What happened to Penn Station on PBS

nice program last night.  but I couldn't watch the whole program, 

It's right here.

I just finished watching the second half online.
I thought they determined that the tunnels were OK with the slight movement from the tide.

I watched it.

The Winter Olympics were on. 

Thanks for the posting, I found it quite interesting.

I remember this tragic event as a youngster.

Thought the end of the show was a bit abrupt, could have added the new transition with the MS Garden.

PATH and the LIRR should have bought it as it could have been part of the MTA today.

But as history shows, greed along with the Airlines killed the RR’s.

I just finished watching it too.

It wasn't greed as we think of it today.  The Railroads stated dying in the 1930's when the automobile became more affordable.  The only reason it continue on further especially with passenger service is because of the need during WW2.

By the 1950's passenger service is a losing proposition for most, and after Ike built the interstates trucking blew a hole straight through freight.

If you take away intermodal and commodity they are completely dead today.

Riding an Amtrak across America is a joke, as I have done.  Because they don't own any track rights, so that every time a freight comes they have to pull over and wait.  You can take a bus and actually get there quicker.

Amtrak however works great in the North East corridor.  Short and sweet travel and fast.

The real mistake was pulling up tracks in communities that use to run down the middle of the streets.  Now it's simply cost preventive to lay the track again because it's roughly $1,000,000 dollars per mile of track.  The point is 'light rail' as they have in Japan would be fantastic and practical.

And believe it or not Chicago has one of the best systems in the world for public transport, New York city doesn't even come close the the Chicago and suburban network, which are all tied in together complete with park and ride.

But in the end we are a nation addicted to our cars and trucks, although living in rural America which still has a big population rail trail is obviously not feasible.

Long Live PBS.

(we hope)

Great program, and a building that I remember from it's long period of destruction.

One of the people interviewed in the program is Lorraine Diehl, and excellent book, The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station, is a must read.

The book goes into great detail on the stations planning and construction, BUT also goes into the emotional reasons why there was not a public outcry until after the building was gone. A memorable line from this book is:

"In the 1950's Americans were headstrong lovers romancing their flashy new cars, and venturing willingly into the clouds. Trains (and Penn Station), with their evocation of sentimental journeys, tugged at memory, carrying people back into a past (Great Depression and WW 2) that they were eager to forget."

Ken

Unbelieveable that such a magnificient structure was destroyed. The people responsible had no values nor sense of history and culture. That building could have been made into so many interesting uses.

As I remember it--having been a mere pup at the time--that's pretty much the way a vast majority of Americans saw it, especially those who experienced both of those singularly defining and relatively recent (at the time) events of the 20th Century.

For those that missed it; it has been repeating during the week. It is scheduled several different times on Saturday.

I remember sitting under that great canopy as we waited for my Grandmother's train to be called. She travelled to California several times. My Grandfather was a Freight Manager for PRR; so she had a lifetime pass. Why didn't you take me with you Nana??

It's streaming on PBS website:

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365179328/

Great show.

Chet Klyn

Lone Star Hi Railers, Grapevine TX

LCCA Member

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot SPOT
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
‘Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

"Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

One of the proposals floated to modify the station was to take out part of the east end and make it a parking lot.  That's a good use for real estate on the island of Manhattan.

The station was doomed from the start as it was designed as a long distance train station.  

Once people stopped traveling long distance by train the stations value dropped like a rock.

While the tracks/tunnels/yards were brilliantly done for this purpose the world around the station literally changed and the need for a long distance station evaporated.  They had to build the west side storage yard for LIRR commuter trains to make the station a viable commuter station.  You also don't have the connectivity to other parts of Manhattan that you do from Grand Central in terms of subway and busses.  Once you get there you can't easily go anywhere else and there really isn't that much around it.

If they could have figured out a way to maintain the concourse and part of the main waiting room they may have had a shot at preserving those parts.  It certainly would have been better than what they wound up doing.  Even Grand Central sacrificed the long haul transport support buildings between the office tower on 46th and the main terminal on 42nd.

The concourse was incredible.  My grandfather worked at the Farley Building and sometimes we visited him down there.  Since we lived on Long Island at the time we either took the LIRR or the subway to get into town.  I also rode the Crescent from Penn Station to New Orleans with my great grandmother and kid sister when were something like six years old.  I think I spent the whole time looking out the window.  The last leg of the journey across Lake Pontchartrain was particularly memorable.  All that water and something as heavy as a train rolling along.

It has been aired before, but I really enjoyed watching this feature for a second time.

Certifiable boneheads that led to it's destruction.

The LIRR is the busiest commuter system in North America –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...systems_by_ridership

I just watched it online (Google "American Experience"). I never saw the interior of the station although we lived in Northern NJ starting in 1949. We took the Lackawanna RR to Hoboken, then a ferry to NYC. Now, about 4 times a year, we pass through NYC, and over the HellGate bridge, to Boston. I'll be thinking of this program the next time we travel under the Hudson and East Rivers.