Enterprise homeowners round Penn Station are racked with fear over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to grab and raze properties within the space as a way to make method for 10 new skyscrapers.
The state’s Empire State Growth Company is anticipated to vote within the coming weeks to approve the plan that officers concede will displace 473 companies and 128 households.
The scheme, backed by Mayor Eric Adams, would use tax revenues from the brand new workplace towers to fund aesthetic renovations at Penn Station, the nation’s largest transit hub.
Native retailers, who’ve heard solely rumblings in regards to the plans, instructed The Submit they’re involved about what could possibly be in retailer for his or her neighborhood.
“This pub is my livelihood and my life principally,” mentioned Angela Reilly, the 68-year-old proprietor of Molly Wee Pub at Eighth Ave. and thirtieth Road.
Reilly — who opened the bar along with her late husband greater than 40 years in the past — first heard whispers in regards to the state’s plans to bulldoze her complete block a 12 months in the past.
However she has not been formally notified of the destiny of a constructing she owns, which homes the pub and 7 residential tenants who stay above .
“They should renovate Penn Station however they don’t want to remove the entire block,” she mentioned.
Hochul inherited the trouble from ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In November, she mentioned the state had decreased the dimensions of the towers by 7 p.c — however didn’t stroll again Cuomo’s plan to side-step town’s zoning course of to grab and destroy privately owned buildings.
Neighborhood teams and authorities watchdogs have accused the governor of diverting billions in much-needed tax income that might now as a substitute line the pockets of property developer Vornado Realty Belief. Vornado CEO Steven Roth and his household have given tens of 1000’s of {dollars} to Hochul’s reelection marketing campaign.
“There needs to be sufficient room to have the perfect of previous and new. They simply don’t wish to hear that,” mentioned Samuel Turvey, an architect preventing the challenge beneath the moniker ReThinkPennStationNYC. “They’re like locusts, they’ve this insatiable urge for food.”
Turvey’s group pegs the variety of residences and companies to be impacted at 6,000 and a couple of,000, respectively — a lot greater than the state’s estimates.
Different historic buildings that might be demolished beneath the plan embody the Resort Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue, the Gimbel’s Skybridge over thirty second Road and a church that’s house to a number of Franciscan friars.
Rocker Steve Marshall, 71, fears New York will lose a bit of music historical past if his soundproof recording studio — the place Madonna laid down tracks earlier than she was a one-name celeb — have been to be destroyed. The studio overlooking Madison Sq. Backyard was certainly one of 100 on West thirtieth Road.
“Virtually each main musician in New York has both lived, rehearsed or recorded on West thirtieth Road,” he mentioned.
When Marshall moved into the constructing in 1976, punk rock band Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone lived on the 2nd flooring whereas Eric Clapton, Roberta Flack and Paul Simon’s drummer Steve Gadd lived on the fifteenth flooring.
“I really feel like Jennifer Lawrence in ‘Don’t Look Up’ operating round warning folks to not knock down these buildings with a lot music historical past,” Marshall added, referring to the 2021 Netflix film.
Up the road at 307 West thirtieth Road is a brownstone from 1876 that shops the family tree information for greater than 100,000 Lithuanians who moved to the US from 1886 to 2012.
The nonprofit Lithuanian Alliance of America (LAA) has occupied the brownstone for the previous 112 years. The placement was the primary port of name for newly arrived Lithuanian immigrants earlier than they boarded trains at Penn Station sure for coal mines in Pennsylvania, metal mills in Pittsburgh or inventory yards in Chicago.
“If we misplaced this constructing, we’d lose our historical past,” LAA board member Antanas ‘Tony’ Dambriunas mentioned. “Greater than 100 years of our historical past and tradition can be gone. Generations of reminiscences can be gone. It might damage.”
The Molly Wee isn’t the one storied watering gap threatened by the redevelopment.
After serving beers for 17 years inside Penn Station, sports activities bar Tracks was turfed out in 2019 to make method for the present renovations. The homeowners weren’t financially compensated by the state.
Three days after Tracks homeowners reopened their bar throughout the road from Penn Station, Cuomo launched plans to bulldoze Tracks’ new house on West thirty first between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. If Tracks is kicked out once more to make method for brand new workplace towers, the bar homeowners will be unable to afford to begin over for a 3rd time.
“We might get thrown out by the MTA once more,” co-owner Michael O’Brien mentioned. “After COVID, and with the economic system like it’s, we couldn’t afford to open a 3rd place.”
“It’s been a protracted highway and it’s all very unsure, which is irritating.”
ESD spokesman Matthew Gorton mentioned the plan set for a vote by ESD doesn’t really entail any property seizure — as a result of the properties not already owned by the builders can be handled individually by whichever authority will get tasked with increasing Penn Station southward.
“Whichever Railroad entity is answerable for displacement, ought to it come to that, might want to present relocation help in strict compliance with relevant legal guidelines and procedures,” Gorton mentioned in an electronic mail.
The properties already owned by Vornado comprise about 150 completely different companies that may shutter when the developer builds its skyscrapers, with a whole bunch of workers.
O’Brien, the proprietor of Tracks, expects to know extra after the first election wraps up on Tuesday. ESD’s board will vote on the plan in July 2022, Gorton mentioned.
Barfly Abe Figuero, 73, has been consuming on the Molly Wee Pub since 1988, which has turn into a “second house.” He threw his retirement get together there earlier this month.
“Test the hearts of the folks on this neighborhood they usually’ll be devastated to lose this pub,” Figuero mentioned.
“The folks right here have turn into like household.”
