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NY Penn station. Why 30 years have not started improvements.

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 4:09 PM

n012944
You seem to be mistaken with who wants to build on top of CUS.  

Unless I'm mistaken too, the BMO Tower isn't going 'on top of CUS' in the sense he meant.  The rendering clearly shows it across the street, doesn't it? 

It would be like saying that the Pan Am building was built on top of GCT because it's over the air rights to the ends of the platforms.  Definitely not the same as the 23-story 'original' to go over the waiting room, or even Breuer's little boxes.

I'm glad you posted this, because I doubt I'd have come across either the greenlighted BMO, or some of the other Goettsch projects referenced in the link, without your having done so.  Good to see the language of pilotis is still alive, even if no more particularly 'well' than when Corb used it.

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Posted by n012944 on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 4:00 PM

CMStPnP

 

 
Shock Control
So let's accept the fact that you and I have different visions for the future of Penn Station, and then maybe we can watch some Hallmark Christmas movies together and drink some hot cocoa. 

   I think Chicago Union Station is the last and if METRA had it's way it would have been torn down as well.   Thank goodness they never got their hands on it.   METRA still wants to sell off Chicago Union Station for demo for the money it can pocket on the immediate sale but Amtrak is standing in it's way currently with it's redevelopment plans and METRA is not interested in those or paying higher fees for a redeveloped CUS.

 

 

You seem to be mistaken with who wants to build on top of CUS.  

https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2019/12/24/the-union-station-tower-is-finally-real/?fbclid=IwAR0RXUx_aoxOE8QBBiIAWAp1YdrcctF-QtFK1I0IYwDDutZqzmgBIYPffdo

 

"For as long as anyone can remember, it’s been lots of discussion but no digging in the West Loop where Amtrak has wanted to add a skyscraper to the Union Station complex since before Amtrak was a thing.  In the last 15 years, we’ve seen at least three different plans for Amtrak skyscrapers that simply never got off the ground.  But that has finally changed."

An "expensive model collector"

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Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 4:47 PM

Aired last night. Quite good and very interesting 

https://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2019/12/metrofocus-august-27-2019/

 

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 1:25 PM

I took my now ex-wife to the Paramus Mall. Once. I blame it on the jug handles. I didn't think I'd ever get home, but you learn you have to turn right in order to turn left. Jeez!

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 1:20 PM

BaltACD
I didn't WANT to be there in the first place,

And now even more than before!  See? It works!

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 12:48 PM

Overmod
 
BaltACD
Having made mistaken turns off the Interstate - you play hell in trying to back track and get back on the Interstate in your intended direction of travel.  I think I traveled about 10 miles to get back to the point where I made the mistake and return to my intended travel path. 

That's a clever way to reinforce the idea that you won't come back!

I didn't WANT to be there in the first place, however, events conspired to force my presence.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 11:54 AM

BaltACD
Having made mistaken turns off the Interstate - you play hell in trying to back track and get back on the Interstate in your intended direction of travel.  I think I traveled about 10 miles to get back to the point where I made the mistake and return to my intended travel path.

That's a clever way to reinforce the idea that you won't come back!

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 10:32 AM

Overmod
There was an article in New Jersey magazine in the latter half of the '70s that said something like "we built an industrial corridor along the major highways so out-of-staters would keep going as fast as possible and not think about invading the many good parts of the state to ruin them".

Having made mistaken turns off the Interstate - you play hell in trying to back track and get back on the Interstate in your intended direction of travel.  I think I traveled about 10 miles to get back to the point where I made the mistake and return to my intended travel path.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, December 16, 2019 3:00 PM

54light15
That is so true- While driving on the Turnpike near Elizabeth, Isaac Asimov's wife called it "Mordor." 

Very likely Bayway.  It qualifies.

There was an article in New Jersey magazine in the latter half of the '70s that said something like "we built an industrial corridor along the major highways so out-of-staters would keep going as fast as possible and not think about invading the many good parts of the state to ruin them".

It does have to be said, though, that even at its worst we never set the Raritan on fire... Wink 

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Posted by Gramp on Monday, December 16, 2019 2:39 PM

The Paramus Mall!  Aackk!  

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Posted by 54light15 on Monday, December 16, 2019 12:11 PM

That is so true- While driving on the Turnpike near Elizabeth, Isaac Asimov's wife called it "Mordor."  

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, December 16, 2019 9:22 AM

Flintlock76
Maybe it's one of those mysteries of the universe

Many things in Jersey are Things Mankind was Not Meant to Know...

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Posted by CMStPnP on Monday, December 16, 2019 4:08 AM

charlie hebdo
Since CUS is owned by Amtrak, it would be pretty hard for Metra to sell it.  

METRA has already launched the Chicago Machine and a heavy Federal based political campaign at the Congressional level to force Amtrak to sell or turn over CUS.    No secret why, even Amtrak knows the ulterior motive.   METRA is using the argument that it can better control the train dispatching but it's really after getting the money for the real estate as it does not want to pay increased fees for using the station to Amtrak or any other owner.   Amtrak even alluded to METRA being a deadbeat tenant and not paying it's share of the upkeep for CUS in the past.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, December 15, 2019 1:44 PM

Agreed!! 

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, December 15, 2019 1:02 PM

charlie hebdo
Although you were lamely attempting sarcasm, paranoia is not a joke, nor is telling someone to take meds. 

That's right, of course.

The 'joke' was in all the people who seemed to be piling on to the subject of FIBs, referencing the older joke (using the popular idea of paranoia) about 'just because you're paranoid doesn't necessarily mean they're NOT all out to get you'.

It's not intended to make fun of clinical schizophrenia or paranoia, and the medicine claim was not meant seriously in any way, but I retract it anyway as needlessly insensitive (and other reasons not needing listing).

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Posted by 54light15 on Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:52 PM

Benny and Shoobie are terms I've never heard before until I read this thread. It's always interesting to learn regional slang which is like professional slang. Isn't foamer professional slang? Here in Toronto, we used to call the suburban kids who came downtown to drink and make fools of themselves "the PMS kids," for Pickering, Mississauga and Scarborough, the residences of such kids who on Friday and Saturday nights get arrested for public drunkeness and other behaviours.  In London, saying "Essex people" refers pretty much to the same type of suburban drunken yobs. 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Sunday, December 15, 2019 10:01 AM

One last thing and I'll let everyone get back to the real topic.

"The origin of the terms 'benny' and 'shoobie' are lost in the mysteries of time..."  

Seriously, it's all conjecture.  "Benny" is supposed to originate from an amalgam of Bergen County, Essex County, Newark, and New York City.  "Shoobie" is supposedly from the habit of Philadelphia residents visiting the Shore with lunches packed in shoeboxes. 

The plain fact of the matter is no-one really knows, and the most diligent research can't uncover the origins.  

Maybe it's one of those mysteries of the universe we're not meant  to know?  Hmm  

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, December 15, 2019 8:08 AM

Overmod

 

 
charlie hebdo
Your attempt to equate a vulgarity (that clearly violates K-bach's terms) with silly, disparaging term used by Jersey Shore folks on folks from Manhattan is pretty far off the mark. 

 

You might at least think about self-medicating for paranoia.Wink  I, at least, am not out to get you.

My comments about bennies and shoobies (which are from locals, not just the sort of Jersey Shore show denizens it's so easy for cultured Chicagoites to contemptuously despise) are in the context of Wayne's remark, which in part emphasized implicitly how much worse "FIB" was than the insult terms used for folks from my part of New Jersey.  It was humor, something more than occasionally lost on the overserious or overly touchy, and nothing more than that.  Clearly I did not equate the use of "FIB" with those words; in fact, I clearly requested that it no longer be used as a patent violation of the published language in the TOS.  Perhaps you did not read that far... oh wait, did you think

 

 
Can we please dispense with the FIB trolling, though?

 

was aimed in any way at you?  I apologize for even leaving that impression.  I admire your restraint in not calling out the multiple posters using that term directly, and it was to them, and others who might want to pile on with the baiting, that the comment was addressed.

 

Agree.  I just do not want to see such a vile insult in any way equated with fun terms like Bennies.  However, since that term now is seen as anti-Semitic, we should refrain from using it. 

My main point about his hatred for Chicago causing him to make contrafactual statements stands. 

Although you were lamely attempting sarcasm, paranoia is not a joke, nor is telling someone to take meds. 

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Posted by Gramp on Sunday, December 15, 2019 7:55 AM

What I know is Chicagoans and Door County, Wi. merchants have had a mutualistic simbiotic relationship. C's think they're getting steals at the expense of the DC merchants. DC M's think they're making out like bandits at the expense of the C's. 

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:49 AM

charlie hebdo
Your attempt to equate a vulgarity (that clearly violates K-bach's terms) with silly, disparaging term used by Jersey Shore folks on folks from Manhattan is pretty far off the mark. 

My comments about bennies and shoobies (which are from locals, not just the sort of Jersey Shore show denizens it's so easy for cultured Chicagoites to contemptuously despise*) are in the context of Wayne's remark, which in part emphasized implicitly how much worse "FIB" was than the insult terms used for folks from my part of New Jersey.  It was humor, something more than occasionally lost on the overserious or overly touchy, and nothing more than that.  Clearly I did not equate the use of "FIB" with those words; in fact, I clearly requested that it no longer be used as a patent violation of the published language in the TOS.  Perhaps you did not read that far... oh wait, did you think

Can we please dispense with the FIB trolling, though?

was aimed in any way at you?  I apologize for even leaving that impression.  I admire your restraint in not calling out the multiple posters using that term directly, and it was to them, and others who might want to pile on with the baiting, that the comment was addressed.

(* Lest I be mistaken for a city snob, I don't much care for that bunch's ways either)

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Saturday, December 14, 2019 10:43 PM

Overmod

 

 
charlie hebdo
Since CUS is owned by Amtrak, it would be pretty hard for Metra to sell it.  

 

That's silly.  The Brooklyn Bridge is much bigger than CUS and people have been selling it for well over a century!  The problem comes when the buyer wants to make money out of their investment ... and that's not likely to ever characterize CUS again...

Can we please dispense with the FIB trolling, though?  Aside from being coarse on a potentially family-friendly forum, it's an explicit violation of the published TOS.

 

I mentioned the facts of who owns CUS because the Milwaukee Road guy once again got it wrong.  As to his use of a vulgarity, take it up with him, not me.  Your attempt to equate a vulgarity (that clearly violates K-bach's terms) with silly, disparaging term used by Jersey Shore folks on folks from Manhattan is pretty far off the mark. 

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Posted by BaltACD on Saturday, December 14, 2019 9:48 PM

Paul of Covington
   Luckily, I don't know what FIB means.   Please don't tell me.

Urban Dictionary will clue you in.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Paul of Covington on Saturday, December 14, 2019 8:59 PM

   Luckily, I don't know what FIB means.   Please don't tell me.

_____________ 

  "A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, December 14, 2019 8:56 PM

Flintlock76
Wow.  And people from New York City, North Jersey, and Philadelphia think they have it rough when the year-round residents of the Jersey Shore call them "bennys" and "shoobies."

That's because it's so silly there's no insult when one of those folks uses it.  That is, unless you deserve it, and then you deserve it.

The Benny thing is a bit like the Sabine being the dividing line between Cajuns to the south and Coonas... well, I can't really say it in full ... north of there.  If you're from north of the Driscoll Bridge you're suspect... but then again, you have to act arrogant like a New Yorker, but not actually be a New Yorker to qualify. Does the "Ben" refer to flashing hundreds, or does it refer to Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, or is it obliquely anti-Semitic?  I don't know but I certainly don't want to be one!  Shoobies are for day-tripper summer people who waltz in and leave the remnants of their shoebox lunch on the beach.  You can see why locals don't appreciate it; I suspect there's more than a little of Stephen King's 'summer people' in there...

Oh, PS, as was mentioned to me more than once, people who say 'down da shore' are more often Bennies then locals ...

Now, when they get into "Poindexter" country, that gets more personal...

IS there some generic term for Jerseyites outside Jersey?  Seems like just using Jersey, as in "Jersey driver!!" is enough to get it into the language as an expression.  Nobody calls 'Massachusetts driver' as an insult, even though in most cases it is or perhaps ought to be.  Massachusetts notably used to have green lettering and red lettering on their plates, with the red denoting people with too many 'points on their record'.  I told my daughter this story, and she remarked to me when we went to Boston over the summer that now, all Massachusetts plates are red.

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Saturday, December 14, 2019 8:37 PM

Wow.  And people from New York City, North Jersey, and Philadelphia think they have it rough when the year-round residents of the Jersey Shore call them "bennys" and "shoobies."

Could be worse.

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, December 14, 2019 7:40 PM

charlie hebdo
Since CUS is owned by Amtrak, it would be pretty hard for Metra to sell it.  

That's silly.  The Brooklyn Bridge is much bigger than CUS and people have been selling it for well over a century!  The problem comes when the buyer wants to make money out of their investment ... and that's not likely to ever characterize CUS again...

Can we please dispense with the FIB trolling, though?  Aside from being coarse on a potentially family-friendly forum, it's an explicit violation of the published TOS.

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Saturday, December 14, 2019 6:21 PM

Shock Control

 

 
CMStPnP
I support the new Penn Station project.   Look you would understand Charlie Hebdo and his grumpy opinions  better if you lived next to the FIB's for a while.

 

Yes

 

Right, hide behind an acronym for a pretty vile statement about Illinoisans. Without our tourism bucks spent in Dairyland,  WI would be a disaster. 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Saturday, December 14, 2019 5:28 PM

CMStPnP never let facts stand in the way of his biased and/or contrafactual opinions, like those concerning Metra, Talgo,  Illinois, Chicago commuters, German Rail, et al.. Since CUS is owned by Amtrak, it would be pretty hard for Metra to sell it.  

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Posted by Shock Control on Saturday, December 14, 2019 12:02 PM

CMStPnP
I support the new Penn Station project.   Look you would understand Charlie Hebdo and his grumpy opinions  better if you lived next to the FIB's for a while.

Yes

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Posted by CMStPnP on Saturday, December 14, 2019 2:42 AM

Shock Control
So let's accept the fact that you and I have different visions for the future of Penn Station, and then maybe we can watch some Hallmark Christmas movies together and drink some hot cocoa. 

I support the new Penn Station project.   Look you would understand Charlie Hebdo and his grumpy opinions  better if you lived next to the FIB's for a while.   

I mean look what Chicago has done after the preservation to Grand Central Terminal in NYC.   Tore down Northwestern Station for a laughably ugly office tower.   Tore down LaSalle Street Station.    Attempted to tear down Dearborn Street Station but instead attempted to turn it into a retail mall with pretty crappy results.  Tore down IC Central Station, the list goes on and on.   I think Chicago Union Station is the last and if METRA had it's way it would have been torn down as well.   Thank goodness they never got their hands on it.   METRA still wants to sell off Chicago Union Station for demo for the money it can pocket on the immediate sale but Amtrak is standing in it's way currently with it's redevelopment plans and METRA is not interested in those or paying higher fees for a redeveloped CUS.

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