Forget Moynihan, Cuomo should end MSG property tax break
Anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of traveling through the seventh gate of hell that is Penn Station knows that the transit hub is long overdue for an upgrade. The fact that Gov. Andrew Cuomo is tackling that problem is commendable, even if the financing capital is nowhere to be found.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday evening that Cuomo will announce a plan to revive the long-stalled Moynihan Station project – now inexplicably dubbed the Empire Station Complex, snubbing one of the state’s great public servants – which would require relocating Amtrak’s waiting area at Penn across Eighth Avenue into a train hall. On Wednesday, the governor announced the broad sketches of the plan alongside a man who was once thought to be one of the main impediments to breaking ground on 33rd and Eighth: Cablevision and Madison Square Garden Chairman James Dolan.
How Cuomo sweet-talked Dolan into acquiescing to this plan will likely remain a mystery. The Dolans already helped kill a previous Moynihan Station plan that involved moving the Garden to the current location of the Farley Post Office across the street, and the Empire Station project would require the Dolans to concede on moving a theater they own that sits along Eighth Avenue atop the station.
But heck, since Dolan is in such a generous mood, maybe Cuomo can convince him to give back the $49 million he skirted in property taxes this past fiscal year alone (per the city’s Independent Budget Office) – the result of an indefensible exemption that has run for the last 33 years and counting. Surely, the city’s homeless prevention apparatus could put that money to good use in helping reduce the number of men, women and children living on the street.
Alas, the old saw in politics is that money talks, and the Dolan family’s wallet is loquacious. Cablevision and its holdings have contributed $250,000 to Cuomo’s campaign coffers over the past five years, with an additional $85,000 coming from Cablevision founder Charles Dolan, his wife, Helen Ann, and his son, current Garden and Cablevision chairman James Dolan.
It’s not a stretch to say that their generous donations might have something to do with the Dolans’ unchallenged legalized property tax delinquency. Cuomo himself has previously said he has “not heard an argument that’s convincing for eliminating [the tax break],” and whatever deal Cuomo cut with the Dolans on the Empire Station likely precludes its expiration. After all, he’s got a future re-election bid to think about, and the Dolans are one of his golden geese.
And while Penn Station commuters will kiss the governor’s feet, the 8.5 million New Yorkers deprived of their deserved tax revenue get the short end of the stick once again.