The new and improved Pershing Square Plaza in East Midtown was finally unveiled Thursday after years of construction.
The renovated plaza in front of Grand Central Station features dining, outdoor seating, a pedestrian walkway, and the largest Citi Bike station in the city.
NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez commended the project for giving people “room to breathe” in packed East Midtown.
“What we are celebrating today is more than constructing a plaza,” Rodriguez said. “It is about reimagining how we use our street. In these three years and five months under this administration, we have built 1.5 million square feet of pedestrian space, so this is yet another expansion of what we are doing. No other city in the United States is doing that.”
The city opened the west side of the plaza in 2022 and added the east section on Thursday, completing the full project. The plaza cost the city $16.7 million, with much of the development’s labor and cost going toward underground cabling and sewer lines.
“We are responsible for building the infrastructure not of 1975, but an infrastructure of 2075,” Rodriguez said.
NYC Department of Design and Construction First Deputy Commissioner Eric MacFarlane congratulated his team that “worked hard to bring this plaza to life,” noting the years-long effort that made the complete reconstruction of the area’s underground systems possible.
Manhattan City Council Member Keith Powers said at the press conference that the project is important in opening up more pedestrian space for New Yorkers.
“I will promise you this, in just a few minutes when we all leave here and New Yorkers start using this and this is activated, people will not even remember there was a street here,” Powers said. “They will think this was here for 50 years, or 60 years and this has always been the way it goes, and they will start enjoying having extra space here.”
His City Council colleague and former Manhattan borough president, Gale Brewer, said Pershing Square Plaza should serve as a model for other public pedestrian spaces.
Fred Cerullo, president and CEO of the Grand Central Partnership and former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Finance,
“This is a really spectacular day for us,” Cerullo said. “It’s not just special, it’s really a profound realization of a vision that the Grand Central Partnership has had for 40 years.”
Cerullo brought with him to the press conference a copy of the space’s 1987 master plan, which contains renderings for restaurants and public spaces similar to what the city ended up implementing in the plaza.
“It really became a reality when our partners in government stepped forward and said, ‘We want to make this happen too.’ It could not have happened without them,” Cerullo said.
Cerullo said the west side of the new plaza never received a ribbon cutting, making Thursday’s ceremony a celebration of both developments.
