In nominating Pat Foye to be Executive Director of the Port Authority, Gov. Andrew Cuomo also called for consolidating the Moynihan Station Development Corporation - the state agency in charge of developing the new train station - into the Port Authority.

The Port Authority has been involved with Moynihan Station since early 2010, when Gov. Paterson charged it to manage the construction of the station hand in hand with MSDC.

A full transfer to the PA and the likely dissolution of MSDC makes sense as the project moves into a construction phase. (The PA has more experience managing construction than MSDC, most recently at the World Trade Center). A construction management team was recently hired, and construction bids from several prequalified bidders were solicited earlier this month. Bids are due back in early December, and work would begin in the late winter.

In addition to the PA's construction-management experience, the Authority might also be able to provide more funding to Moynihan Station than cash-strapped New York State.

Vin Cipolla, President of the Municipal Art Society said: "Today we celebrate the start of the first phase of one of the most important public works project in the northeast, one that will in the near term create jobs and ease crowding in congested Penn Station, and in the long term improving rail infrastructure and sustainability for the region."

Denise Richardson, Managing Director of the General Contractors Association of New York, said: "Moynihan Station will not only improve transit service at the busiest train station in the country, but this vital project will support hundreds of very much needed jobs in the construction industry. This long awaited project will also lay the groundwork for the economic development of the Farley Post office and the surrounding area and create a grand gateway to New York City."

Peg Breen, President The New York Landmarks Conservancy, said: "The long-awaited start of Moynihan Station is welcome news for New York and the whole northeast corridor. Now we need to ensure that the design of future train hall proves worth the wait."

Full press release from Gov. Paterson's office

Moynihan Station Development Corporation website

New renderings of the project:

DEVELOPMENT BACK ON TRACK?

Some parts of New York feel like they're in a deep, post-apocalyptic funk -- vacant storefronts, pot-holed streets, broken sidewalks, stalled construction sites, garbage-strewn blocks, untended graffiti. Our boom-and-bust city has pulled out of worse before and surely can do so again. But we need government to push hard on its end -- supplying infrastructure in now-fallow neighborhoods and moving forward important projects that have been mired in bureaucracy and strife.

Of these the most important to the city's future is Moynihan Station, the ambitious attempt to convert the old Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue, across from Madison Square Garden, into a glorious new Penn Station. Seemingly moribund since the winter of 2008, Moynihan is back on track now, in part because Amtrak's new chief, former state transportation commissioner Joseph Boardman, agreed to relocate his agency to the new train hall so long as Amtrak could share in future retail revenues. That deal was just struck in December, so that Amtrak is now at last onboard.

In a neighboring but unrelated move, the City Council approved the West Side rail yards rezoning, which will allow the mixed-use development of 13 yards, directly south of Moynihan Station, with commercial and apartment buildings. The redevelopment of the long-fallow, rail-yard-dominated West Side will start in 2010.

Across the East River in Long Island City, Queens, the Economic Development Corporation will begin on-site infrastructure for the Hunters Point South development, which will build 5,000 housing units on 30 acres of prime waterfront. The site is magnificent, but like most of the city's old industrial sites, is bereft of the basics -- sewage, roads, parks. To judge just how quickly and effectively good parks can transform an area, New Yorkers can look to the Brooklyn Bridge Park that, after much contention, will open in 2010.

- Julia Vitullo-Martin, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at the Regional Plan Association

The Senators' Railway Station

After years of starts and stalls, replacing New York City's gloomy, subterranean Pennsylvania Station with an elegant transit hub suddenly looks possible again. Veterans of this project and its many iterations see a glimmer of hope that the grand old Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue can still be converted into a splendid new railroad hall named for the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

That renewed hope is there for two main reasons. First, Washington is handing out money. Second, Senator Charles Schumer, New York's high-energy force on Capitol Hill, has moved the Moynihan project up on his priority list.

In a speech last week to business leaders, Senator Schumer laid out a cogent plan for making the new station come to life. Amtrak's new leadership would have to play a major role and agree to make Moynihan the point of departure and arrival for its Northeast Corridor trains.

As a grand open hall -- more a renovation with a new skylight than some of the dramatic and complicated schemes of the past -- Farley would then become the uplifting gateway to New York City. The overall scheme would also allow for major renovations to the existing Penn Station, now an intolerably confusing maze.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey would also be asked to play a major role. The authority has many items on its to-do list, including rebuilding at ground zero and creating a new tunnel under the Hudson from New Jersey. But as Mr. Schumer and others argue, it makes sense for the authority to coordinate what is essentially a major Midtown transportation project.

Mr. Schumer suggests, rightly, that the authority could contribute at least $1 billion of the money it now has earmarked for city projects. That would be added to $250 million designated for Moynihan that's been sitting in the bank for years. Finally, Mr. Schumer and others want to move swiftly to get their hands on some of the money for high-speed rail and Amtrak included in the new stimulus package.