Quote:
Originally Posted by curnhalio
Good Lord, Cablevision spent nearly a billion dollars renovating the entire seating bowl and concurses of MSG, and had spent most of it by the time this was voted on! And now it has to be torn down and a new plot of land (tons of those in Manhattan, I hear...) has to be found for a new arena in eight years??
If they are working on turning the Farley building into the main plaza for Penn Station, then why the fuss to reclaim a grand building on its current plot?
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Typical dysfunctional NYC politics. There was a plan to relocate the Garden elsewhere and create a modern Penn Station on the existing site from around 2007 or so, but the 2008 recession scuttled that. So Dolan invested nearly a billion on renovating the Garden in place, only to be hit with this. Even Bloomberg, not the most reasonable of mayors, wanted a 15 year permit issued, but the crazies prevailed and he got 10.
That document you referenced offers up a couple of alternate sites for a new Garden, but of course it all depends on money. The existing MSG always struck me as a poorly-designed space both in terms of the arena and of course in terms of the subterranean station, though at the time it was built, nobody was using the old Penn Station much. That has now changed with commuter traffic.