Transit officials from several New York City-area agencies are talking about a new Penn Station by 2035, but that’s far too late for Charles Moerdler.
Moerdler, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member, ranted about the station during the board’s Long Island Rail Road committee meeting on Monday.
“Twenty-two years is too long to put up with that garbage dump,” said Moerdler, a board member since 2010 and a partner at law firm Strook & Strook & Lavan LLP. “Amtrak won’t do anything, the city of New York won’t do anything, New Jersey Transit won’t do anything,” he said.
Moerdler favors a subcommittee that can recommend a five-year plan “or default to our lessors. Clean that place up. That place is awful.”
Amtrak, the MTA’s subway lines and LIRR, and New Jersey Transit all use Penn Station.
What to do with the station – and Madison Square Garden that sits above it – has become a hot-button topic among urban planners.
