MICHAEL EVANS, born in Cali, Colombia on this date, was raised in Dallas; he landed in New York after studying history at the University of Sydney and earning a master’s degree in international relations from Oxford University in England. A floppy-haired idealist with an athletic build and a natural charm, Mr. Evans met another American student at Oxford, Brian Lutz, and fell in love.
In New York, he began a career in state government in the administration of Gov. David Paterson, becoming special assistant for infrastructure and economic development in 2007. Friends say he was passionate about public works and creating ways to make cities more livable, and in his spare time pored over books by journalists Jane Jacobs and Robert Caro. In 2009, he became chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch. By 2011, he was appointed deputy director of the Moynihan Station Development Corp., and became president of the public-private consortium to build the station in 2013.
“Michael was a dreamer,” said his longtime partner who met Evans when they were both students at Oxford. “He believed in public service and the possibilities that it presented to do great things for humanity. He was fascinated with public space. He also believed in the goodness in people.”
He worked on projects involving New York’s transit agency and the first congestion pricing proposals for tolls in parts of Manhattan, earning a reputation for his confidence and ability to build consensus, former colleagues said.
But of all the initiatives on his docket, he was particularly fascinated with the Moynihan Train Hall. A brainchild of former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a powerful New York lawmaker known for his imaginative solutions to urban problems, the hall was proposed as a way to ease congestion in Penn Station, the busiest train hub in North America.
Converting the neighboring, century-old Farley building into a train hall would divert foot traffic and restore some grandeur to one of the city’s gateways, making amends for the destruction of the original, majestic Penn Station in the 1960s.
For nearly 20 years, the idea had teetered between a pipe dream and viable reality. But by the time it landed on Mr. Evans’s plate in 2008, it had begun to pick up steam.
In 2011, Mr. Evans turned his focus to the train hall full time as deputy director of the Moynihan Station Development Corporation and set up shop in the postmaster general’s old office suite, where wood paneling provided a glimmer of the structure’s former glory.
By then, the rest of the building’s interior had fallen into disrepair. There was no working bathroom. Dark rings from water damage stained the ceilings. A thick layer of grime coated nearly every surface. But where most saw a dump, Mr. Evans saw possibility.
Without a budget to maintain the building’s historical integrity, Mr. Evans rented out the space for flashy events like film shoots and shows during New York Fashion Week, raking in millions of dollars.
Mr. Evans made a pilgrimage to the ancient Roman Baths of Caracalla, which influenced the design for the original Penn Station, to draw inspiration. He insisted on using marble from the same quarry that supplied Grand Central Terminal, obsessed over how much light should be refracted through the glass skylight and hand-selected every shade of gray paint used.
By the time Mr. Evans became president of the Moynihan corporation in 2013, the train hall had transformed from a mere project to his life’s work.
Around the same time, the project earned the full backing — and arm-twisting might — of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has sought to carve out a legacy for bold infrastructure developments. In 2017, a construction team broke ground on the train hall with the ambitious goal of finishing the project in just three years.
In fall 2019, Mr. Evans’s mental state took a turn for the worse as he juggled state officials’ last-minute requests, like the addition of a 12-foot-tall clock that hangs from the atrium, and heightened pressure to complete the whole project no later than December 31, 2020.
Officials believed that completing the train hall on time would inspire public confidence in the state’s ability to carry out large infrastructure projects without racking up costly delays, said Doug Carr, executive director of the Moynihan corporation.
Doing so would also allow state officials to hold an end-of-year grand opening — much like the inauguration of the Second Avenue subway, which Mr. Cuomo celebrated with a New Year’s Eve bash, some people involved in the project said.
Mr. Evans scrambled to speed up the work, pushing the project tens of millions over budget and making him fear that he would be held personally responsible for the mounting costs, according to friends and notes he left for his partner and boss.
His friends tried to convince him that it was normal for big projects to change over time and that he had done nothing wrong. On March 4, he wrote in a text to his partner, Mr. Lutz, “I cannot continue to sign change orders for things we will not be able to pay for.” The same week, he collapsed in a flood of tears on the floor of their Manhattan apartment, his face buried in his hands.
“He had this quietly tortured look on his face,” Mr. Lutz, who works in international diplomacy, said. “He looked like a wounded child.”
On March 17, Mr. Lutz returned to their apartment to find Mr. Evans’s phone on the couch and a yellow light spilling out from behind a closet door. He walked over and fell to his knees. Behind the door was Mr. Evans’s body.
At the hall’s ribbon cutting on Dec. 30, Mr. Cuomo praised Mr. Evans, saying he “really put his heart and soul into this project.”
But his colleagues had already come up with their own way to remember him.
Around 30 of them had gathered inside the hall over the summer, congregating around a single, unfinished column. Wedged inside were Mr. Evans’s hard hat and steel-toed work boots, still covered in white dust.
One by one, they added personal mementos: sentimental photographs, paper renderings of the building, a medallion from the federal Department of Transportation. Then they sealed the column shut.