City Board of Estimate approved the construction of the new terminal in January 1947. It was to be built one block south of the aborted Times Square Terminal Inc. site, on the block bounded by 40th and 41st Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Plans for the structural design were revised substantially in March 1948, when the Port Authority added a 500-spot parking lot for cars atop the terminal's roof, to be accessed via a series of ramps. The last industrial tenant on the future terminal's site moved away the following month, and the Port Authority hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the terminal in January 1949. Original construction and additions The original Mid-Manhattan Bus Terminal (now PABT's South Wing), built in the International Style, was opened on December 15, 1950, as a generic "Port Authority bus terminal". A vertical addition of three parking levels, able to accommodate 1,000 cars, was completed in 1963. In 2007, the South Wing underwent a seismic retrofit in a $52 million building code-compliance project to reinforce and stabilize it against earthquakes. Plans to expand the bus station to 42nd Street were floated as early as 1965. The North Wing was opened in 1979. This expansion increased capacity by 50 percent, and created a new facade comprising 27 steel X-shaped trusses. Assessing this facade design, Virtualtourist listed PABT in 2008 as one of the "World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments". In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the area in and around PABT was considered dangerous by police, tourists, and commuters due to high crime, prostitution, vagrant behavior, and inadequate upkeep and law enforcement in the building and nearby Times Square, especially after dark, but this is no longer the case. During 1997, the terminal was the subject of a study, coordinated by Professor Marcus Felson of Rutgers University, which identified strategic changes to the building's design and area supervision with a view to reducing crime and other problems. Expansion proposals Air rights The PANYNJ has attempted to further expand the terminal through public–private partnerships by leasing air rights over the North Wing. In 1999, a 35-story building, to be known as 7 Times Square, was proposed to be constructed over the North Wing and a golf driving range was to be constructed over the South Wing. However, the project was put on hold in 2001 due to a decline in the economy following the