NEW YORK — Madison Square Garden’s location and boundaries are no longer compatible with the operation of Penn Station, the station’s three passenger operators say — a statement likely to complicate the effort by the arena’s owners to extend their permit to operate the structure.
The current Madison Square Garden, which opened in 1968, was built on land opened up by demolition of the above-ground portion of Penn Station. There has been some sentiment to relocate the Garden to allow redevelopment of the station, although arena owner MSG Entertainment is wholly opposed to relocation.
The newspaper West Side Spirit reported Friday’s release of the “Compatibility report” by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Amtrak, and NJ Transit. That report, now available at the New York Planning Commission website, says that while the Garden site plan and loading arrangements may have been compatible with the station in the 1960s, today “MSG’s existing configuration and property boundaries impose severe constraints on the station that impede the safe and efficient movement of passengers and restrict efforts to implement improvements, particularly at the street and platform levels.”
The rail agencies’ report comes just ahead of a June 7 hearing by New York’s Planning Commission to consider extending the MSG permit to operate an arena on the site. The current 10-year permit expires July 24. The New York Post explains that the permit is required to allow events at the arena’s capacity of 19,800; without it, the arena can host no more than 2,500 people.
The Spirit quotes Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development, as telling the MTA board that the MTA had been asked by the planning commission for a report on whether the station and arena were compatable, and says Springer told the board, “we would have to say they are not compatible and not headed in the direction of compatibility.”
The compatibility report outlines seven projects to improve Penn Station that it says require cooperation by MSG Entertainment, owner of the arena, in the form of property swaps, contributions toward costs, or other involvement. “If MSG does not agree to take the necessary steps to ensure compatibility, the required finding of compatibility may not be able to be made by the City Planning Commission and the Railroads may recommend that the new special permit not be granted,” the report states.
A representative for MSG said the company was “disappointed” by the report, “considering howe we have been cooperating throughout this process. This is the opinion of a few and not all stakeholders involved.”
The planning commission will make a recommendation to New York Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Council, which will ultimately decide on the permit.
— Updated June 6 at 9 a.m. with additional details, link to full report.
While I agree it was a bad decision to tare down the old Penn Station and build the new Madison Square Garden in its place. To remove it now may not be the right decision. MSG should have to make a long term commitment to continue to use the Garden for a long term and contribute to some of the improvements to the station. However one positive of the MSG location today is its great location for people to arrive by public transportation from all around the region. The railroads as well as the subway system get much needed off peak ridership due to the ease of getting to or from MSG using public transportation. If government is truly committed to reducing carbon emissions then you do not replace a busy entertainment center easily accessed by electric transit. Then build a replacement where I am sure the operators would demand more parking for people to get to wherever the new MSG would be located and would not be as easily accessible by non polluting transit.
Much of the 1910 Penn Station was dumped in the Jersey Meadows but 50+ years of weathering would preclude rebuilding the station with the original material.
The demolition of Penn Station led to the preservation of Grand Central Terminal..
Curiously the owner of the Philadelphia 76ers NBA team wants to build a new arena over SEPTA’s Jefferson Station in Center City Philadelphia.
The busiest transportation hub on the continent and what is built above? A government building? A massive hotel? A stock exchange? No, an entertainment venue. Not to downplay the human need for diversion but the the long term dynamics of such a decision defy all rationality. Then again the postwar era was exceptionally irrational (no other way to explain away the Edsel). Penn Station New York was too big to justify keeping for a for-profit corporation. But using that space as a temple to recreation? That’s our priority?
Once again New York City is paying the price for a foolish and reckless decision made by greedy real estate interests and a railroad mired in insolvency and bad business practices when the Pennsylvannia Railroad razed the orginal Penn Station in the early 1960s an archtectural wonder and a classic structure. And what did New York City get ? An ugly and disgusting ediface of glass and concrete and symbolic of many sports arenas built in the 1960s. Now that this structure known as Madison Square Garden has outlived its usefulness or so it seems, many costly and wild plans are being drawn up to replace it and not to mention the costs involved and a grandoise scheme to build and add more in an already overcrowed area of Manhattan and where the intrastructure can’t handle any more. I thought that the old post office was taking the place of the orginal Penn Station. which of course could nevertake the place of that grand Temple of Transportation. None of these issues of today would be around or exist had the orginal Penn Station had been kept up and improved upon. But this is the classic example of corporate greed, political influence and money being wasted on a project that isn’t really needed and only brings more congestion, and burdens an intrastrcture network that can’t handle this extra load.
Our European counterparts are far more wiser when you see how thier cities like London and Paris have kept their grand old railroad terminals complete with glass trainsheds and simply improved or added onto what they already have. No new Penn Station or adaption of the orginal will never take the place of or solve the problems created when the grand station was torn down. By the way it would wise for the family running MSG to put some more efffort into improving the two sports teams that they own and call MSG home. Talk about a new arena and it has been more than 20 years plus since a championship or title has been won by either team.
Joseph C. Markfelder
Leaving open the question of whose pocket the money to solve this “compatibility” problem will come from…
MSG will probably use this report to argue for an especially fat government subsidy to acquire real estate and build a new arena, and since the governor of New York just lavished about a billion dollars on her home city of Buffalo to subsidize a new football stadium there, their chances of success seem regrettably good.
PRR BOD probably though decision necessary. Did not take too long for most other persons to know a very bad decision. Bad decisions often are finally corrected. It is time to correct this one and remove MSG completely. The capacity of NYP is going to need to be doubled with the new north river tubes and the possible tunnel bores 5 & 6 under the East river also built.
MSG is not compatible with those additional passenger needs..
Taking down MSG and building something new will be highly disruptive to passengers (as demolishing Penn Station and building MSG was) and will cost many billions that right now don’t exist — thus they should improve what they have.
Madison Square Garden and the vertical box building on 7th Avenue are a 1960s monstrosity from the start. The original Penn Station should be replicated. The foundation and lower levels to the original structure remain intact. So, building from the ground would not be necessary.