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Penn Station

Tue., July 19, 2005

There’s a reason great scenes in New York-based movies take place in the Main Concourse of Grand Central, instead of that terminal’s Midtown brother, Penn Station—Grand Central is beautiful. Hundreds of bustling commuters there suddenly start waltzing in The Fisher King, while in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a couple in love rushes through the concourse as people in the crowd around them disappear one by one.

Meanwhile, Penn is a workhorse, serving 500,000 commuters daily as the busiest public transport station in America. It’s also confusing and ugly, inside and out. I should know; I’m in it daily to get to and from work. But the original Penn Station, built in 1910, was as grand, if not grander than Grand Central. Look at these beautiful gelatin silver contact prints taken circa 1935 by Berenice Abbott and you will agree. Click each one to view a large version in a separate pop-up window.

Penn Station, 1935 (Photo 1 of 3). Click for a large version.

Penn Station, 1935 (Photo 2 of 3). Click for a large version.

Penn Station, 1935 (Photo 3 of 3). Click for a large version.

Foremost, you’ll notice the massive steel uprights, with lighter steel tracery, arches and vaults above. A close second are the marvelous windows and skylights. None of that is present in the current Penn Station. Not even close. If ever there was a station deserving the stereotype of an underground pit packed with dreary crowds blinking under harsh florescent lighting, it’s Penn. “One entered the city like a god,” architectural historian Vincent J. Scully wrote of the station. “One scuttles in now like a rat.” Governor Pataki recently characterized Penn as “horribly inadequate,” while others have referred to it as “a bland hub” and “a large basement.” I’d say the structure it most closely resembles is a parking garage, with all the wamth and character that implies.

So what happened? Blind civic ambition and a misguided attempt at renewal.

In 1963, the station building, which spanned two full city blocks from W. 34th to W. 32nd Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, was demolished to make way for the Penn Plaza office skyscraper and Madison Square Garden.

Only now is the city moving forward to right this wrong. Just west of the Garden sits the James A. Farley Post Office, New York’s largest, and designed by the same architects, at the same time and in the same style as the original Penn Station. On Monday, after about 10 years of financial and logistical bickering, the state named the development team that will combine half of the post office and an improved version of the current station into a new Penn Station, its design mirroring the old. The new version, for instance, will feature tall, steel arches atop which will rest a huge, lightweight skylight. The front of the post office, boasting a grand staircase and a long row of 53-foot-high Corinthian columns, will serve as the new station’s main entrance.

It’s expected to be completed by 2010 at an estimated cost of $930 million, serving as the new catalyst for West Side redevelopment now that the $2.2 billion plan for the Jets Stadium has been squashed. My hope is that the station will bring back some of the area’s architectural beauty.

Tags: Architecture, Photo, Subway | Photos from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. | Comments have been closed.