@Dominic Mazoch posted:I think NYP should never have been built where it was, and and was an overbuilt facility.
At least GCT was built with traveller traffic flow in mind.
Penn Station was as well, the current Penn Station bares little to no resemblance to the original in terms of flow, the current design is a rabbit warren designed by moles on drugs. The original Penn Station had two different sets of subway lines available to it (granted, the subways came after it was built, the 7th avenue line in the teens and the IND 8th ave in the 20s), plus it straddled two different major thoroughfares. Comparing the current Penn Station to Grand Central isn't fair . Had Grand Central been knocked down, as almost happened, it likely would be like Penn Station today. The original Penn Station was one of the busiest train stations in the world and served that well, it handled traveler flow pretty well.
Penn Station was lost because the railroad was bankrupt and looking for any source of money (and Penn Station at the time it was destroyed needed a lot of work, and likely was a maintenance burden), it was a time when a lot of people assumed trains, whether commuter trains or long distance trains, were a thing of the past (the car was still seen as freedom and when Robert Moses still had plans to turn NYC into a giant highway system), and also most people didn't pay attention to historical buildings being lost, lot of people were big on progress. Add to that egos, political considerations (the MSG/ Penn Towers project and the demolition brought construction jobs during a slump in construction amid a recession). They also didn't see the obvious, that with the movement to the suburbs as part of the post WWII boom commuting was going to become a major player at Penn Station, they figured the replacement would suffice until the LIRR disappeared, and likely long distance trains and the NJ trains that used the station back then would be gone, too...and that didn't happen, commuter rail boomed as the burbs grew, Amtrak kept going , the car in many ways choked itself, and modern times have been left with the consequences (Penn Station is one of the busiest commuter hubs in the world today). Grand Central was almost lost the same way, it wasn't until the early 70's that a court finally ruled that the landmark preservation law was legal and they had the authority to landmark it, a more conservative court very likely would have said that the city couldn't do that.
