| |
|
|
 |
|
 |
Farley Post Office
Manhattan,
New York County
landmark status: Local, State/National Registers
threat: potential
inappropriate, unsympathetic design; loss of architectural integrity
While
reflecting the consensus opinion that there is a need for a new
Pennsylvania Station (named Moynihan Station after its initial
champion), preservation and planning advocates want to protect
the public’s interest as private
corporations start to more heavily influence the design of Moynihan
Station around a new Madison Square Garden. The James Farley Post
Office complex was designed by McKim, Mead and White in two stages.
The
first building, completed in 1913 and facing Eighth Avenue, was
designed to complement Pennsylvania Station, the McKim, Mead and
White masterpiece across the street. This building, known as the
Farley Post Office, has a monumental Corinthian colonnade at the
top of a grand staircase with the famous line: “Neither
snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers
from swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
The Annex
extension of the Farley Post Office, also designed by McKim, Mead
and White, was built from 1932-1934. The architects designed the
Farley Post Office to be seen from all four elevations, applied
pilasters on the 31st and 33rd Street elevations, as well as on
the Ninth Avenue façade, echo the colonnade at Eighth Avenue.
Designed and continuously used as a post office since its completion,
this building retains a great deal of interior details.
objectives: Momentum
for a new Penn Station, now known as Moynihan Station, grew following
Senator Moynihan’s passing in 2003. New York
City’s rezoning of Hudson Yards (8th to 11th Avenues and
30th to 41st Streets) in 2005 allowed for greatly increased development
capacity on the site of the Farley Post Office, Penn Station, and
surrounding blocks. The current plan for the Farley Post Office
redevelopment includes relocating Madison Square Garden to the
Annex space and removing some of the intact interior spaces of
the Farley Post Office, such as the original trusses and western
courtyard wall. Following Metro-North’s example at Grand
Central Station, the preservation community would like the Moynihan
Station Development Corporation, as part of the Empire State Development
Corporation, to turn to the New York City Landmarks Preservation
Commission for a voluntary hearing in the public interest. This
project needs public oversight and careful planning.
|
|
|
