![]() It is at the center of the Northeast Corridor, a passenger rail line that connects New York City to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and intermediate points. Penn Station has 21 tracks fed by seven tunnels (the two North River Tunnels, the four East River Tunnels, and the single Empire Connection tunnel). It is close to Herald Square, the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and Macy's Herald Square. Farley Building, with additional exits to nearby streets. It is located in Midtown Manhattan, beneath Madison Square Garden in the block bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets, and in the James A. ![]() Pennsylvania Station (also known as New York Penn Station or simply Penn Station) is the main intercity railroad station in New York City and the busiest transportation facility in the Western Hemisphere, serving more than 600,000 passengers per weekday as of 2019. “Classical architecture is the closest thing to the architecture of democracy,” he says. and that money and political will will follow. Shubow is hopeful that a new ad campaign his group has launched will change hearts and minds. Plus, “there are all these agencies that have to agree for something to move ahead,” he adds. “Until they have construction drawings, they won’t know what the exact cost will be,” says Marty Burger, CEO of Silverstein Properties, which developed the World Trade Center complex. Construction overruns in New York City are almost as unpleasant and unavoidable as, well, trudging through Penn Station. Estimates for Rebuild Penn Station’s restoration project tick in at $3 billion. Of course, building one of those requires political will. “We need a building that will deservedly last through the ages.” “We do not need a cheap fix,” Shubow says. Shubow calls the post office project important but inadequate. The changes “will add no new tracks and have limited effect on the congestion and misery of Penn Station,” the Times piece says. “It will never be iconic." Besides, New York City has enough glass buildings already in his opinion. “This is a work of technology not of art,” he says of Chakrabarti’s renderings. His plan would make what Kimmelman calls “a glass pavilion, which becomes a neighborhood gathering spot.” Kimmelman suggests it would be a relatively affordable solution. ![]() Of course, there are competing schools of thought for what should be done with the current “modernist mediocrity,” as Scully called it.Īrchitect Vishaan Chakrabarti, in concert with New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, has suggested a glass enclosure over a repurposed Madison Square Garden. Roth was also a member of Trump’s infrastructure council, before it was hastily disbanded in August, and is part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s task force seeking solutions for the overburdened station. ![]() And what better than to restore a “crown jewel” of the nation’s financial capital? He also points out that Steven Roth, chairman of Vornado Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust that owns the Penn Plaza properties atop the station, is a close friend of Trump’s. “President Trump has said he wants to spend $1.1 trillion on infrastructure,” he says. Shubow thinks now may be the turning point. More platform space would allow some commuters to wait on the platform, hopefully ending the terrifying scramble riders currently engage in each time a track number is announced. Under the organization’s proposal, platforms would be widened and the number of escalators would be tripled, which should “vastly increase vertical circulation,” Shubow says. Rebuild Penn Station hopes to not just recreate the spaciousness and beauty of the pre-1963 hub but also improve upon it. In fact, Grand Central Terminal, which was landmarked a few years after Penn’s demolition galvanized preservationists, owes its continued existence to Penn’s demise. Photo: Getty ImagesĪfter the original Beaux Arts structure was destroyed, in 1963, what grew in its place-a dark, squat, dispiriting place, where wayfinding is far from intuitive-helped stoke the modern preservationist movement. Erected in 1910, the building’s exorbitant maintenance costs drove the city officials to replace the Beaux Arts structure-arguably the city’s most famous lost building-with the modernist Penn Plaza that exists today. The original McKim, Mead & White–designed Penn Station was demolished in 1963 to an outcry of public criticism.
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