New renderings for the upcoming redesign of the Port Authority Bus Terminal offer a glimpse into Hell's Kitchen's future, depicting a cluster of towering buildings in the southern part of the district.
Before-and-after renderings presented by the New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) on behalf of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey show what streets near the new terminal will look like.
The main terminal, scheduled for completion by 2032, will rise 160 feet on 9th Avenue between West 40th and 41st Streets, more than double the height of the current 70-foot terminal. Future buses carrying commuters and tourists will pass over it on their way to New Jersey.
The terminal's bridge would begin 55 feet above the boulevard and include retail space at ground level. Ben Huff, DCP's senior transportation project manager, argued at a City Planning Commission review meeting May 28 that raising the bridge would improve pedestrian access. At the same time, the Ninth Avenue skyline would be dramatically altered.
Between West 40th Street and West 39th Street, a labyrinth of at least eight bridges would cross 10th Avenue, an 800% increase from the current single bridge.
The Port Authority plans to start by constructing a storage and waiting facility that will serve as a temporary bus terminal while the new main terminal is constructed. Once all construction is complete, the facility will house the buses that currently line the roads around the terminal, waiting for their next trip of the day.
The new transfer station, scheduled to be built by 2028, will rise 168 feet above W. 40th Street at Dyer Avenue adjacent to Metro Baptist Church, blocking all eastbound traffic on the street. As W42ST previously reported, the new structure will block much of the church's sunlight and threaten its rooftop urban farm.
Notably, Huff made no mention at all in his 84-slide presentation of Hell's Kitchen (or Midtown West), which the old and new terminals would traverse. “The land use surrounding the project site is primarily high density commercial,” he explained.
“It's a great location for transportation,” Huff says, “with Times Square and the Theater District to the north, Javits Convention Center and Hudson Yards to the west, and Penn Station and Moynihan Train Hall to the south,” but it doesn't have Hell's Kitchen.
When W42ST shared renderings of the new bus terminal, nearby residents and commuters on the street had mixed feelings about it.
“I can't imagine anything that wouldn't be improved,” one local resident said after viewing the images.
Mamie, a visual artist, lives and works in Hell's Kitchen and has a studio on the 15th floor on 39th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues.
“It looks huge,” she said of the image, “and it's so tall that it makes you realize that the view from my studio won't last very long.” The north-facing windows of her studio now overlook Hell's Kitchen, just north of the bus terminal.
She's generally pleased with the bus terminal's upgrades and isn't too worried about the prospect of construction continuing until at least 2032. “It feels like the whole city has been a construction site for the last 10 years,” she says. “That's what I expected.”
A commuter in Teaneck, New Jersey, who asked to remain anonymous, offered a much simpler suggestion for the Port Authority Bus Terminal: “Just clean it up” rather than building an entirely new facility.
“I think that money should be spent on other things, like affordable housing,” she said of the project's $10 billion cost. “The service is good, everything's fine. All we need to do is clean it up.”
The Port Authority has promised in plans and renderings that it will provide the community with public green space, but that won't happen until 2040 at the earliest. That will happen in the third phase of the redesign of upper Dyer Avenue between West 39th and West 37th Streets. Initially, it will be covered and used as scaffolding for construction equipment.
The bus terminal redesign is currently in the early stages of the city's Uniform Land Use Review process, which will require input from borough presidents, the Community Board, City Council and ultimately Mayor Adams.
The Port Authority is scheduled to provide an update at two Manhattan Community Board 4 meetings on Wednesday, June 12 and Tuesday, June 18, when the public will also have a chance to provide input on the massive infrastructure project.
*All renderings courtesy of the New York City Department of City Planning
