown will still be a big center, if only because Midtown is the only place everyone can reach in the metro area in a reasonable amount of time reliably; it doesn't take all that much for the Whitestone and Throgs Neck to be a shitshow, the BQE and Belt are always a shitshow, etc.

Remember that before all of this, the major driver in the increase in ridership has been off-peak and weekends. Weekday commuting has been trending flat or down in general. But that wouldn't be the worst thing for a system that was busting at the seams and struggling to cope. A 10% decline in peak ridership is no more standees on the 5:30pm train out of Penn but the seats are all still full.

[bobtehpanda]

Yeesh. https://nypost.com/2021/01/09/moynihan-train-hall-czar-killed-himself-as-pressure-mounted/

Quote

Moynihan Train Hall czar killed himself as pressure mounted for Cuomo’s jewel project

By Isabel Vincent

January 9, 2021 | 6:18pm | Updated

In the days before he hanged himself, it was the clock that kept Michael Evans up at night.

President of the public-private consortium, Moynihan Station Development Corp., Evans, 40, had already spent the better part of his professional career working on the conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into the gleaming, light-filled $1.6 billion train hall at Penn Station, which opened Jan. 1.

The Art Deco clock, which is suspended from the center of the 255,000-square-foot waiting area for Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road, was not part of the original renderings for the station. Evans, a handsome Oxford grad who was passionate about public service, was forced to scramble when officials demanded a centerpiece clock with less than a year to go before the monumental project’s scheduled completion date, his partner said.

In the last weeks of his life, Evans tortured himself over “material delays” — stone from Italy; switches for the building’s fiber-optic network; light fixtures; LED screens, and “clock progress,” according to a hand-scrawled note found on his desk a day before his March 17 suicide.

Moynihan Hall “could be in jeopardy,” he wrote. “The schedule was very aggressive to begin with.”

But the hall opened on time, nine months after Evan killed himself in the bedroom of his Chelsea home.

The concept for a giant train hall across from Madison Square Garden was born decades ago, when late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan first proposed repurposing the giant post office. Evans began working on the project in 2011, and tried to keep it on budget and on time.

Although outwardly confident and professional, he worried about his future after the project.

“I am trying to set up this funding solution with the ESD head, in a way that if it doesn’t work out, I can plausibly just say to him I have to resign because I cannot continue to sign change orders for things we will not be able to pay for,” he wrote in a March 4 text, referring to Eric Gertler, president of Empire State Development, one of his bosses. “I have let him know repeatedly that we have to make it happen to cover all these additional costs.”

Michael Joseph Evans was born on March 11, 1980, in Cali, Colombia. He moved to Dallas with his mother when he was 4 months old to join his civil-servant father, according to his obituary in the Dallas Morning News.

His mother was a devout Catholic, and had Evans baptized and confirmed in Dallas, and enrolled him in several small church schools. The obituary says he went to boarding school at St. Andrews School in Middletown, Delaware, where the movie “Dead Poets Society” was filmed in the late 1980s.

His parents scraped together the funds to send him to the private school — a sacrifice Evans never forgot, a friend told The Post. He went on to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania on a wrestling scholarship, although he completed his undergraduate degree in history at the University of Sydney in Australia. He earned a master’s degree in international relations from Oxford University in 2005, according to his LinkedIn page.

In New York, he began a career in state government in the administration of Gov. David Paterson, becoming special assistant for infrastructure and economic development in 2007. Friends say he was passionate about public works and creating ways to make cities more livable, and in his spare time pored over books by journalists Jane Jacobs and Robert Caro. In 2009, he became chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch. By 2011, he was appointed deputy director of the Moynihan Station Development Corp., and became president of the public-private consortium to build the station in 2013.

“Michael was a dreamer,” said Brian Lutz, his longtime partner who met Evans when they were both students at Oxford. “He believed in public service and the possibilities that it presented to do great things for humanity. He was fascinated with public space. He also believed in the goodness in people.”

Lutz said that delays and potential cost overruns dominated the last two weeks of his life, even as the couple took a ski vacation in Austria to celebrate Evans’ birthday shortly before his death. The couple scrambled to return to New York after many countries went into coronavirus lockdown. “He was constantly worried that he was going to be scapegoated,” he said. “We constantly talked about how to manage it.”

While Lutz said his partner had no history of mental illness, friends and colleagues said Evans had difficulties with his family over his life in New York. He had never openly discussed with his parents that he was in a relationship with a man, friends said. While the obituary mentions numerous relatives in Colombia and the US, it leaves out Lutz, who was his romantic partner for more than 16 years.

When Cuomo and Gertler unveiled Moynihan Hall on Dec. 31, Lutz publicly lashed out at the governor. “He died by suicide … after being terrorized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo,” read one of the tweets that Lutz has since deleted.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo met with Evans several times over the course of three years.

But those close to the project said that Evans rarely spoke to the governor, and reported directly to Rick Cotton, the governor’s former point man for state infrastructure projects in the city. Evans last met with the governor in Sept. 2019, in a group meeting with other officials on the project, according to state records.

But the governor — who had met with Evans in group meetings five times in three years, according to his official schedule — acknowledged the magnificence of the new public space and Evans’ contribution. “This is a work of art in a way we don’t build anymore: it’s almost too ambitious, it’s almost too beautiful, it’s almost too breathtaking, to think that we could do this,” Cuomo said at the ribbon-cutting for the hall last month, thanking Evans, “who really put his heart and soul into this project.”

The massive project, which had faced starts and stops over the nearly 30 years after Moynihan first proposed it, was finally completed with no cost overruns.

“He had a level of calm and confidence,” said one of the sources of Evans. “He was a perfectionist and a professional who always conveyed a sense of having everything under control.”

Gertler also reserved special praise for Evans in public comments at the unveiling: “He was smart, dedicated, detail-oriented,” he said. “We will forever think of him when we step foot in this hall.”

In recognition of his hard work on the project, members of the project team affixed a small plaque honoring Evans for his vision and leadership on a marble pillar. It reads “In memory of Michael Joseph Evans, President of Moynihan Station Development Corp. Leader Visionary Friend.” The view of the plaque was blocked by a temporary hand-sanitizing station. It was moved by state officials after Saturday night after The Post pointed it out.

Evans would not live to see the completion of his life’s work.

“I have tried to make Moynihan beautiful and get done ahead of schedule,” he wrote in an undated, hand-scrawled note found addressed to one of his work colleagues in his room shortly after his suicide. “But I got out over my skis. I have been grappling with how to fix. But I cannot. I am sorry I failed you and Eric and the governor’s team. Try to forgive me someday if you can.”

 

[B35 via Church]

Quote

Moynihan Train Hall czar killed himself as pressure mounted for Cuomo’s jewel project

By Isabel Vincent

January 9, 2021 | 6:18pm | Updated

In the days before he hanged himself, it was the clock that kept Michael Evans up at night.

President of the public-private consortium, Moynihan Station Development Corp., Evans, 40, had already spent the better part of his professional career working on the conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into the gleaming, light-filled $1.6 billion train hall at Penn Station, which opened Jan. 1.

The Art Deco clock, which is suspended from the center of the 255,000-square-foot waiting area for Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road, was not part of the original renderings for the station. Evans, a handsome Oxford grad who was passionate about public service, was forced to scramble when officials demanded a centerpiece clock with less than a year to go before the monumental project’s scheduled completion date, his partner said.

In the last weeks of his life, Evans tortured himself over “material delays” — stone from Italy; switches for the building’s fiber-optic network; light fixtures; LED screens, and “clock progress,” according to a hand-scrawled note found on his desk a day before his March 17 suicide.

Moynihan Hall “could be in jeopardy,” he wrote. “The schedule was very aggressive to begin with.”

But the hall opened on time, nine months after Evan killed himself in the bedroom of his Chelsea home.

The concept for a giant train hall across from Madison Square Garden was born decades ago, when late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan first proposed repurposing the giant post office. Evans began working on the project in 2011, and tried to keep it on budget and on time.

Although outwardly confident and professional, he worried about his future after the project.

“I am trying to set up this funding solution with the ESD head, in a way that if it doesn’t work out, I can plausibly just say to him I have to resign because I cannot continue to sign change orders for things we will not be able to pay for,” he wrote in a March 4 text, referring to Eric Gertler, president of Empire State Development, one of his bosses. “I have let him know repeatedly that we have to make it happen to cover all these additional costs.”

Michael Joseph Evans was born on March 11, 1980, in Cali, Colombia. He moved to Dallas with his mother when he was 4 months old to join his civil-servant father, according to his obituary in the Dallas Morning News.

His mother was a devout Catholic, and had Evans baptized and confirmed in Dallas, and enrolled him in several small church schools. The obituary says he went to boarding school at St. Andrews School in Middletown, Delaware, where the movie “Dead Poets Society” was filmed in the late 1980s.

His parents scraped together the funds to send him to the private school — a sacrifice Evans never forgot, a friend told The Post. He went on to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania on a wrestling scholarship, although he completed his undergraduate degree in history at the University of Sydney in Australia. He earned a master’s degree in international relations from Oxford University in 2005, according to his LinkedIn page.

In New York, he began a career in state government in the administration of Gov. David Paterson, becoming special assistant for infrastructure and economic development in 2007. Friends say he was passionate about public works and creating ways to make cities more livable, and in his spare time pored over books by journalists Jane Jacobs and Robert Caro. In 2009, he became chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch. By 2011, he was appointed deputy director of the Moynihan Station Development Corp., and became president of the public-private consortium to build the station in 2013.

“Michael was a dreamer,” said Brian Lutz, his longtime partner who met Evans when they were both students at Oxford. “He believed in public service and the possibilities that it presented to do great things for humanity. He was fascinated with public space. He also believed in the goodness in people.”

Lutz said that delays and potential cost overruns dominated the last two weeks of his life, even as the couple took a ski vacation in Austria to celebrate Evans’ birthday shortly before his death. The couple scrambled to return to New York after many countries went into coronavirus lockdown. “He was constantly worried that he was going to be scapegoated,” he said. “We constantly talked about how to manage it.”

While Lutz said his partner had no history of mental illness, friends and colleagues said Evans had difficulties with his family over his life in New York. He had never openly discussed with his parents that he was in a relationship with a man, friends said. While the obituary mentions numerous relatives in Colombia and the US, it leaves out Lutz, who was his romantic partner for more than 16 years.

When Cuomo and Gertler unveiled Moynihan Hall on Dec. 31, Lutz publicly lashed out at the governor. “He died by suicide … after being terrorized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo,” read one of the tweets that Lutz has since deleted.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo met with Evans several times over the course of three years.

But those close to the project said that Evans rarely spoke to the governor, and reported directly to Rick Cotton, the governor’s former point man for state infrastructure projects in the city. Evans last met with the governor in Sept. 2019, in a group meeting with other officials on the project, according to state records.

But the governor — who had met with Evans in group meetings five times in three years, according to his official schedule — acknowledged the magnificence of the new public space and Evans’ contribution. “This is a work of art in a way we don’t build anymore: it’s almost too ambitious, it’s almost too beautiful, it’s almost too breathtaking, to think that we could do this,” Cuomo said at the ribbon-cutting for the hall last month, thanking Evans, “who really put his heart and soul into this project.”

The massive project, which had faced starts and stops over the nearly 30 years after Moynihan first proposed it, was finally completed with no cost overruns.

“He had a level of calm and confidence,” said one of the sources of Evans. “He was a perfectionist and a professional who always conveyed a sense of having everything under control.”

Gertler also reserved special praise for Evans in public comments at the unveiling: “He was smart, dedicated, detail-oriented,” he said. “We will forever think of him when we step foot in this hall.”

In recognition of his hard work on the project, members of the project team affixed a small plaque honoring Evans for his vision and leadership on a marble pillar. It reads “In memory of Michael Joseph Evans, President of Moynihan Station Development Corp. Leader Visionary Friend.” The view of the plaque was blocked by a temporary hand-sanitizing station. It was moved by state officials after Saturday night after The Post pointed it out.

Evans would not live to see the completion of his life’s work.

“I have tried to make Moynihan beautiful and get done ahead of schedule,” he wrote in an undated, hand-scrawled note found addressed to one of his work colleagues in his room shortly after his suicide. “But I got out over my skis. I have been grappling with how to fix. But I cannot. I am sorry I failed you and Eric and the governor’s team. Try to forgive me someday if you can.”

Oooof.... I couldn't Imagine wanting to kill yourself over this creep:

[Lex]

4 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Oooof.... I couldn't Imagine wanting to kill yourself over this creep:

I can, considering he's the "Great" Micromanager and has a tendency to f*ck up a straightforward project. (Even now, he's micromanaging COVID vaccine distribution, letting most doses spoil unnecessarily.)

[B35 via Church]

3 hours ago, Lex said:

I can, considering he's the "Great" Micromanager and has a tendency to f*ck up a straightforward project. (Even now, he's micromanaging COVID vaccine distribution, letting most doses spoil unnecessarily.)

More power to you then..... I'm not killing myself over anybody.

[GojiMet86]

...And Cuomo wants to extend the High Line to the Moynihan Train Hall

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/nyregion/moynihan-station-high-line.html

 

Quote

 

$60 Million High Line Expansion to Connect Park to Moynihan Train Hall

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will propose a 1,200-foot elevated pathway that will lead to the new Penn Station development, to be financed by public and private funds.

 

By Mihir Zaveri and Daniel E. Slotnik

Jan. 11, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ET

For more than a decade, the High Line, an elevated park that stretches for nearly a mile and half through the West Side of Lower Manhattan, has been a symbol of ambitious urban renewal: a sleek, tree-lined walkway created from an old run-down rail line that cuts through once-industrial neighborhoods.

Before the pandemic, it had become a major New York destination for residents and out-of-town visitors alike, drawing about eight million people in 2019.

And now, the park, which showed how the city could reinvent itself and reimagine decaying spaces, is to be expanded.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday that the High Line will be extended to connect to the newly opened Moynihan Train Hall, a project that he said help spur development in the surrounding neighborhoods and boost an economy facing a deep crisis because of the pandemic.

The new link, officials said, will provide an alternative way to access the new station, which serves Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad. It’s part of a broader package, including the new train hall and improvements sought for Pennsylvania Station, that seeks to improve the experience of taking mass transportation into and out of New York City.

“Traffic has reached impossible levels, and it’s never been efficient or effective,” Mr. Cuomo said in an interview. “But it’s clear that if the metropolitan area is going to grow, mass transit has to be better, safer, more pleasant, especially in this new world.”

A 1,200-foot elevated walkway will connect the existing High Line at 30th Street to a pedestrian path at Manhattan West, a mixed used development adjacent to the train hall.

State officials could not provide a specific timeline on when construction on the expansion would start or when they expected it to be complete.

The Moynihan station, which opened on Jan. 1 — a $1.6 billion building complete with over an acre of glass skylights, art installations and 92-foot-high ceilings — is just one in a series of ambitious infrastructure projects, including the Second Avenue Subway along the Upper East Side of Manhattan and a rebuilt La Guardia Airport, that the governor is seeking to make a prominent part of his legacy.

The state is also eyeing another possible expansion of the High Line to connect it north to Pier 76 on West 38th Street, where Mr. Cuomo wants to turn a Police Department tow pound into another park. The existing High Line travels 1.45 miles from 34th Street south to Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District.

But expanding the High Line raises questions about spending at a time when the state faces a major financial crisis. And the High Line, while a boon for the city, is an amenity that is little used by low-income residents and people of color.

Still, the governor believes the park’s growth is important to the city’s future.

“F.D.R. believed in building large infrastructure projects to lift the economy,” Mr. Cuomo said. “But there was another purpose, which was to lift people’s spirits. If you lift the spirits, you lift the economy.”

Mr. Cuomo plans to formally announce the expansion on Monday during his State of the State address.

The High Line project started after two men — Joshua David, a writer, and Robert Hammond, a painter — met at a community board meeting in 1999 and discovered they shared an interest in saving a railroad trestle that had been out of commission since 1980 and was slated for demolition.

Construction began in 2006, and the first section, from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, opened to the public in 2009. The third phase — what was then considered the final phase — opened in 2014, stretching the elevated walkway from 30th Street to 34th Street, looping around the Hudson Yards development.

The project has been celebrated worldwide, but it has also been expensive, with construction and maintenance almost exclusively financed through private funds. The most recent leg of construction cost $35 million. The first two sections of the High Line cost $152 million, city officials estimated.

State officials estimate the connector between the High Line and Moynihan Train Hall would cost about $60 million, though that figure could change.

Mr. Cuomo said one-third of it would be financed by the state; another third would come from Brookfield Properties, the developer of the mixed-use development next to the train hall; and the remainder would come from nonprofit groups and other private organizations.

Mr. Hammond, a founder of the Friends of the High Line, said the money had not yet been raised. He said he was skeptical at first about the new project. “I felt like the High Line is the High Line and it doesn’t need more,” he said. “Really what got me excited about it was it being this civic connector.”

Mr. Cuomo, acknowledging that the state was facing severe financial difficulties because of the pandemic, said that its portion of the cost would come from infrastructure funds that could not be used to help address budget shortfalls. He said the state was also expecting aid from the federal government for infrastructure projects after Joseph R. Biden Jr. becomes president.

The High Line has hastened a transformation in the West Side of Lower Manhattan, a part of the city that for decades was lined with working-class homes, light industrial business and storage facilities for clothes, meat and mail.

It has enchanted tourists and helped spur the development of luxury high-rise buildings.

A 2012 study from the New York City Economic Development Corporation said that between 2003 and 2011, property values near the park increased 103 percent.

But the park has also drawn criticism that it is contributing to the displacement of lower-income people and people of color living in the surrounding neighborhoods. Mr. Cuomo noted that there would be no displacement of actual buildings during the expansion.

One of the groups that has criticized the High Line is Save Chelsea, a coalition devoted to preserving the neighborhood’s character.

Pamela Wolff, Save Chelsea’s treasurer, who is 85 and has lived in Chelsea since 1956, said on Sunday that life in the neighborhood had changed greatly since the High Line opened.

She said that the High Line led to a constant crush of tourists and expensive new condominiums that priced out longtime residents.

“It has been difficult finding a way to live with that kind of influx into the community,” Ms. Wolff said.

As for the extension, Ms. Wolff said, “I don’t see why we would have strong objections to it,” as long as no historic structures were destroyed to build it.

Proponents of the expansion include Brad Hoylman, a state senator whose district includes the High Line. He said on Sunday that “to do it right is always going to be more expensive, but I think at the same time these are once-in-a-generation projects.”

Mr. Hoylman said that engaging with the community would be critical, as it had been since the park’s first development.

“I think the reason why the High Line was so successful is that it was created at the community level and had involvement by neighborhood stakeholders from day one, so we should most certainly replicate that model with this new connection,” Mr. Hoylman said.

 

 

[bobtehpanda]

2 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

More power to you then..... I'm not killing myself over anybody.

People really need to know when it's quittin time. Too many people in this country live to work.

Looks like Andy was justified in skipping town. (We already knew that but I didn't realize someone was literally going to kill themselves.)

[B35 via Church]

32 minutes ago, GojiMet86 said:

...And Cuomo wants to extend the High Line to the Moynihan Train Hall

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/nyregion/moynihan-station-high-line.html

Of course he does....

23 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

People really need to know when it's quittin time. Too many people in this country live to work.

Looks like Andy was justified in skipping town. (We already knew that but I didn't realize someone was literally going to kill themselves.)

Absolutely justified.... I don't think there was a person on here (at least) that wasn't sympathetic to the BS he had to put up with, before he decided to willingly bid himself adieu from his former duties here..... As for the other guy (Evans), I mean, there isn't all the people-pleasing perfectionism & professionalism in the world worth perishing over... Screw that..... And for this egotistical, tyrannical nutcase Cuomo??? Man, don't make me laugh......

[bobtehpanda]

So, in a vacuum, and if we didn't have a budget crisis, this actually wouldn't be the worst idea, because walking to Hudson Yards/Javits requires you to cross lots of heavy Lincoln Tunnel traffic. 

To me this would basically serve the same purpose as the Fulton-WFC connector.