Penn Station NY Destruction?

The destruction of the late, great Penn Station was nothing short of an act of vandalism by uninformed developers!  

Most likely, because the Pennsy was in such financial straits at the time, it just wasn't worth the time and effort to sell those statues. Whatever the price those statues might have fetched, it wouldn't have made a dent in the financial deficit they were under.

I know I've seen pictures of artifacts from Penn station in their new locations. I don't have any of the sites bookmarked. I'd guess a web search would be in order.

 

Here is a NY Times article on one piece.

And here is an article about bits and pieces that still exist at the current station.

I would image that since the property was sold it wasn't PRR's right to do anything about it if they wanted to. The new owners didn't care.

 

There is a very detailed photo's of the tear down and how much was lost. I don't know where the links are for the video and or pictures of it. But it was the last straw for many and lead to the historic preservation movement to prevent such a tragedy. I just don't remember who documented this.

 

Jamie

 

More links:

 

Eagles

 

Here is an interesting opinion piece, supporting the station's demolition.

PBS did a wonderfully done documentary on Penn Station. It covers the building and destruction of the station and everything in between. If I can remember correctly the PRR only sold the "air rights" to the property. That way they could still own the property underground where all the platforms and tracks were so they could still operate a station there. Only underground. Unfortunately this lead to the above ground destruction of the station to make way for a more modern revenue driven MSG. which was not officialy owned by the PRR. It was a tragedy to mankinds history. It would be equel to the destruction of all the roman colosseums. Anyway, to find the documentary online, just search "the rise and fall of penn station PBS special" and you should find the webpage. I did try to copy and paste the link but for some reason I can't copy and pasre on the forum witile useing my tablet.

Tinplate Art,

I agree with you!!!

The demolition of the GREAT PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD STATION, was nothing but for the sake of GREED!!!!
Ralph

 

...was nothing but for the sake of GREED

 

not greed, but the desperate act of desperate people, after years of poor business decisions.

 

had they only known that in the 21st Century, passenger rail traffic in & out of NY Penn is close to an all-time high (except during wartime).

 

John,

Desperation, maybe?

But, a lot of the so called Big decisions, especially regarding N.Y.C., is mostly GREED!!!!
Ralph

As Fargus said, the Penn only sold the air rights above the underground portions of the stadium, where MSG and the Penn plaza buildings are located. I believe MSG is actually owned by the city in that they have basically given the current managers of MSG (Cablevision) notice that their right to use the place will end in (now) less than 10 years,supposedly to build a new station. Penn Station itself is owned by Amtrak after it took over the Penn Central.

 

As to why Penn Central was knocked down, there were a lot of reasons. As people have noted, the Pennsylvania Rail Road was in deep trouble, and politically rail travel, including commuter rail, was seen as an anachronism in the days of the ascendant automobile. You had people like Robert Moses running around, who saw cities basically as places to build highways through so people could travel from suburb to suburb (and he had a backstage hand in the demolition of Penn Station, he hated rail and mass transit), so when it came to Penn Station, what people in power saw was an aging structure that (in their eyes) soon would serve no purpose, they had visions of a NYC where businesses all went out to the suburbs, where people could drive to their wonderful office complexes on highways that could more than handle the traffic (!) (I am not kidding, this is my paraphrasing an actual report of urban planners), and NYC would become basically a place where the well off, who would have cars, would live.

 

There were other factors as well. Sonny Werblin (later the owner of the NY Jets who signed Joe Namath), was a show biz kind of guy, and he was the owner of the old Garden, and he wanted a new showplace that he could say "was the newest and best around", so he pushed for it; In the early 60's, there was a major slowdown in the building trades, and the builders unions and the construction companies like Turner and others were looking for big projects to revitalize their prospects, and I think it was Tishman Speyer or one of the big management companies that wanted to build the office buildings now called Penn Plaza, they saw gold there, so there was significant public pressure on Albany to have this project go through. More importantly, most people, other than a relatively small handful of city planners and lovers of public architecture, didn't really care (until the station was knocked down and they saw how dreadful the new Penn Station was). Keep in mind around the same time as Penn Station that Harry Helmsley was going to knock down Carnegie Hall to put up a drab office building (if it weren't for Isaac Stern and a handful of very influential, wealthy people, it would have been destroyed),and even after Penn Station, Grand Central might have been knocked down if some influential people, including Jackie Kennedy, hadn't mobilized to stop it (NYC didn't not have a landmarks preservation law until several years after Penn was knocked down). 

 

It all added up to a tragedy, the only good that really came out of it was that people suddenly started understanding that not everything that is proposed as 'change' is done for the right reasons. 

I am extremely skeptical that a new Penn Station will be built. I don't think the funding is there.  I really hope it happens, but they are going to have to figure out a way to fund it, given the kind of businesses in NYC that depend on people commuting to their jobs, and hotels and the tourist business that might do well if we have decent rail travel to NYC, kind of like the business improvement districts where businesses self tax to pay to clean up areas. Reputedly Amtrak is serious about the gateway project, including new tunnels, maybe a public/private consortium would work. 

In June of 2014, The MTA/Metro-North Railroad dedicated a foyer in Grand Central to memorialize Jackie Kennedy Onassis and her efforts to save Grand Central.

 

http://www.mta.info/news-grand...2014/06/30/mta-metro

 

Tom

 

The demolition of Penn Station was referred to as " Arcitectual Rape". The new York City Landmarks Preservation Corporation was formed and came into being after the significance of what happened was realized.

The same fate was laying in wait for Grand Central Terminal had this devastation not have been stopped. We lost so many magnificent structures.

nate

Anyone interested in reading about Penn Station might like, The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station, by Lorraine Diehl. The are several good books out there and this one is one of the best. 

 

Tom

Yet Europe takes national pride in preserving history.

Here is the link to the film I mentioned above. It's free to watch. It's very well done at about an hour long. Enjoy!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americ...ayer/?flavour=mobile

"The Destruction of Penn Station" by Barbara and Peter Moore, published in 2000, is filled with photos of the process.

What a great program that is! Couldn't stop watching it. Thank you!

What a fantastic program.  So sad.  Almost an insult to all the men spent all those years who built that engineering marvel. 

Penn Station>MSG. I just watched the program - it hurts me to see that magnificent place destroyed. At least the tunnels survived and still function as designed and Grand Central Station survives. What a shame to destroy this place.