Pennsylvania Station Pipe Dream?

Wow - What a great project. Was just out of high school when the original was torn down in 1963. This would be a fantastic project.

Thanks Jon

I hope so, my daughter uses Penn a lot and it's a such a joke.   What were they thinking back in the 60's.   I hope to never use it.  I always arrive in NYC via Grand Central

McKim, Mead & White did a nice job of designing the building on the first go around.  It is nice to an architectural team that is attempting to be faithful to the original design.  With modern building materials the station should have a long life.  It would be nice to see this in my lifetime.  MSG has seen better days anyway and it pretty much past its usable life.

Living on Long Island we have no choice but use Penn via the LIRR. They keep putting "lipstick on this pig" every few years. It's just structurally a poor design. With MSG on top I doubt they can drastically change the look of the station. MSG just underwent a billion dollar renovation and I'm sure they have no interest in moving.

The bigger issue here is that Amtrak owns the station and has much higher priorities to spend limited monies on now. The tunnels under the rivers are deteriorating rapidly and need to be re-built. The current timeline for tunnel repairs doesn't even start until after the LIRR opens Grand Central access (est 2022), which will help relieve the burden on Penn. Each tube (4 under the east river), will need 18-24 months to repair. The Moynahan project is nice but that would only place riders further west and further away from the 7th ave subways. I've recently arrived on the new west end platforms in Penn and had to walk all the way back to the # 1 subway which is about a 5 minute walk as it is.

New York needs major infrastructure upgrades.

One of the great crimes of the 20th century.  Gary, in the post above asks, "What were they thinking ?"  I say, they weren't !  I entered college in '65.  We were being taught by architects and engineers.  Everyone of them was of the Modernist generation of professionals in those two groups.  They had a disdain for "Old".  So the passing of Penn Station did not upset them.  

I can recall, sitting in class, and Loius Gettlemann, an architect, was lecturing us on Philadelphia's city hall.  His opinion of it is not printable here, but you may get the idea.  You have to remember that coming out of the Depression and the war, society wanted new.  Everything old was a reminder of bad times.  

So in the case of Penn Station, the case was made for a new Madison Square Garden by god knows who.  Penn Station was viewed as "Old" and again, a reminder of the past and we can do better.  Really ?   The wheel can only be invented once. 

Dan,

As a student of architecture starting in 1987 and having practiced for nearly 26 years now, I can say that thanks to the Penn Station disaster things have changed in education and practice.  Historic preservation is much more highly regarded thankfully.  We even had to do a Historic American Building Survey (HABS) project which was a holdover from the WPA era in college.  My group chose the Chesapeake and Ohio Station in Muncie, IN at the time. 

There will always be those interested in quick money these days though.  It took a huge mobilization of architects, the community, various preservation groups, and the city of Phoenix to prevent a developer from tearing down Frank Lloyd Wright's "David Wright" house just a few years ago.  It is one of the nicer FLW homes.  Not all his homes were that livable.  This one really is.

While the new Penn Station project is likely a dream, isn't just nice to dream once in a while?

I wasn't born until just after the original was decimated, but I remember my Dad telling me that Penn Station had been let go though deferred maintenance for so long that folks were happy to see anything clean and "new" in its place. 

Today we look at the stunning pictures taken just prior to when they opened the doors to the public and say "WOW!"  But by 1963, the much vaunted glass had not been cleaned since before World War II, 56 years of smokers had left their mark, the main concourse level had covered the platform area to increase capacity, and there was some architecturally disastrous modernist kiosk dropped into the middle of the concourse.  Outside, the building had 56 years of accumulated smog on it. 

Jon

But is it true the old Penn had no where to sit to wait for a train?

I would rather have a station which is easy for the customers to use and navigate.  The present station is a major commuter facility, which was not in the minds of those who built the original station.

Figure out how the customers will flow to and from trains, baggage, ticket booths and machines, transit, taxis and Uber......then work around that.  3D modeling today can create. Star Trek holideck simulation with computers...

Not I use customers instead of passengers.  Passengers are customers of travel.  I think all forms of transportation would receive more "custom", that is money, if they think of passengers as CUSTOMers instead of herded cattle.

In any large commercial design project where the end user is the main stakeholder, there is often more time taken to study the flow of traffic and human use patterns prior to any design being created.  Proper master planning is always the most critical stage of any building project.  What we are seeing are pretty pictures used to get people excited about the idea of a new Penn Station based on the original.  Any new design would most certainly take into account the current use of the station.  It wouldn't make sense to begin to make the investment if it didn't. 

Also, I don't want to negate the infrastructure question.  The trainset in the basement needs an enormous of work first from the Jersey side of the tubes through to the extension into the former post office.  One the biggest failures was to get the 3rd tube started.  Deferred maintenance within the station limits has caused numerous derailments.  With one of the two tubes being closed for renovation soon, the congestion is just beginning.  

Restore service to Communipaw and renovate the CNJ terminal anyone?    Load up those Comet cars onto ferries direct to Wall Street and back!

Jonathan Peiffer

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thanks to the preservation movement, I was fortunate enough to have worked on quite a few Historical restorations in and around Philadelphia.  As the superintendent for them, I was privy to alot of the background information on these projects.  

Penn Station was only fifty years old when it was torn down.  Having travelled to Europe and seeing how they treat their older structures makes me wonder why we can't do the same here.  Italy, in particular, has buildings whose ages are in the thousands of years, yet they are still in use today.  Not as originally intended of course, but what they do is preserve the exteriors while modernizing the interiors to suit present day requirements.  

We can't even build stadiums to last more than a few decades.  John F. Kennedy Stadium, formerly Municipal Stadium, where the Army-Navy game was held every year until recently, should ring a bell among model railroaders.  The Pennsylvania railroad ran specials, right to the stadium each year.  All pulled by GG1s.  Look up the Pennsy Army-Navy trains and you'll find a wealth of photos showing GG1s lined up, perfect for having their pictures taken.  

I would have loved to be around to see the parade of G's and trains for the old Army-Navy games! 

My take on how preservation works in the US is that we simply have a different take on the topic.  While much has improved, this country is still too young to appreciate it's heritage always.  In 7 years this nation will only be 250 years old since the Declaration of Independence.  What I have seen over my career that has included preservation and adaptive reuse of older buildings is simply the "follow the money" argument.  Developers drive most of the large projects as they have the access to capital to make it happen.  Communities can advocate and cities can attempt to sway an argument, but they aren't the one fronting the funds.  While preservation may be a factor, it typically isn't.  Certainly we preserve more than we have in the past and I don't advocate that every building should be preserved. 

When you have structures that go back 300, 500, 1000 years old or more than I think the mindset must be different.  I believe this will happen in the US once we reach a more mature age as a nation.  Some of the great railroad buildings that are currently endangered would be more likely preserved if we were an older nation. 

fortunately in New York, the demise of NY Penn became the clarion call for the historic preservation movement in NYC.

when I was a student of architecture at NYIT in the mid-70's, most of my professors were professional NY architects, who could not wait to espouse the latest 'eclectic moderne' design style that gave us so many hideous buildings of the time. so adverse were they to anything from an earlier time.

what is troubling in the article Gary linked to, is the renderings all mimic the original station design of grand vaulted spaces. which will in time become the expensive maintenance problem the original was. Not to say New York doesn't deserve a re-designed Penn station of grandeur, it does.

there has been talk of using the existing shell of MSG above the tracks to create an exciting space. an idea I found interesting and refreshing as it comes from a completely different point of view from what has been proffered in the past.

from my perspective, a design that solves the labrynth of subterrainean corridors that exists now with openness, light and spaciousness, without going to costly extremes, is the solution. albeit a deservedly difficult one.

Alexander Cassatt had the monumental space of Penn Station created to make the traveler feel important, or that his or her journey on his railroad was important. Today's stakeholders owe New York nothing less.

Given the costs of construction and the urgent need of money for other infrastructure projects, rebuilding Penn Station to its original glory (which I still recall) is a pipe dream.  Best to hope for is a reworking of the adjacent post office buildings.

The architecture of the '50s and on into the '70s was indeed Boring !!   The skyscrapers that were going up in Philadelphia at the time were nothing more than huge blocks with holes punched out for windows.  Even the acclaimed architect of the time, Vincent Kling, adhered to the box with holes idea.  The only difference was that his designs took precast concrete into a bit more detail.  

As the '80s was nearing an end, the first skyscraper to go up that had some form was Liberty One and Two.  These two buildings set the stage for more structures with some thought in their designs.  

Chris mentioned the cost of maintaining a new Penn Station built in the old style.  I beg to differ in that materials available today far exceed what was available in 1913.  In 1993 I undertook the rebuilding of the Fernery at the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia.  We replaced the original structure with a stainless steel supporting frame, matching the original 1999 design and covered it with an aluminum and glass greenhouse type covering.  These materials will last far longer than the original iron structure.

Two shots, I took of the completed project.

GG1 4877 posted:

Also, I don't want to negate the infrastructure question.  The trainset in the basement needs an enormous of work first from the Jersey side of the tubes through to the extension into the former post office.  One the biggest failures was to get the 3rd tube started.  Deferred maintenance within the station limits has caused numerous derailments.  With one of the two tubes being closed for renovation soon, the congestion is just beginning.  

This is a very interesting thread. I was born and raised in NYC (Brooklyn) and I have seen so many old buildings torn down. I am heartened by things like the saving of Grand Central, Radio City Music Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Destroying our past is no different than forgetting our past. I would love to see a resurrected Penn Station, but I'm not holding my breath - I believe that the third tube (as well as the upgrading/maintenance of the current tubes) is crucial to the feasibility of the new station... this article appeared on the NY Daily News' website today:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...an-article-1.3726698

The original Penn Station was demolished because the Pennsylvania RR was run into the ground by its managers, they were looking to get out of the maintenance of the building but more importantly, were looking for the money that came from selling the air rights above the stadium site , as well as money from the developers of Madison square Garden (and from what I have heard from old timers , a lot of that money went into the pockets of the PRR executives and also into some pretty shady kickback schemes). There also were other politics, there was no reason to build a new Garden, the old one on 48th and 8th was still in good shape, but NYC was in a building slump and the construction unions were pushing Albany and the city to push new projects and provide jobs. If Penn Station had been a public structure they might have been happy with the jobs created by renovating the old station, but because it was owned by the PRR that was not going to happen. This is a classic example imo why the business decisions of private companies are not necessarily the best for the public or often themselves (the 'rebuilt' Penn Station certainly didn't do much to enhance train travel), for the PRR the fact that they were leaving behind a subterranean hell for the people using the station mattered not one bit, "The Public Be Dammed" hadn't died with Vanderbilt, that is for sure. 

Others have hit the nail on the head when they mentioned the 'modernist' wave, where there was this massive push by architects and their business clients to put up giant glass boxes (that ironically had their roots in proletarian worker housing conceived of by Mies Van der rooh (spelling?) and the whole Bauhaus movement (Tom Wolfe brilliantly tore the whole concept apart in "from bauhaus to our house"), everything was glass and steel boxes, not preserving the past which to these idiots was to be sneered at or lost (very similar to the types who in classical music promote 'new music' that listening wise is the equivalent of having to go through the current Penn Station). 

I love these drawings and I agree, with modern materials and construction, it could be something that could last a long time and not be a maintenance nightmare. I doubt very much anything like this will happen soon, though, not with the current climate in Washington run by people who think train travel and mass transit is a boondoggle and whose support of infrastructure I suspect is more hot air than reality, and not with pressing infrastructure like the gateway project tunnels and the rehab of the LIRR tunnels under the East River.

I think this is apropos...

"An eldery man died recently. Upon arriving in Heaven, he witnessed an old, white haired man hurrying about, carrying rolls of paper under his arms. He was surrounded by a crowd of young people following him about and attending to his needs. The man asked someone near him who that obviously important man was. The response was, ' Oh, that's God; he just thinks he's an architect.'"

The new Penn Station will be the Farley Post Office.  Its currently under construction...the train hall will be grand with a modern twist.  I assume the old areas of Penn Station will be re-worked to make it all flow together.  

Sad that some people keep dragging partisan politics into this conversation.    It taints the discussion. 

At train shows there's a fellow with an art print of the original station layout with the open tracks below.   It certainly is gorgeous and one that I hope to acquire that print someday.

As for a grandiose train station, I certainly love the architecture and the aura but few are grasping the concept of the fact that this is a city.  

And in a city the air above a building is as valuable as the ground below.   That's why the skyline is filled with skyscrapers. 

And in the current form it's a  mainly commuter station, not a whimsical destination for far-off travelers as it was in the past. 

The Pennsy did what was necessary to survive and even if it wasn't survival it was THEIR station that they paid for and built. 

Not that I am enamored with most "modern" attempts at train stations (or anything, witness the WTC replacement)  but certainly given enough time and effort and money we should be able to come up with something more aesthetically appealing than the current effort.  

I'm not an NYC folk so excuse my ignorance (at most things, not just NYC ) , but what were the criticisms of the Farley PO replacement station?    Wasn't one of them that the subway does not directly serve the station?

bigkid posted:

The original Penn Station was demolished because the Pennsylvania RR was run into the ground by its managers, they were looking to get out of the maintenance of the building but more importantly, were looking for the money that came from selling the air rights above the stadium site , as well as money from the developers of Madison square Garden (and from what I have heard from old timers , a lot of that money went into the pockets of the PRR executives and also into some pretty shady kickback schemes). There also were other politics, there was no reason to build a new Garden, the old one on 48th and 8th was still in good shape, but NYC was in a building slump and the construction unions were pushing Albany and the city to push new projects and provide jobs. If Penn Station had been a public structure they might have been happy with the jobs created by renovating the old station, but because it was owned by the PRR that was not going to happen. This is a classic example imo why the business decisions of private companies are not necessarily the best for the public or often themselves (the 'rebuilt' Penn Station certainly didn't do much to enhance train travel), for the PRR the fact that they were leaving behind a subterranean hell for the people using the station mattered not one bit, "The Public Be Dammed" hadn't died with Vanderbilt, that is for sure. 

Others have hit the nail on the head when they mentioned the 'modernist' wave, where there was this massive push by architects and their business clients to put up giant glass boxes (that ironically had their roots in proletarian worker housing conceived of by Mies Van der rooh (spelling?) and the whole Bauhaus movement (Tom Wolfe brilliantly tore the whole concept apart in "from bauhaus to our house"), everything was glass and steel boxes, not preserving the past which to these idiots was to be sneered at or lost (very similar to the types who in classical music promote 'new music' that listening wise is the equivalent of having to go through the current Penn Station). 

I love these drawings and I agree, with modern materials and construction, it could be something that could last a long time and not be a maintenance nightmare. I doubt very much anything like this will happen soon, though, not with the current climate in Washington run by people who think train travel and mass transit is a boondoggle and whose support of infrastructure I suspect is more hot air than reality, and not with pressing infrastructure like the gateway project tunnels and the rehab of the LIRR tunnels under the East River.

 

Thank you, thank you.  Great minds think alike.  

Rule292 posted:

Sad that some people keep dragging partisan politics into this conversation.    It taints the discussion. 

It's impossible to keep politics out of a discussion about things involving the public.

At train shows there's a fellow with an art print of the original station layout with the open tracks below.   It certainly is gorgeous and one that I hope to acquire that print someday.

As for a grandiose train station, I certainly love the architecture and the aura but few are grasping the concept of the fact that this is a city.  

And in a city the air above a building is as valuable as the ground below.   That's why the skyline is filled with skyscrapers. 

Even in a city there's a place for open space.  It's just that New York wasted all of it's open space on one location, Central park.  A place that benefits the wealthy more so than the average person.  

And in the current form it's a  mainly commuter station, not a whimsical destination for far-off travelers as it was in the past. 

The Pennsy did what was necessary to survive and even if it wasn't survival it was THEIR station that they paid for and built. 

And federal money had nothing to do with building the railroads ?  Please don't be naive.

Not that I am enamored with most "modern" attempts at train stations (or anything, witness the WTC replacement)  but certainly given enough time and effort and money we should be able to come up with something more aesthetically appealing than the current effort. 

I respectfully disagree with your opinion of the new World Trade Center Building.  The old buildings were nothing more than two giant blocks with holes punched out for windows.  I am speaking of the architecture itself and not the sacrifice and memory of those who paid the ultimate price in the demise of the structures. 

I'm not an NYC folk so excuse my ignorance (at most things, not just NYC ) , but what were the criticisms of the Farley PO replacement station?    Wasn't one of them that the subway does not directly serve the station?

No apology necessary.  Most of us do not live in NYC.  So opinions is all we can give.

Dan Padova posted:

 

It's impossible to keep politics out of a discussion about things involving the public.

 

Please not here.  I come here to escape 24x7 political diatribes.  

The US has always been much more focuses on NEW and IMPROVED than preservation, from architecture to toy trains to laundry soap and everything else among them.  This culture is afflicted with Novelitis.

Dan Padova posted:

Rule292 posted:

Sad that some people keep dragging partisan politics into this conversation.    It taints the discussion. 

It's impossible to keep politics out of a discussion about things involving the public.

And in the current form it's a  mainly commuter station, not a whimsical destination for far-off travelers as it was in the past. 

...

And federal money had nothing to do with building the railroads ?  Please don't be naive.

 

I respectfully disagree with your opinion of the new World Trade Center Building.  The old buildings were nothing more than two giant blocks with holes punched out for windows.  I am speaking of the architecture itself and not the sacrifice and memory of those who paid the ultimate price in the demise of the structures. 

 

 

In my opinion, Dan hit the nail on the head with his reply about politics and public projects of this size. Just look at who are the major "tenants" of the current Penn Station - the Long Island Railroad (part of the MTA which gets a great deal of it's funding from NY State), Jersey Transit (a lot of funding from New Jersey), and Amtrak (is that still a "quasi-governmental" agency of the Federal Government???). Until I retired almost 6 years ago, I worked on 27th Street and Madison for 34 years. I had an awful lot of friends and colleagues who rode Jersey Transit and the LIRR, and I can tell you that a common complaint among all of them was the fares were too high and keep going up every couple of years for less and poorer service, so no way they could afford any additional increases to pay for a new station. So you are left with government assistance. If the politicians in the Federal AND State governments are not interested in supporting mass transit, nothing will get done. 

And I also have to agree with Dan about the new WTC. While I was in college, I worked in lower Manhattan, in the shadow of the WTC. While impressive, I would never have called it stylish. The new version is, in my opinion, an improvement.

We, in Philadelphia, are grateful that our grand old 30th st. station is fixed-up and clean. 

What would help I think with transit authorities is to make the BOD members RIDE the service.  Plus do some ride outs in the cab, follow a conductor.....

For those planning and building transportation terminals and stations, it might be a good idea to be a customer of the service for a while, and observe as a ticket seller, baggage handler.......

The one thing that would kill a PRR station redo as built is the ADA.

That said, a station could be fuctionally modern, but feel older....

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Europeans keep the exteriors of the buildings historic but are able to accommodate present day requirements.

Dan Padova posted:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Europeans keep the exteriors of the buildings historic but are able to accommodate present day requirements.

Isn't that what they basically did with Union Station in D.C.???

From the article linked in the opening post:

“President Trump has said he wants to spend $1.1 trillion on infrastructure,” he says. And what better than to restore a “crown jewel” of the nation’s financial capital?

Sorry, but I cannot think of a worst way to spend scarce dollars. Build a magnificent edifice over funding PTC? How about fixing railroad's road bed, repairing decaying roads and bridges?

Plus, there is nothing to restore, it's all gone.

I often think of the editorial remark that the demolition of Penn Station was "a monumental act of vandalism!" The only real good was the stimulus to save Grand Central Terminal!

Apples55 posted:

Dan Padova posted:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Europeans keep the exteriors of the buildings historic but are able to accommodate present day requirements.

Isn't that what they basically did with Union Station in D.C.???

Not transit.  But they have done a good job of that in older areas of the City of Galveston.

This interesting pic came across my Facebook feed today. It shows some of the tracks into the current Penn Station where they go under the Farley Post Office...

I spent 34 years working in the building with the gold pinnacle dome just the the right of the center of the skyline.

Amazing the things that show up in Facebook... this article from the UK Daily Mail includes some great photos of the old NY Penn Station:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...rn-50-years-ago.html

The problem with our country is our throw away society and developers eager to make money. And government which is often unwilling to spend money on frivolous projects.

"And government which is often unwilling to spend money on frivolous projects."

Thou jesteth!

A pipe dream at best.

Paul- Nice article.

Here's a construction photo from the original. Notice Macy's Herald Square in the background.