NYC protesters hold ‘funeral’ for buildings Hochul plans to raze near Penn Station for donor Steve Roth
Over 100 protesters held a mock funeral Tuesday for the buildings Gov. Kathy Hochul plans to demolish around Penn Station to make way for a campaign donor’s new office towers.
The demonstrators staged 50 coffins on the steps of the James A. Farley Building on Eighth Avenue — across the street from the transit hub — to represent the “ghosts” of the dozens of homes and historic buildings set for demolition under the plan.
“These are the addresses of the remaining buildings that will be torn down, they are before you in these coffins,” Alison Greenberg of the Historic Districts Council told attendees.
“We don’t mock death and we don’t take it lightly, but this is serious,” Greenberg said. “These buildings are serious and what is happening here is very, very serious.”
Hochul’s plan to allow the construction of 10 new skyscrapers — including five by her campaign donor Steven Roth — will displace 473 businesses and 128 households, according to state estimates.
Buildings and landmarks set for demolition include the abandoned Hotel Pennsylvania, the famed Gimbel’s Skybridge, a brownstone occupied by the nonprofit Lithuanian Alliance of America since 1910 and several popular bars and pubs.
The plan — which was hatched by ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo — includes a $1.2 billion tax break for Roth’s Vornado Realty Group, government watchdogs estimate.
Tuesday’s protest included speeches by two impersonators of the twentieth-century Manhattan neighborhood activist Jane Jacobs, who faced off in the 1960s against Robert Moses over his ultimately canceled plan to build the Lower Manhattan Expressway.
A jazz band run by West 32nd Street recording studio owner Steve Marshall performed, as did a folk singer who strummed “This Land is Your Land” and Patti Smith’s “People Have the Power.”
“I gotta tell you, this feels like a fight against Robert Moses all over again,” Jacobs impersonator Beth Griffith, 70, of Manhattan said. “This time, we have another man who has a plan to throw thousands of people out of their home … This time we have a billionaire developer who has bought and paid for government support.”
The state Public Authorities Control Board in July approved financing plans that will give big tax discounts to Vornado and any other developers of the 10 new towers.
Hochul has said the state will use the money collected from the developers to pay for Penn Station renovations and other related work.
