{"id":202946,"date":"2026-04-20T02:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T02:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202946\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T02:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T02:48:08","slug":"nyc-has-once-in-a-lifetime-chance-to-create-a-new-penn-station-maybe-with-trumps-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202946\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC has once-in-a-lifetime chance to create a new Penn Station — maybe with Trump’s help"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to having a hometown builder-in-chief in the White House<\/a>, New York has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create an iconic landmark in the dingiest part of Midtown that would rival Rockefeller Center, Central Park or the Empire State Building.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the squalid underground rathole we call Penn Station<\/a> would become an uplifting experience for the hundreds of thousands of downtrodden commuters who feel disrespected every day when they pass through.<\/p>\n

But the long-promised Penn Station redevelopment still may end up as a mediocre compromise because of the big stumbling block of Madison Square Garden, which sits right on top of everything, like King Kong dressed as a giant trash can.<\/p>\n

James Dolan, who owns the Garden, did not respond to inquiries Friday, but previously he has been adamant that his prize building is staying where it is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m not gonna move Madison Square Garden<\/a>, he said in 2023. \u201cIt\u2019s in a good place right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of at least three plans submitted to the federal Transportation Department\u2019s beauty contest for the redevelopment, only one \u2014 backed by the Grand Penn Alliance \u2014 involves moving Madison Square Garden to a vacant block across the road to make way for a soaring classical architectural masterpiece even better than the beautiful landmark that was demolished in 1964 \u2014 and its proponents say it won\u2019t take any longer to build.<\/p>\n

Trump loves MSG<\/p>\n

After news broke last month that Trump was open to the idea of replacing Madison Square Garden<\/a> with a state-of-the-art new arena across the road, he received an Oval Office visit from two high-powered old friends from New York who had other ideas.<\/p>\n

Dolan and property developer Steven Roth, who owns most of the land surrounding Penn Station, including the old Pennsylvania Hotel site where the proposed new Garden would be built, did not respond to questions Friday about what was discussed.<\/p>\n

But the president told me on the phone over the weekend that he doesn\u2019t want to move Madison Square Garden, which he loves, because it has \u201cthe best sightlines, the best sound\u201d of any arena in the country. He says he has looked at \u201chundreds of plans\u201d for Penn Station and prefers a more modest proposal that keeps the Garden where it is, wrapped in a more attractive facade, and demolishes the attached Hulu Theater to build a beautiful new entrance hall on Eighth Avenue. \u201cIt just makes sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also said that it was not his idea to name the new building: \u201cTrump Station.\u201d <\/a>Dolan and Roth proposed the name to him during the meeting, saying that the transportation unions would be in favor because they are fans of the president.<\/p>\n

But with the final decision set to be made by next month, New Yorkers who have set their hearts on the Grand Penn proposal are hoping to convince the president that the other proposals are mere \u201cfacelifts\u201d that are like putting another layer of lipstick on a pig.<\/p>\n

The bidders are all under a gag order from Amtrak until the deliberation process is finished. But one proponent of the grand plan, who asked not to be named, said that Dolan would be getting a brand new arena for free, which would bring him as much as $200 million extra revenue a year without a moment\u2019s downtime.<\/p>\n

The new arena could be up and running before the Garden was demolished. \u201cYou could walk the crowd across the road at halftime,\u201d and not skip a beat<\/p>\n

\u2018Bigger and grander\u2019<\/p>\n

In its place would be built a grand train hall that echoes the McKim, Mead & White architectural treasure that was demolished in 1964, with reconfigured platforms for optimal flow of trains and passengers. It would make the commuter experience a pleasure rather than an affront.<\/p>\n

He also pointed out that it\u2019s much easier and faster to construct a new building on the Garden site than to try to refurbish the station with a working stadium above and trains running below.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be like building a ship in a bottle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And the end result will be subpar, because Madison Square Garden sits right on top of the station. Its hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete and steel are supported by massive columns that thread down through the platforms and train tracks below, making it impossible to change their configuration.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump is the only human being on earth who can make this happen,\u201d says Tom Klingenstein, the financier and New York philanthropist who has spent more than $4 million to help develop plans for the Grand Penn vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president\u2019s name deserves to be on a big, beautiful building that\u2019s grander than Grand Central<\/a>, not on the equivalent of an English basement train hall,\u201d he said. \u201cUnder our plan, the new Trump Station will be appropriately bigger and grander than Moynihan Station across Eighth Avenue, which was named after the Democrat who made it \u00adhappen.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNew York will also get the greatest sports stadium in the country and a huge community park \u2014 and it won\u2019t take any longer to build.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a huge mistake when we took down the old Penn Station, and we all know it. Here is an opportunity to make amends,\u201d Klingenstein added. \u201cOur plan is complete, and we are now ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only sticking point is money. The grand plan will likely cost more than the $6 billion to $8 billion estimated cost for the more modest plans.<\/p>\n

But with Japan on a promise to Trump to pour $550 billion into infrastructure spending in the US, surely investment in a grand new Trump icon in the heart of the city is more exciting to the Japanese than paying for another natural gas plant in Ohio.<\/p>\n

We are always told not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But this is New York, the city of big dreams, in the land of infinite possibilities. We should go for broke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to having a hometown builder-in-chief in the White House, New York has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4709,153,12614,222,9,56,63,65,64,299,7968],"class_list":{"0":"post-202946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-central-park","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-empire-state-building","11":"tag-madison-square-garden","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-opinion","18":"tag-penn-station"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}