Underground Palaces

$450 Million for South Ferry Station
Could Go to Other Transit Needs

By Henry J. Stern
June 22, 2004

One thing I have learned in a long and varied career with the City of New York is that the human capacity for error and misjudgment is not lessened by holding high public office. On the contrary, it is probably heightened, because important officials are often called upon to decide matters on which they have little prior knowledge or objective assistance.

Last Friday, as I pondered, weak and weary on the hottest and most humid morning of 2004, I watched Assembly Speaker Silver and Mayor Bloomberg hold a press conference at the Bowling Green subway station (not South Ferry) on what they called a triumph of civic progress achieved through negotiation, the demolition of a swath of historic Battery Park so the MTA can spend $450 million to make the quaint but antiquated 1905 South Ferry station of the old IRT into a two-track straightaway for commuters awaiting trains to Midtown.

The news was trumpeted as the resolution of a purported deadlock. In exchange for $15 million from the MTA in Battery Park improvements, the Assembly speaker would allow the MTA to renovate the station. Staten Island assemblymen demanded the project, since it would make it a tad quicker for their constituents to get to work. Manhattan community boards opposed the plan as wasteful, destructive to the park, and insufficiently mitigated.

For two years, this proposal has been working its way through the obstacle course intended to provide public review. Some community boards adopted resolutions opposing the plan, and legally required public hearings were held, but these proceedings were generally not even attended by the decision-makers; their minds were already made up, most likely by the man whose name is on their certificate of appointment. Most MTA members were chosen by Governor Pataki, a handful (not counting the thumb) by Mayor Bloomberg. The City of New York lost control of its subway and most of its bus lines to the state about 50 years ago.  You can blame, in part, Robert Moses' lifelong disinterest in mass transit.

The South Ferry renovation has been championed by Rep. Vito Fossella, the only Republican who represents a piece of New York City in Congress. His district primarily consists of Staten Island, with a slice of Brooklyn. Mr. Fossella had talked about challenging the mayor in next year’s primary but has apparently backed off, due to pressure from more important Republicans.

There is no doubt that the $450 million would make South Ferry a better station. It would eliminate sharp curves in the tracks, make the station wheelchair-accessible, build additional entrances and exits, and make it possible to board all 10 cars of northbound trains, and get off all 10 cars of southbound trains. If it were free, it should be built.

The problem, however, is that with transit dollars as short as they are, and important capital projects already deferred for lack of funding, it is questionable to spend what will likely end up as half a billion dollars to demolish a charming century-old station, rip apart Battery Park, uproot 60 trees, some of whom (I use the personal pronoun for trees) are old-growth, and close off part of the park for up to five years, primarily to save a minute or two on the morning commute, and to spare people from having to exit, or board, the train through its first five cars.

The difficulties the 1905 station presents — too few staircases, for example — can be remedied at far less expense. The reason that the station is only accessible from the first five cars is that originally, local trains were five cars long, and local station platforms were about 300 feet long, half the length of the 10-car platforms used by express trains. After World War II, voters approved a $500 million bond issue to build a Second Avenue subway, but, shortsightedly, the money was diverted to lengthen station platforms. At that time, sadly, South Ferry was overlooked.

If the city and state were not so financially strapped, and the capital needs of the transit system were not so urgent, the South Ferry renovation could be viewed as a harmless upgrade. But funding is short for capital projects: the need for an Atlantic corridor connector for a one-seat ride from Kennedy Airport to Lower Manhattan, the East Side access project (Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central), and the Second Avenue subway are all competing for appropriations. The $750 million Fulton Street underground mall and station connector, now in the pipeline, might benefit from value engineering, although its purpose is beneficial to riders.

But South Ferry and Fulton Mall, costly as they are, pale beside the most egregious example of extravagance cloaked by the word transportation. That is the $2 billion of federal money that the Port Authority intends to spend for its new Santiago Calatrava-designed station at the former World Trade Center. It will be a magnificent monument, lacking only passengers to bring it to life. Since I maintain the simple notion that people take the subway for rapid transit, rather than for glorious stations, I wonder whether the resources spent on architects, engineers, contractors, and their employees would be better spent elsewhere on the underfunded transit system. Yes, Grand Central Terminal is palatial and now, historic, but it would not make sense to put a station where there are hardly any people to use it.

The argument is made that this is free money, federal funds assigned to Lower Manhattan as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks. It is said that a total of $4.5 billion has been allocated to transportation improvements in the immediate area, and that if this money is not spent, it will fall into some bayou. I believe this money should be spent for capital projects that will improve train service and make it easier for more people to use the system.

The sop of $15 million for Battery Park was, in part, secured by Mr. Silver to obtain his consent to the plan. He had, to his credit, previously written an op-ed opposing the project as submitted. In fact, Silver was the only public official who fought for the Battery, and he deserves credit for that. He is not the villain in this piece — he tried his best to help the park.

If we look closely, we find that the $15 million, which is 3 1/3 % of the project cost estimate today, is far less than the normal mitigation that is paid when a public facility intrudes on a community. When the North River Pollution Control Plant was built from 138th to 145th streets along the Hudson River, over $120 million, or 10% of the project cost, was spent to build Riverbank State Park above the plant. The park serves the community today.

Parks did even better in the Bronx: $200 million was allocated for capital projects in Bronx parks and playgrounds in exchange for consent to build a water filtration plant in the southeast corner of Van Cortlandt Park.

We had expected that mitigation would be about 10% of project cost but in the case of Battery Park, a 22-acre park in serious need of capital improvements (where Chairman William Rudin and President Warrie Price have struggled over the years to raise private and public funds through the Battery Conservancy), all that the Scrooges who run the MTA would part with was 3 1/3%. If the project cost rises, as it usually does, parks’ percentage will shrink further.

Ultimately the decision to build the new station and cut through the park was made by Governor Pataki, with enthusiastic prompting by Mr. Fossella. The governor has assumed, through the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, de facto control of the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan, while the mayor and his deputy, Daniel Doctoroff, devote themselves to Midtown (Jets stadium, Javits Center, Hudson Boulevard), Olympics or not.

Manhattan redevelopment was split between the two potentates to avoid controversy, just as Latin America was divided between Spain and Portugal by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 at 50 degrees west longitude. That is why they speak Portugese in Brazil, and Spanish elsewhere (in little Uruguay, they also speak Portunol and Brazilero).

By putting $450 million into South Ferry and $750 million into Fulton Street, the MTA is showing itself somewhat more interested in stations than subways. This is understandable: stations are finite projects that can be completed and dedicated in our lifetime, maybe even in our terms of office. Subways take decades to complete, if they are not abandoned as the Second Avenue subway was in the 1970's.

As part of the extended labyrinth of meetings now required by law and regulation, the proposal went through a number of hearings, at which neighborhood residents testified, primarily against it. A hearing officer, an anonymous functionary of the MTA, sat in. There is no evidence the hearings made the slightest impression — they could have been held by the old City Council. The process was a legal obligation that required pro forma compliance. It was in no way a genuine inquiry into issues of whether and what to build at South Ferry.

An amusing aspect of Friday’s spectacle was watching the local politicians and wannabes swarming about the Big Fish, trying to get cameo roles in the press conference, or having their pictures taken for their taxpayer-funded newsletters. The seven cameras assembled for the mayor and the speaker caused the throats of a number of the friends of Hymie Shorenstein to produce different tunes than they had previously warbled. In any case, the opera would not be over until they sang.

NOTE: This article, handsomely illustrated, appeared on page 10 of today's New York Sun.