Comments
mothershipbagels t1_ixay06f wrote
Great article, I commuted into NYC for decades thru Penn Station.
I really appreciated the last photo of the eagle, in Skylands Ringwood State Park, I live in walking distance to it. Yet I had no idea it was from the station!!
I can just imagine those magnificent GG1s in that station!
Hidethegoodbiscuits OP t1_ixazj55 wrote
Happy you liked it, check out the book that I put in the comments, a fascinating read.
Mr1988 t1_ixbc0vx wrote
Thank Jackie O!
DisneyLegalTeam t1_ixbc4g8 wrote
Not one Pizza Hut Express. Thank god they tore that dump down!
LlovelyLlama t1_ixbci04 wrote
I get so sad every time I see these. Possibly Stanford White’s most beautiful building.
The blowback from its destruction, along with plans to demolish Grand Central, led to the formation of the NY Historic Preservation Society and the designation of NYC landmarks.
DutchBlob t1_ixbfxwl wrote
Thanks also to Jacky Kennedy
LittleKitty235 t1_ixbg3kt wrote
I find the lack of advertising unsettling. How the hell am I supposed to know what to buy if every surface isn't covered in signage?! That level of stress was probably why everyone was smoking.
ThreesKompany t1_ixbwj8u wrote
Seeing these photos makes my blood boil. Having to commute through Penn Station everyday and seeing what it once once is just infuriating.
grambell789 t1_ixcpask wrote
The eagle looks pretty traumatized.
grambell789 t1_ixcpkfa wrote
I have heard the footprint for Penn Station was 3x bigger than gsc. If it wasn't so big it would have been less of a target for redevelopement.
Wowzlul t1_ixcsk8b wrote
They appear to be making the same mistakes in the reno as they did with the oculus. While the improvements to crowd circulation are good and the addition of light and air are badly needed, what is with the luxury mall stores?
Seriously guys it's a train station not a mall. The old retail was far superior! Was actually useful! Cheap eats, magazines, bars, convenience stores... things you need and want for train travel.
sillo38 t1_ixcydjx wrote
Rose’s pizza is coming back so that’s all that really matters
wikipuff t1_ixcyyw2 wrote
I was talking more about MSG IV, but the Penn Station one is bad too
diet_shasta_orange t1_ixd0v02 wrote
To be fair, if you look at pics of Penn Station right before they tore it down, it looked a lot worse and had plenty of advertising. Had they not torn it down, it would likely have a pizza hut express.
Wowzlul t1_ixd2wqv wrote
Oh derp
Keyboard-King t1_ixd4f0b wrote
In 2022-2023 they’re demolishing like 20 buildings that surrounded this one. They’re all made in the same beautiful Greco-Roman style. Hotel Penn is being torn down as we speak. New York, your culture is being erased, demolished and replaced with mundane glass-steel boxes.
Keyboard-King t1_ixd62aj wrote
What if Rome or Venice, Italy tore down 50% of all of their historic buildings and replaced them with cheaper structures in an attempt to make modern a city. Seeing these Greco-Roman buildings turned to rubble only to be replaced by an inferior structure makes me wonder why certain European countries refuse to demolish their cultural sites.
TuTranquilo t1_ixdbpkg wrote
Yea that building was probably much older than 1910 and it’s demolition was part of a plan to erase history
fluffstravels t1_ixdcdts wrote
i was really upset to see the new designs for penn. they should’ve moved MSG but didn’t have the balls to follow through. it looks like they’re trying to squeeze in something that doesn’t quite fit.
Amphiscian t1_ixdhsx3 wrote
The Oculus is a different story, IMO. Westfield bought the retail rights to the mall at the WTC from the Port Authority for $1.4 Billion. They sure as shit weren't going to make that amount of money back with Pizza Hut Expresses, so they have gone pretty up-scale with the tenants to make money (along with other stuff like packing in kiosks and installing LED advertising screens everywhere they could).
That being said, the company that bought Westfield is apparently trying to dump all their US mall properties, so things may change a lot in the Oculus in the coming years.
Wowzlul t1_ixdjle8 wrote
Hey fine by me. If we can get a Barnes and Noble and a Starbucks or whatever in there the Oculus will be 10x more convenient as a train station. Local joints are probably a pipe dream but we can at least knock it off with the luxury watches and shit. Could probably get at least a few newsstand type places tho.
Amphiscian t1_ixdmg4z wrote
Yeah I'm wondering if whoever buys the mall off Westfield will rent it to less high-end places
AFAIK a big part of this weirdness is that there was a more normal mall in the old WTC, and Westfield leased the retail rights to it for 99 years literally a month before 9/11. As part of the rebuilding, at some point it was decided the mall, new PATH station, and connection between every building (plus the World Financial Center) would be combined into one sprawling project.
Wowzlul t1_ixdoim2 wrote
I'm fine with the sprawling project. It's pretty awesome how well connected lower Manhattan is now.
Problem is that it's just not an inviting space to spend much time in, nor is it useful to you even if you're just passing through.
In for a long PATH ride to Newark Penn and then the airport? The Oculus has nothing for you.
Making a connection during your morning commute? Can't grab a coffee here.
It's purely a tourist attraction, which is fine but like...you'd think for such a huge and beautiful piece of public architecture they'd put things in it other than purely consumerist luxury mall things. Maybe a statue or two? A history exhibit? A library branch? I dunno lots of possibilities.
Fulton Center is a lot more useful but a hell of a lot less inviting.
JadeandCobalt t1_ixdqsx7 wrote
I know. I used to commute through Penn daily too. A real architectural gem was lost!
Amphiscian t1_ixdrgwm wrote
Definitely not the most inviting public space. I wonder if more things were planned and cut for budget, or if it was more like intentionally not making anywhere for people to lounge because then homeless people might go there. They did somewhat recently throw in some seating at the end of the hallway that leads to 4WTC, but that's a long way from the terminal/central area.
brianvan t1_ixdtrvq wrote
As noted in the link, they let the place fall apart before they actually tore it down.
Most of the pictures people pass around are from the first 10 years… or even, the first days… of operation. While the place did become a predictably grimy and crumbly mess from lack of detailed upkeep (building such a massive structure with that kind of stone & exposing it to a barrage of human-generated pollution), it should also be noted that its late 50s iteration had become just as commerce-cluttered as what’s there today.
Additionally, it was unpleasantly vast and poorly designed. Which I say because… the concourses have the same general floorplan today, and people hate it. They didn’t actually change the train station part a whole lot. They just took the headhouse off the top of it. A lot of what people don’t like about Penn today came with the first version of the station.
It was a tragedy that they dismantled it. It was also a tragedy it’d gotten into bad shape already, a tragedy they built something that was in bad shape after just 50 years, and possibly a tragedy if they’d kept it and not improved it substantially.
Lol 2 Penn and MSG are not improvements at all, of course. And nothing the Pennsylvania Railroad did at the site changed the eventual outcome that Pennsy and 5 other major Northeast passenger/freight railroad companies crashed hard, couldn’t get out of bankruptcy, and had to be nationalized to become Amtrak and Conrail. (And Conrail’s successors are profitable, but a pain point in establishing better Amtrak service) And no one in government at the time could be trusted to build anything better, Robert Moses would have had a highway going through the site if he were allowed to build it. So it all just sucks.
huff_and_russ t1_ixe6mvj wrote
It must have been a beautiful sight standing on 8th ave between the Farley building and Penn station.
joyousRock t1_ixe877a wrote
on the day of her first husband's assassination no less
joyousRock t1_ixe8ixa wrote
yep, read this a few years back. strikes awe at the almighty undertaking that was achieved by a private company ~115 years ago. also just a cool snapshot of nyc history and what the city was like at that time.
joyousRock t1_ixe8or3 wrote
what does that mean? it opened in 1910
joyousRock t1_ixe9ag4 wrote
I think it's so hard for us to understand how it could have been torn down because we're 60 years removed from the mindset of that time.
No buildings like this would be owned by private companies today, but that's what this was. a civilizational treasure owned by a private company. when that company's entire industry collapsed, people saw replacing something built by a dying industry as progress. didn't have the foresight to appreciate the rarity of what they had.
Hidethegoodbiscuits OP t1_ixe9t6y wrote
Right, just the one part of buying up two whole blocks of buildings in a major city, containing like 48 brothels, for a start. Then, all the issues with the Hudson tunnels.
brianvan t1_ixeaas8 wrote
It got a ton of blowback. People hated the plan! But it had no legal protection such as landmarking. If that solution were even available, Pennsy would have fought it. Teardown plans were already being circulated as early as 10 years prior to the actual teardown occurring.
Even today, notable buildings constantly get razed while LPC sits on their hands. And then non-serious proposals for small ugly buildings are put forward constantly by people just looking to lock out neighboring developments, wasting everyone’s time.
I would prefer to see deliberate public planning and architecture. With a serious budget. And with an open mind toward removing obsolete buildings to replace them with modernized versions of what came before it, minus all the ticky tack crap about reusing bricks and beams and what not.
[deleted] t1_ixen13h wrote
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Wowzlul t1_ixenfk7 wrote
Amazing book. Veers a bit into hagiography of robber baron types, but really it's a good work of history.
Wowzlul t1_ixeogf8 wrote
Imagine if ships entering NY Harbor had to sail between Lady Liberty's legs.
drpvn t1_ixeq4bi wrote
King-of-New-York t1_ixewctt wrote
Don’t care about the who’s or the why’s. Let’s rebuild old Penn Station.
112-411 t1_ixg6emo wrote
- NYP was neglected by the railroad and had not been properly cleaned in years; back then cars were filthy polluters. So that TN marble looked like shit (GCT was neglected then too)
- yep there was advertising, again just like at GCT (the giant Kodak sign). But if it had survived I think it would today be treated as a Monument (like GCT), w/ little or no vulgar advertising
BenHogan1971 t1_ixyjq6i wrote
JohnnnyCupcakes t1_iy1ktmi wrote
Never heard the story..what happened with Jackie O and GCT?
Mr1988 t1_iy477u7 wrote
She saved it! After what happened to Penn, people were rightfully pissed off. When it was found that there were similar plans for GCT, people MOBILIZED.
Hidethegoodbiscuits OP t1_ixau3yy wrote
This book is excellent, highly recommend it. Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels https://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Gotham-Building-Station-Tunnels/dp/0143113240