After successfully securing the air rights over the former Penn Station and negotiating with Pennsylvania Railroad to provide a smaller station below ground-level in 1962,the then- Madison Square Garden Arena owners demolished the former Penn Station (an architectural gem along the same lines as Grand Central). Now, 50 years after construction, MSG’s special operating permit has expired, and opposition is mobilizing to renew their permit for only another 10 years in order to allow the City to develop alternatives to the current configuration (including forcing MSG to relocate), in order to expand the station’s capacity and redress an architectural blunder. The growing kerfuffle raises endless questions over how to successfully integrate ethics and values into policy analysis; The situation is a morass of value-based, ethical, and financial concerns, and whether (and how) officials choose to integrate unquantifiable values into their analysis of the situation may effectively choose their position, and their side, for them.
· How should policy makers balance the interest of MSG against the rights of Penn Station users and businesses? This question alone is fraught with potholes, questions of corporate citizenship, and quantitative concerns.
· What are the interest of the riders and the businesses? After all, the station clearly works, albeit in an inefficient, overcrowded, and non-aesthetic fashion. Do values such as architectural quality and aesthetics (and the importance of first impressions on visitors) have a place in government decisions, especially ones which demand the City to be as pro-active and combative as this? Can those values be integrated into a cost benefit analysis, as Charles Wolf Sr. believes? Or are they incompatible, as Douglas Amy believes? If they are incompatible, does that mean that advocates for a New Penn Station are operating without the benefit of an analysis, or does their analysis validate a New Penn in some form? Or are officials such as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer merely acting in their own best interests as elected officials who have disgruntled constituencies?
· Would City officials be acting irrationally for waxing sentimental about the Old Penn Station, a mere fifty years after allowing it to be demolished, or do they have a right to change their minds and pursue whatever option will best support the quality of life and pride-of-city of New Yorkers? On that note, is MSG is a source of valid City pride, or it is merely an edifice of the booster spirit supporting Molotch’s and Logan’s City-As-Growth-Machine theory? If it is the latter, does the City have an obligation to rebel against its own complicity in value-less City building? (If it is the former, then are we back to square one?).
· Or is it possible that the entire debate be fairly captured in financial, efficiency, and capacity terms (i.e., dry and rational terms), as the demand for enhancing Penn Station is derived from a three-fold increase in Penn Station’s ridership since the existing station was designed? How would the (possibly inefficient) desires of the crunched, pushed, crowded, and stifled riders (such as increased waiting areas, fresh air and sunshine, formal music performance areas, or luggage storage) fit in?
The owners of MSG and the riders both have claims in this growing conflict; as MSG's Vice President for Communications puts it, “The Garden — a company that has recently invested nearly $1 billion in its arena and helps drive the city’s economy by supporting thousands of jobs and attracting hundreds of annual events — is being unfairly singled out because of a decision that was made 50 years ago: to demolish the original Penn Station.” In this scenario, the choice of whether to explicitly integrate values and ethics into the City’s analysis may force City officials to take the side of the riders, and not, as Amy describes, simply go with the most feasible and cost effective option ( which would most probably renewing MSG’s special use permit indefinitely and acceding to the status quo) and then justify it on technical grounds.
-References-
Amy, Douglas. Why Policy Analysis and Politics are Incompatible. 1984. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.
Logan, John R. and Harvey L. Molotch. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. 1987. University of California Press.
Dunlap, David. Madison Square Garden Says It Will Not Be Uprooted From Penn Station. New York Times Online. Retrieved from: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/madison-square-garden-says-it-will-not-be-uprooted-from-penn-station/
· How should policy makers balance the interest of MSG against the rights of Penn Station users and businesses? This question alone is fraught with potholes, questions of corporate citizenship, and quantitative concerns.
· What are the interest of the riders and the businesses? After all, the station clearly works, albeit in an inefficient, overcrowded, and non-aesthetic fashion. Do values such as architectural quality and aesthetics (and the importance of first impressions on visitors) have a place in government decisions, especially ones which demand the City to be as pro-active and combative as this? Can those values be integrated into a cost benefit analysis, as Charles Wolf Sr. believes? Or are they incompatible, as Douglas Amy believes? If they are incompatible, does that mean that advocates for a New Penn Station are operating without the benefit of an analysis, or does their analysis validate a New Penn in some form? Or are officials such as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer merely acting in their own best interests as elected officials who have disgruntled constituencies?
· Would City officials be acting irrationally for waxing sentimental about the Old Penn Station, a mere fifty years after allowing it to be demolished, or do they have a right to change their minds and pursue whatever option will best support the quality of life and pride-of-city of New Yorkers? On that note, is MSG is a source of valid City pride, or it is merely an edifice of the booster spirit supporting Molotch’s and Logan’s City-As-Growth-Machine theory? If it is the latter, does the City have an obligation to rebel against its own complicity in value-less City building? (If it is the former, then are we back to square one?).
· Or is it possible that the entire debate be fairly captured in financial, efficiency, and capacity terms (i.e., dry and rational terms), as the demand for enhancing Penn Station is derived from a three-fold increase in Penn Station’s ridership since the existing station was designed? How would the (possibly inefficient) desires of the crunched, pushed, crowded, and stifled riders (such as increased waiting areas, fresh air and sunshine, formal music performance areas, or luggage storage) fit in?
The owners of MSG and the riders both have claims in this growing conflict; as MSG's Vice President for Communications puts it, “The Garden — a company that has recently invested nearly $1 billion in its arena and helps drive the city’s economy by supporting thousands of jobs and attracting hundreds of annual events — is being unfairly singled out because of a decision that was made 50 years ago: to demolish the original Penn Station.” In this scenario, the choice of whether to explicitly integrate values and ethics into the City’s analysis may force City officials to take the side of the riders, and not, as Amy describes, simply go with the most feasible and cost effective option ( which would most probably renewing MSG’s special use permit indefinitely and acceding to the status quo) and then justify it on technical grounds.
-References-
Amy, Douglas. Why Policy Analysis and Politics are Incompatible. 1984. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.
Logan, John R. and Harvey L. Molotch. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. 1987. University of California Press.
Dunlap, David. Madison Square Garden Says It Will Not Be Uprooted From Penn Station. New York Times Online. Retrieved from: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/madison-square-garden-says-it-will-not-be-uprooted-from-penn-station/
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