The NY Sun reports Madison Square Garden officials will just renovate the existing arena instead of being a part of the city and state's ambitious Moynihan Station plans. An MSG spokesperson said, "Madison Square Garden has decided to move forward with our renovation previously announced in 2004. After exploring several alternatives, it has become clear that the only viable option is a renovation. Details will be available in the coming days. Madison Square Garden......

The Friends of Moynihan Station shared a rendering of what Moynihan Station will look like, according to NY State. According to FMS, the Empire State Development Corporation has been "reluctant" to share them, but FMS thinks "looks great," though there's a lot that needs to be explained. The Observer broke down what's in the rendering:In the bottom of the picture is the Farley Post Office with a new Madison Square Garden in the rear.......

Just because Mayor Bloomberg has denied running for governor in 2010 doesn't mean it has to be true! The Sun's Davidson Goldin thinks that for Bloomberg, "Running for governor is likely, and becoming more so." Why? Well, though the mayor and Governor Spitzer have tried to be cooperative, Albany is involved in many plans the Mayor has a stake in, such as congestion pricing, OTB, and the Javits Center, not to mention Moynihan Station and......

Less than two weeks after Gov. Spitzer publicly reaffirmed his commitment to going forward with plans to construct Moynihan Station despite a $1 billion funding shortfall, it looks like the matter may be out of his hands. The New York Times is reporting that the whole $14 billion project, which would involve building Moynihan Station at The Farley Post Office building and constructing a new Madison Square Garden on the site, is on the brink......

The fate of the Moynihan Station in the James Farley post office building remains up in the air and it's unclear whether Madison Square Garden will also relocate to the Farley building. If MSG moves, plans say the old MSG would be razed and a new train tracks would be put on top. The Municipal Arts Society's New Penn Station campaign shares a plan from students (at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture's Historic Preservation Program)......

Have some extra cash to spend around the holiday season? Even the littlest bit can go a long way in the over 80 year old Operation Santa program. Every year letters pile up at the James A. Farley Post Office from (mostly needy) kids writing to Santa Claus (read one of them here). Their wish lists don't make it to the North Pole, but with New Yorkers pitching in every year, it's as if they......

The MTA has apparently narrowed down the list of contenders to develop the West Side Rail Yards - and may even ask them to team up together. According to Crain's New York, the MTA favors the developers who have already lined up tenants. Which means the front runners are The Related Companies with News Corporation and Goldman Sachs, Durst & Vornado with Conde Nast, and Tishman-Speyer with Morgan Stanley. But front runners may need......

Will Macy's give its regards to Broadway? The NY Times reports that the developers who are trying to redevelop the James Farley Post Office building into the new Moynihan Station "are in the early stage of negotiations with Macy’s" to move from the store's landmark Herald Square location to the Farley building on Eighth Avenue. Charles Bagli's article summarizes the progress of the Penn Station redevelopment and Farley-into-Moynihan Station project: It's complex, given the......

Yesterday, state officials released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station/New Penn Station project. The actual 93-page PDF is online for the public to peruse, and, yes, the plan is to move Madison Square Garden into the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue and possibly move to U.S. Post Office's operations to the current Penn Station (we highlighted those moves). Say it with us: UGH. The Sun calls this plan "a test for......

The state released the draft scope for the Moynihan Station project today, and while the details have yet to be finalized, The New York Sun outlines the document's major components. Madison Square Garden will be moved into the rear of the Farley Post Office Building, which will be renamed Moynihan Station. A remade Penn Station will be renamed Moynihan East and will feature a sky-lit train hall surrounded by a million square feet of retail......

NY state officials are expected to release the draft scope for the Moynihan Station's environmental impact statement today, which the NY Sun calls the "Spitzer administration's first public display of forward progress" on the project. The redevelopment of Penn Station into a Moynihan Station at the James Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue has been in the works for years. In fact, it was October 8 five years ago that the state officially acquired......

Our neighbors to the west broke ground today on a new stadium for the Giants and Jets at the Meadowlands. Rather, officials officially broke ground today, since it's obvious to anyone that's been to the Meadowlands that construction on the new two-team stadium has already started. The $1.3 billion stadium will be jointly owned by the two teams and make both feel at home, unlike Giants Stadium, which irritates the Jets and their fans.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 101st Ave. in Queens, a boat in distress at the Gateway Marina off Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and an "unusual occurrence" on Wall St. in Manhattan. Brownstoner notes the arduous bureaucratic effort to get DUMBO landmarked, and developers' rush to build before that can happen. The NYPD is initiating TOMS––Total Order Maintenance Sweeps––aboard Metro-North and LIRR trains to deter terrorists commuting from the suburbs, after......

In keeping with the earlier report this week, the planned conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into a new transit center, the Moynihan Station, moved a step closer to reality. Yesterday, the Public Authorities Control Board voted to approve spending $230 million to buy the post office. While the PACB has approved this and politicians are patting themselves on the back, we doubt the drama will be over. Last October, Assembly Speaker Sheldon......

It's difficult to know quite what to say about the huge transformations on the horizon for the Far West Side. That's partly because major negotiations and plans regarding the future of Madison Square Garden, the Farley Post Office, the Javits Center, the 7-train extension, and rezoning are taking place behind closed doors. Another reason is the uneven pace at which the planning proceeds-- years of plodding speculation followed by the sudden unveiling of a proposal,......

After Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver blocked Governor Pataki's Moynihan Station plans last October, we wondered how Governor Spitzer would take up the task and spar with Silver. To refresh your memory, Spitzer's problem with Pataki's Moynihan Station plans was that they were incomplete, given that developers had more extensive ideas about a Farley Post Office and Madison Square Garden revitalization (known as "plan B"); Pataki, on the other hand, wanted to get the plan A......

NY State Assembly Speaker Sheldon has done it again: NY1 reports that Silver has delayed ruling on the Atlantic Yards project because "he still has financial questions." The NY Sun had a story today about growing pressure for Silver to delay the vote, given outcry from not just civic groups like the Municipal Art Society, Regional Plan Association, Citizen's Union, and National Resources Defense Council, but other politicians as well. Brooklyn Papers also adds that......

- The NY Times reports that the Democratic party will decide on where the 2008 convention will be held either tomorrow or Monday. New York and Denver are the finalist cities; while Denver is attractive for its swing-state quality, NYC can guarantee better "financing, hotel rooms, entertainment space, logistical support and labor union cooperation." - The Politicker has the U.S. Attorney's flow chart detailing how NY Senator Efrain Gonzalez allegedly stole money from federal funds......

The Cablevision Dolans are planning to sink their claws into another Manhattan space: The Beacon Theatre. A long-term lease has been negotiated between the theater's owner and MSG Entertainment - one that has MSG paying much more than the current tenant, which may mean the Beacon's ticket prices would go up even more. It's expected that MSG would renovate the theater as well as "beef up the Beacon's current roster of concerts with corporate events......

Newsday has a good article looking at the transportation issues the next governor will deal with - the biggest being the MTA. The MTA, which already announced fare hikes for next year, faces insane budget deficits in the coming years: $905 million in 2008, $1.13 billion in 2009, $1.48 billion in 2010. The Straphangers' Campaign's Gene Russianoff says of the MTA, "They borrowed a ton of money to fix a system, and now the bill......

Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver did the expected thing at a state Public Authorities Control Board meeting to discuss the Moynihan Station: He refused to support it, ensuring that the city is at least another year away from starting a new transportation hub for NJ Transit and LIRR commuters. Well, we guess Governor Pataki's decision to delay a vote didn't work out very well, but it's not like Silver would suddenly be convinced in three......

-- Damn you Sheldon Silver! Once again, the Assembly Speaker has delayed any kind of progress on Moynihan Station. -- And now that tragic Brooklyn hate crime case has been elevated to murder. -- Can you imagine being snowed in a Buffalo airport with Eliot Spitzer? -- About time. Those police cars stationed at the ends of the Brooklyn Bridge will soon be replaced by cameras. -- Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person......

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is probably turning in his grave right now. Plans for the Moynihan Station have been "derailed" as plans to discuss it have been postponed. Officials had been hoping that the Public Authorities Control Board would approve the project this year, so it would happen under Governor Pataki's term. But with opposition to and many questions surrounding the project, the NY Times reports "the Pataki administration took the proposal off the table......

Both the Observer and the NY Sun look at the slow development process for the Moynihan Station, a project long discussed but stuck in development hell. We think the Observer's sub-headline says it all: "Silver Stops Projects, And There’s Not Much Putzy Governor Can Do; Gargano in Full Gear; Snarled by Property Shuffle With Vornado and Related." To translate: Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver is delaying the project, and since Governor Pataki is a lame duck,......

Oh, Bloomie, Bloomie, Bloomie. Mayor Mike shot an arrow at State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer yesterday on his weekly WABC radio address. After Spitzer has moved to slow/stop/co-opt a number of his and Pataki's larger projects (read: The city's planned purchase of the West Side Rail Yards from the MTA and Moynihan Station) Bloomberg made it very clear that he thinks Spitzer needs to just let elected officials do their job: "The tendency when......

Some of the folks working on the neverending story that is the Moynihan Station (aka the new Penn Station) are starting to publicly complain about the politcal developement hell that it has become. In a letter to State economic czar Charles Gargano developers Steven Roth and Stephen Ross wrote that "the functional heart" of the station "will have its own independent utility... and therefore there is no reason to delay." In otherwords, even if......

And once again Moynihan Station has hit a bump in the road. The Times today has a story on the newest set of roadblocks for the oft-delayed station. After years of delays the problems plaguing the station can still be summed up in one word: Politics. We've been waiting for the Farley Post Office to be transformed into a grand entryway to the City in the manner of the Old Penn Station for some......

There's a really good article in the Observer about how the Moynihan Station may now be a new fight between the city, state, and some important real estate bigwigs. The developers in charge of the project want to move Madision Square Garden to the Ninth Avenue part of the Farley Post Office lot (Moynihan Station will take the Eighth Avenue side); the Dolans who own MSG will only move if they get tax breaks......

They say that history repeats itself, but this is re-dunk-u-lous. Moynihan Station, the long-planned Penn Station expansion into the Farley Post Office that is intended to make up for the destruction of the late, great, original Penn Station (above) hasn't even been built yet but developers are already vying to build a new Madison Square Garden on top of and around it. And yes, this would be MSG number 5 for those of you......

Metro has an interview with ESDC chairman Charles Gargano, who says he wants to get "Brooklyn Bridge Park up to a level where work can begin in early ’07." Interestingly enough, a bunch of civic groups and the Sierra Club have joined together and sued to stop construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park over the inclusion of high-end real estate. Originally, the plan was to put 700 condos in to offset some of the park's......