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President Donald Trump said he’d take a plan to rebuild Penn Station and relocate Madison Square Garden seriously if the arena’s influential owner is willing to play ball, according to sources familiar with the talks.
A delegation of politically connected Trump supporters floated the plan during a closed-door Oval Office meeting in September that has not been previously reported. If approved, their proposal would transform Midtown by moving the Garden from its location atop Penn Station, which serves 600,000 daily riders.
The meeting took place months before Amtrak, which owns the massive transit hub, announced the nonprofit’s plan as one of three finalists for the station’s overhaul.
The meeting and decision to move the proposal forward signal the president is considering the option to move the storied arena, according to four sources who have knowledge of the Oval Office meeting but asked not to be named because they were not permitted to disclose details.
The group represented the Grand Penn Community Alliance, a nonprofit financed by wealthy conservative donor Thomas Klingenstein. The attendees told the president their proposal would restore the station to its former glory, before it was torn down in the 1960s to make way for the Garden, the sources said.
The proposal, made public last March, would redesign the train hall’s entrances with Greco-Roman columns, install a large clock and deck the space with a glass roof that lets in natural light.
Under the nonprofit’s proposal, the arena’s current site would be replaced by a fountain and green lawn between the new Penn and Moynihan Train Hall. The 19,000-seat arena would move across Seventh Avenue.
By President Donald Trump said he’d take a plan to rebuild Penn Station and relocate Madison Square Garden seriously if the arena’s influential owner is willing to play ball, according to sources familiar with the talks.
A delegation of politically connected Trump supporters floated the plan during a closed-door Oval Office meeting in September that has not been previously reported. If approved, their proposal would transform Midtown by moving the Garden from its location atop Penn Station, which serves 600,000 daily riders.
The meeting took place months before Amtrak, which owns the massive transit hub, announced the nonprofit’s plan as one of three finalists for the station’s overhaul.
The meeting and decision to move the proposal forward signal the president is considering the option to move the storied arena, according to four sources who have knowledge of the Oval Office meeting but asked not to be named because they were not permitted to disclose details.
The group represented the Grand Penn Community Alliance, a nonprofit financed by wealthy conservative donor Thomas Klingenstein. The attendees told the president their proposal would restore the station to its former glory, before it was torn down in the 1960s to make way for the Garden, the sources said.
The proposal, made public last March, would redesign the train hall’s entrances with Greco-Roman columns, install a large clock and deck the space with a glass roof that lets in natural light.
Under the nonprofit’s proposal, the arena’s current site would be replaced by a fountain and green lawn between the new Penn and Moynihan Train Hall. The 19,000-seat arena would move across Seventh Avenue.