Offbeat | 1,200-foot amusement ride proposed for NY’s Penn Station

Catching a train at New York’s crowded Penn Station is no thrill. But a development team has proposed a novel plan to overhaul the station: Build a 1,200-foot thrill ride on top of it and pay for renovations by charging USD35 a ticket.
The plan submitted to state officials envisions a transparent tower called the Halo with 11 gondolas offering free-fall rides of varying speeds.
“You’re experiencing New York City in an unforgettable way,” said Alexandros Washburn, president of Brooklyn Capital Partners, the partnership behind the plan. “It’s something you will not be able to do anywhere else in the world.”
John Gerber, chairman of Brooklyn Capital Partners, said the ride is feasible from an engineering standpoint, but he acknowledged that government agencies and New Yorkers might not embrace the idea.
Other ideas floated for renovating the station have included more traditional concepts, like building office towers.
“It’s a public process and there are a lot of stakeholders,” Gerber said. “Anything that’s new is going to be complicated.”
Washburn and Gerber submitted their plan after Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo put out a request in January for proposals to renovate the rail hub he called “a blight on the greatest city in the world.”
Plans to redo Penn Station, which handles more than 650,000 passengers daily on Amtrak and commuter rail lines, have been stalled for years.
Washburn and Gerber both previously served as president of the Penn Station Redevelopment Corp., a public-­private body that oversaw an earlier upgrade.