Is Criticism of Trump Over Riding Plans for Penn Station?

Andy Byford is up to his eyeballs in every aspect of transforming Penn Station, from how trains enter and leave the station to who, exactly, will pay for the rebuilding.

Every aspect, that is, save one: “My focus is on getting this station rebuilt. Any debate about names, I’m leaving to the politicians. I’m not going there.”

He was responding to a question about whether naming the station after President Trump would be a good idea.

“A question I’m often asked,” Byford replied, before running as fast as he could away from it.

The moment, during an interview with Errol Louis on NY 1 was a window into the divisive politics that has emerged as the biggest challenge hanging over this project–a schism that some government officials and advocates are beginning to fear could scuttle the entire effort.

The fight, which burst into public view in recent days, is about more than just whether Donald Trump’s name should replace that of a long defunct railroad on the station.

Where you stand on that specific question hinges on whether you are in the camp that sees Trump as the vital patron of a long-thwarted effort, or a corrupt meddler whose purpose is to enrich his cronies.

If there is a third rail in the effort to transform Penn Station, it is the role, even the presence, of the developer in chief, Donald J. Trump.

“Had a less self-dealing president decided to give the federal government a greater role in the Penn Station redevelopment, I would enthusiastically partner with officials and stakeholders on the project,” Representative Jerrold Nadler wrote.

Nadler leads a group of Manhattan Democrats who say that since the federal government took over the project last year, Trump has played an improper role, meeting with both the largest property owner in the neighbor, Steven Roth of Vornado Realty, and the owner of Madison Square Garden, James Dolan, who will be paid hundreds of millions of dollars from the government under the plan Byford and his federal colleagues have selected.

Ironically, that plan, from a consortium called Penn Transformation Partners, was one Nadler and many of his fellow Democrats favored before they now opposed it. https://www.ourtownny.com/news/joint-press-conference-by-politicos-turns-into-debate-over-penn-station-plans-BY2724065

In a blistering opinion piece in the New York Times, Nadler explained that since the Feds took over the Penn Station project from the state’s MTA the process of selecting the private partner and estimating the costs and funding has been opaque.

“Mr. Trump’s record here is clear. He has repeatedly attacked New York City transportation and infrastructure, attempting to roll back congestion pricing, withhold the Gateway tunnel funding and block transit security funding that would help prevent terrorist attacks. We cannot let him do so again by using the renovation of Penn Station as just another one of his vanity projects.”

Nadler, a west side Democrat, has a long history with Trump, a former New York developer. As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Nadler twice led impeachments of Trump for actions during his first term. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.

But they collided long before.

“The argument Congressman Nadler makes against the Penn Station project,” observed Paul Goldberger, the veteran architectural critic, “remind me of his actions decades ago when he blocked federal funding to sink the highway in front of the Riverside South project on the West Side, which would have created a magnificent riverfront park for all New Yorkers, solely because putting the highway underground would also likely have had the secondary effect of increasing the value of real estate that Donald Trump at that point owned.”

Goldberger is moderating a discussion at the Century Association next week about the new Penn plans with, among others, Byford and the architect of the design, Vishaan Chakrabarti.

“Nadler is not just missing the forest for the trees,” Goldberger said. “In opposing the current Penn Station plan, which is a first-rate design by a first-rate team, he is actively working against the public interest.”

Samuel Turvey, who has advocated for years for a new Penn Station, although not actually the one now being offered, was so concerned that the partisan fighting would scuttle the entire effort, that he appealed at a public meeting of the Gateway Commission for a reset of the debate

“Can I promise President Trump won’t interfere in or disrupt the process?” Turvey told the commission, which is rebuilding the tunnels and tracks that will lead to Penn Station. “No. But while we all negotiate that terrain, let’s have honest conversations and not cynically use anti-Trump sentiments as a blank check to paint distorted pictures about Penn Transformation Partners or Andy Byford. Let’s move forward. Resolving Penn Station is long overdue, and these tunnels and the proposed station will positively transform our future for many generations to come.”

While Vornado Realty, which wants to build a luxury office tower across seventh avenue from a rebuilt Penn Station, is a partner in the consortium that won the project, Turvey noted that “even a cursory review of the firms which constitute the Penn Transformation Partners effort reveals that some of the finest and most experienced infrastructure firms in the world are part of the effort and have received work during both Republican and Democratic Administrations–hardly hacks and cronies.”

The consortium is led by ASTM, the American subsidiary of the Italian firm, Halmar, and by Skanska, the Swedish construction firm.

Penn Transformation Partners was the winner among three finalists. Indeed, one of the losers, the Grand Penn Alliance, was even more closely aligned with Trump, funded in large part by supporters who have embraced his call for a return to classical architecture in Federal Buildings. Their losing bid has not been disclosed.

The PTP proposal low keyed any appeal to Trump. In the architects’ renderings, the name remains Pennsylvania Station and The President was recognized only on a seal carved on an entry way inside the station, which Peter Cipriano, the ceo of PTP, noted was commonplace in big government infrastructure projects.

Cipriano was an official in the US Department of Transportation in Trump’s first term.

For his part, Byford, is trying to step carefully through the political minefield to show that the benefits of federal leadership out weigh the risk.

“I’ve made it clear that if we are to achieve the transformed station the president wants it needs to come with a very big check from the federal government,” Byford said. He described his job as corralling the disparate stakeholders and building a business case for the project, which federal statements have said will cost about $8-billion.

A fundamental challenge is that, so far, no accounting of Byford’s very big federal check has come close to $8 billion. In his opinion piece, Nadler noted that an effort to include $1 billion dollars for Penn station in a Defense spending bill was stalled.

Byford has said he hopes both New Jersey and New York state, as well as New York City, will kick in. New Jersey has been working closely with Byford, but New York state has held the process at arm’s length and Gov. Kathy Hochul withdrew $1 billion that had been set aside when Trump took the project away from the MTA. She is now spending it on a rail link connecting Brooklyn and Queens.

“The president has been very clear he really wants this done,” Byford said. “He’s a New Yorker. He’s a developer.”