BLIGHT IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER:
The Future of Penn Station
Text and Photos by Allan Kew
The Pennsylvania Station neighborhood, with its narrow valleys of 20th century office and apartment buildings, experiences a daily rush of foot traffic to and from the train station. These tens of thousands passing through support the many street vendors, bars, sit-down restaurants, and souvenir shops. And when it’s center, Madison Square Garden, holds a game or an event, the neighborhood, is electric.
Yet New York state’s authorities insist the neighborhood is blighted – Governor Kathy Hochul called it a “skid row neighborhood” – and must be razed and redeveloped to create a new Pennsylvania Station train hub. The state’s plan to build ten office and residential towers would displace 214 area residents and destroy historic buildings and cultural spaces. However, pandemic-induced shortfalls in demand for office space caused the developer, Vornado Realty Trust, to retreat from the project – but opponents say the plan isn’t dead yet.
“I’ve got sweat, blood and tears in this house for 40-something years. I built it myself,” said, Eugene Sinigalliano who has lived on West 30th Street in a 16-story building since 1979. He intends to pass down his rent-controlled apartment to his son. But if it’s razed, he has nothing to give him.
He and a coalition of residents and businesses are fighting to remain in the neighborhood, but ultimately theirs is a fight over what informs the neighborhood’s character and future. They launched a lawsuit to annul the plan and zoning for the project, arguing the state’s blight designation is faulty and that it failed to demonstrate how the plan will pay for Penn Station’s redevelopment.
Developers advertise Penn Station’s future as the heart of a “NEW New York.” Photo Allan Kew
Eugene Sinigalliano displays a protest sign he used at demonstrations against the current plan to redevelop Penn Station. Photo Allan Kew.
His block once formed the northern edge of the fur district, and although today some furriers remain in business across the street from the proposed demolition zone, most of that history was forgotten as its participants grew older and died. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, at a time when the city nearly went broke, artists took advantage of the area’s cheap rent and empty spaces to convert lofts into apartments, sound rooms and studios. Sinigalliano’s building on West 30th – which he rents from – attracted musical luminaries like Harry Belafonte, Sting and Buster Poindexter.
Lawrence Wheatman, a musician and photographer and Sinigalliano’s neighbor, said the city was more affordable and more “egalitarian” in those days.
“We were all together,” he said. “This building was completely filled with people who knew each other. And from the beginning we were helping each other.”
He said spaces like theirs don’t exist anymore. “Places like this disappeared so fast.”
Seven older households remain in their building, protected by the 1982 Loft Law, which forced buildings illegally converted into residences into compliance with state and city housing codes. Sinigalliano is the only one with a child.
The St. John the Baptist Catholic Church on West 30th St. operates a food bank and holds regular masses. It faces demolition. Photos Allan Kew
One at-risk landmark is 151-years-old St. John’s Catholic Church. On Wednesdays it operates a food pantry next door, with a line of 30 or so people stretching several dozen feet back. Douglas Martins, 40, and his three sons have recently struggled with food insecurity. They live nearby and visited the pantry three times.
“They’re not thinking about other people,” said Martins.
There are many longtime businesses and cultural centers likewise slated for demolition, including the 40-year staple Molly Wee Pub, an Irish bar on the corner of West 30th and 8th Avenue. Down the street is Urban Stages, a 20-year-old off-Broadway theater. They have resided at their current location since 2001, and produced a variety of Tony Award winners and Broadway actors. There are also a variety of 20th century office and apartment buildings, all providing a sense of lively character to this part of Midtown.
In conjunction with Vornado Realty Trust, Empire State Development, New York’s economic development agency, first released its proposal for a new Penn Station neighborhood in February 2021. The plan involved demolishing eight sites surrounding Madison Square Garden to build up to ten towers. In Empire State Development’s June 2022 Environmental Impact Statement, the state tied the city’s post-pandemic recovery to the project’s economic windfall from major construction and expensive rentals.
That plan – partially contingent on Federal approval to develop a southern expansion to Penn Station for Amtrak – outlined two options, one being a commercial scenario that prioritizes office space and reserves one building for housing. The residential scenario would split 1,798 apartments across four towers. Only thirty percent of units in either scenario would be permanently affordable.
251 West 30th - colloquially known as the “Music and Arts Building” - housed many music and art luminaries and now faces demolition. Photo Allan Kew.
Most agree Penn Station’s infrastructure needs structural overhaul beyond the ongoing renovation. Residents and others argue Madison Square Garden, which sits atop the underground train station, should be torn down to rebuild an above-ground train station. Recently the city gave the Garden a three-year permit extension, with the expectation the Garden’s owners will move the stadium.
Instead, state authorities proposed building around the Garden. In a 2021 assessment study of the neighborhood commissioned by the state, the state promoted the narrative that the neighborhood is blighted and requires redevelopment. That makes its demolition and reconstruction conveniently optimal for simultaneously rebuilding Penn Station. The study shows Vornado has “controlling interest in 14 properties, totaling 887,316 sf or 62.7 percent of the land acreage within the study area,” and claims “multiple property owners can be an impediment to redevelopment of an area.” To execute their proposal, the state would likely instigate eminent domain cases – cases when the state can legally seize property – against those unwilling to leave.
Lawrence Wheatman thinks back on his eclectic and famous neighbors in his building on West 30th that could be demolished. Photo Allan Kew.
Thomas Angotti, professor emeritus of urban policy and planning at City University of New York, is critical of blight designations. He believes eminent domain cases promote developers and land speculation at the expense of the disempowered.
“Blight is in the eye of the beholder,” said Angotti, using an oft-repeated phrase by experts. “It’s based on subjective assessments.”
Craig Barnes stares toward Madison Square Garden from his art studio on West 30th, in a building facing demolition. Photo Allan Kew.
The state claimed the redevelopment would help pay the $7.5 to $10 billion cost to revamp Penn Station, according to a 2022 study produced by Reinvent Albany, a government accountability advocacy group. But the pandemic derailed demand for office space, leading Vornado to temporarily withdraw from the project. Manhattan’s office vacancy rate was 16.1% in 2023’s first quarter, according to a March 2023 report by real estate firm JLL.
Penn Station’s neighborhood is active and vibrant, despite Governor Hochul referring to it as a “Skid Row neighborhood. Photo Allan Kew.
Vornado’s CEO Steve Roth’s past comments likewise undermine the neighborhood’s blight designation. In a 2010 lecture at Columbia University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Roth explained his strategy behind securing government backing for certain types of projects.
“Why did I do nothing? Because I was thinking in my own awkward way, that the more the building was a blight, the more the governments would want this to be redeveloped; the more help they would give us when the time came.”
No alternative plan has been proposed yet, and Empire State Development and Vornado did not respond to request for comment.
Alongside West 30th’s older buildings are cultural centers, like B&D Halal and the Urban Stages off-Broadway theater. Photos Allan Kew.
Past redevelopments that relied on blight designation have also courted controversy, including the Atlantic Yards project that created Barclays Stadium. Later renamed Pacific Park, the project used its designation to justify eminent domain to displace residents and businesses.
A circa-2000’s mail brochure advertising Atlantic Yards - later known as Pacific Park - in Brooklyn, a controversial development that created the Barclays Stadium and mixed-use buildings at the cost of the pre-existing neighborhood.
Scars remain for 79-year-old Patti Hagan, who organized with local residents and businesses against Bruce Ratner, then part-owner of the Brooklyn Nets, and Forest City Realty Trust. They appealed to the court system to dispute the designation and prevent eminent domain.
“The criteria they used for eminent domain was so screwy. If there's a crack in the sidewalk, that could put you up for demolition, if there's a crack in the wall, or the window, if the wall is irregularly sized - that's reason for eminent domain,” she said. “We put up quite a fight.”
Patti Hagan, who fought against Atlantic Yards, toured through the new Pacific Park neighborhood in Brooklyn and displayed photos of the neighborhood it replaced. Photos Allan Kew.
Ultimately they lost. The courts allowed the state to buy out residents.
Among the displaced were Dominican, Puerto Rican and Italian families and businesses, as well as Holocaust survivors. The state noted in a 2014 study that 410 residents were displaced by the project; Hagan’s private survey showed a thousand people were at risk of displacement. This community informed the neighborhood’s nature, from its gardens to its historic buildings, and according to her most did not return.
What can be lost is ephemeral to residents and observers. Beyond the physical – demolition and displacement – lie primal concerns like home and identity. Craig and Mary Barnes, both 78, live with the fear of eviction from their 40-year-old apartment on West 30th.
“We’re really living day to day not knowing if we’re going to be here, and it’s a terrible way to spend your late years,” said Mary. “We hoped to die here.”
A circa-2000’s protest flyer made by “Don’t Destroy Develop Brooklyn” community group against the Atlantic Yards project. Photo Allan Kew.
Mary Barnes peers out her window at the style of skyscrapers that would replace her building on West 30th. Photo Allan Kew.
But Craig, a graphic artist, is insistent that more will disappear than just people.
“Culture! Everybody’s saying, ‘oh, people are gonna lose their homes,’” said Craig. “And that’s true. But there’s the culture that goes with it.”
