100th anniversary of Penn Station

[wanswheel]

"Some difficulty was caused by the company's ruling that 14 cents excess fare must be collected of those who came through the tunnel with tickets reading to Long Island City or Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn.  The smoking car on a train from Rockaway Beach which left Jamaica at 4:40 A.M. contained several protestants. One of them held a commutation ticket.  He argued a while and finally handed over 15 cents, with the remark: "Keep the change - my contribution to the tunnels."  Another smoker offered to draw a check on the National City Bank for 14 cents. A third declined to pay anything and asked the conductor to put him off under the river. The conductor declined to stop the train for this purpose."

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/way-back-machine-the-l-i-r-r-reaches-manhattan/?ref=nyregion

[aegrotatio]

As beautiful as the above-ground station might have been, it was a terrible waste of vertical space.  Commuters wouldn't even see the grandness of the station after the concourse floor was extended over the tracks, and intercity travellers exiting the station would take stairs up to the street or down to the subways.  Only departing travellers would see anything, and have nowhere to sit!  The vast majority of all travellers at NY Penn would not really notice much difference in today's Penn Station except the color of the walls and the new TV screens and air conditioning.  There was no need to go upstairs, and upstairs was where all the grandeur is.

Compare this to Grand Central Terminal, where the main floor is where all the action happens, and is a big reason why it still exists today:  It's both efficient *and* beautiful, not just merely beautiful.

I think that this, more than anything else, accelerated NY Penn's destruction above level C after 60 years.

 

[Modelcar]

.....Have to say I've not seen Penn Station noted like that before....Wasted vertical space....

We'll I'm certainly no expert on the "space" consideration.  But didn't the cathedral like structure have value of being the first sight of NYC as one arrived and came up into the above ground magnificant part{s} of it..  As a symbol of greatness, part of NYC....And of course, the Pennsylvania RR.

I very much like railroad architecture...{all structural architecture}, and I thought it certainly was impressive.  I am very pleased GCT was "restored" some years ago, as it is beautiful in my eyes too.  But I've never been in it.

Question:  Is any work actually being done to create Penn Station over in the Farley P O building.....As proposed by Sen. Moynihan...?

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

aegrotatio

  As beautiful as the above-ground station might have been, it was a terrible waste of vertical space.  Commuters wouldn't even see the grandness of the station after the concourse floor was extended over the tracks, and intercity travellers exiting the station would take stairs up to the street or down to the subways.  Only departing travellers would see anything, and have nowhere to sit!  The vast majority of all travellers at NY Penn would not really notice much difference in today's Penn Station except the color of the walls and the new TV screens and air conditioning.  There was no need to go upstairs, and upstairs was where all the grandeur is.

Compare this to Grand Central Terminal, where the main floor is where all the action happens, and is a big reason why it still exists today:  It's both efficient *and* beautiful, not just merely beautiful.

I think that this, more than anything else, accelerated NY Penn's destruction above level C after 60 years. 

 

That's a novel point to me, though I'm not familiar enough with that Penn Station to know if it is true or not - but it seems credible enough.  If the space wasn't strictly 'necessary' to be used with each trip, but instead was on a bypass or optional route, and lacked the seating functionality - yeah, it wouldn't have much to commend its continued existence.  On the other hand, from personal experience I can attest that the main floors of Grand Central, Washington Union Station, and 30th St. Station in Philadelphia are either pretty well unavoidable from the street access, or useful enough to make it worthwhile to go there.

Quentin - here's a link to a website for the 'new' Penn Station, a/k/a "Moynihan Station", with lots of sub-pages:

http://www.newpennstation.org/site/ 

Briefly, as you'll see, it's still 'on track' in some slow way - it now seems to be going through plan and architecture reviews and environmental assessments, etc.

- Paul North. 

[Modelcar]

....Thanks Paul for the Web site reference.

[K4sPRR]

The New York Central as early as 1954 had plans to build a new structure over Grand Central's lower levels.   The idea abandonded in 1955 but basically laid to rest as the proposal resurfaced in 1968 by the Penn Central.  New Yorkers realizing the arcitecual masterpiece of Penn Station being razed fought any consideration for the same to Grand Central and a court action was put in place.  This action was upheld by the Supreme Court and the station saved from the same fate as Penn Station.  In both actions the reason was to obtain revenue for the struggling railroads. 

Renovations to Grand Central over the past 30 plus years have improved its accessability, thankfully it also restored a great building.  As to Penn Station, a move to save it was unsucessful, but if it were we would today be thankful such a masterpiece was saved.  Its demise opened the eyes to preserving the greatness of our past.  As mentioned above rail stations across America are great examples of what railroading once was.

[schlimm]

I don't think many folks who appreciate good architecture would sum up Penn Station with the phrase, "waste of vertical space."

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON004.htm

[wanswheel]

[Modelcar]

schlimm

I don't think many folks who appreciate good architecture would sum up Penn Station with the phrase, "waste of vertical space."

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON004.htm

.....Well said.  And thanks for posting the wonderful photos, post cards, etc....and data re: Penn Station.  I was in it when the main concourse was filled similar as in one of your posted photos.  {WWII}.

And how about that "Art Deco" Greyhound Bus Terminal.  And the buses.  I remember when those kinds {models}, of Greyhound Buses coming thru our little home town in Pennsylvania..{Stoystown}. Our main st. was rt. 30.  In fact I rode on one of those buses...Driver in spify uniform, including leather leggings.

[wanswheel]

Oops.   My wasted space is horizontal. 

[K4sPRR]

schlimm

I don't think many folks who appreciate good architecture would sum up Penn Station with the phrase, "waste of vertical space."

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON004.htm

So very true, Penn Station was designed to move people and it did that very efficiently, look at the numbers for 1944!!!   A waste of verticle space, unlikely...Vincent Skully the author of the book American Architecture and Urbanism wrote of Penn Station, "Through it one entered the city like a god".  Of the aftermath of its destruction he wrote, "One scuttles in now like a rat".

Imagine the celebration if it survived long enough to see it's 100th year.  It was a masterpiece.

[Modelcar]

.....Note in the 3 pictures of the main concourse where one departed to tracks, down level{s}....The flooring contained glass blocks to allow light to filter down to the first track level.

I believe that floor was extended {I don't know when}, over along each side of the stairways that led down to track level at some time.

[tomikawaTT]

As a high school student in the early 1950s I had occasion to wander all over New York, including Penn Station.

 

The posted photos make the main concourse look like the Taj Mahal.  In person, it was dingy, filthy and just plain ugly.  I, for one, felt no sense of loss when the air space was used for the New Madison Square Garden (which was never a garden and is now nowhere near Madison Square...)

 

Chuck

[daveklepper]

Similar experience at a Jerusalem store this morning:

There was a bin of ladies' undies with a 19.95 for three sign.   I saw three men's draws in the pile, my size, white, the color I wanted, took them to the cashier.  She wanted 37.00    I took her to the bin.   She said, But that's just for the ladies undies.  We argued and the store manager came over and pointed out that the sign did indeed just refer to ladies' undies.   I asked:  "Why not give me the extra bargain for showing you the stocking errror?"   He said that would get him fired, so I paid, extra 17.05.

 

Maybe off topic but relevant.    Dave 

[Modelcar]

tomikawaTT

As a high school student in the early 1950s I had occasion to wander all over New York, including Penn Station.

 

The posted photos make the main concourse look like the Taj Mahal.  In person, it was dingy, filthy and just plain ugly.  I, for one, felt no sense of loss when the air space was used for the New Madison Square Garden (which was never a garden and is now nowhere near Madison Square...)

The problem is you had the opportunity to explore, examine, etc....too late....It was past it's glory.  The RR probably had already decided it would downplay it...made some ugly changes.....blocked off some areas....and get dirty....and just let it deteriorate to what you saw.

It's finest hour was during WWII.....Really served a purpose.  And yes, it did look like a cathedral....awesome while doing that service.

 

Chuck

[Anonymous]

tomikawaTT

As a high school student in the early 1950s I had occasion to wander all over New York, including Penn Station.

The posted photos make the main concourse look like the Taj Mahal.  In person, it was dingy, filthy and just plain ugly.  I, for one, felt no sense of loss when the air space was used for the New Madison Square Garden (which was never a garden and is now nowhere near Madison Square...)

Chuck

Many of the old time terminals that were "dingy, filthy and just plain ugly" and you call it have since been beautifully restored.  Some still function as railroad terminals.

Kansas City, Newark Penn, Washington  DC, Kansas City, St Louis, Los Angeles, Scranton PA and Jersey City Terminals come to mind.

[schlimm]

Penn Station in 1962.  Although not exactly "dingy, filthy and just plain ugly" and worthy of being demolished, maybe some cleaning and restoration would have brought back the glory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYP_LOC5.jpg

 

[Modelcar]

.....Nice picture.  Looks like someone had even cleaned the Benrus clock.

[wanswheel]

President Eisenhower leaving Penn Station in a Lincoln convertible

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/17c45fb0fce30c74_large

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/c22f3466c36bc7d8_large

[aegrotatio]

As I said earlier, people who arrived at NY Penn Station would exit via the stairwells to the street.  They weren't greeted by anything grand, and after the concourse was extended over the track level, they didn't see daylight until they exit the building.

This is detailed in much depth by the many books on NY Penn Station, including "The Destruction of Penn Station" by Barbara Moore, Peter Moore, Lorraine B. Diehl, and Eric P. Nash as well as the book "Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels" by Jill Jonnes.

Not apologetic by any means, they do analyze the odd design decisions of NY Penn Station which exhibitted several impractical features of the building for travellers.  The building was built as a showcase but not as a practical, functional building.  It was a cathedral to excess yet didn't really serve the traveller that well, especially the arriving traveller and the commutter, who were always scurrying about in the low-ceiling basement until exitting to the street.  These books especially contrast how NY Penn Station was so impractical when compared to the later-built Grand Central Terminal.

Users of Penn Station were always scurrying around like rats.  The only difference is that before it was demolished, the *departing* passengers enjoyed the grandious structure while the arriving traveller and the LIRR commuter had experienced a low-ceiling basement the whole time.  They would most likely not notice any difference in today's Penn Station but for the new technology, escalators, and air conditioning.

 

[aegrotatio]

All of those pictures of track had been long covered by the new concourse level floor for decades by the time level C and above of NYP were demolished.  The extension of the floor is the true travesty which completely obliterated the whole "grand entrance to New York City" idea.  Arrivals just exit to the street, with a low ceiling the whole time and seeing relatively nothing of note, when the tracks were covered by the extended concourse floor.

[wanswheel]

 

Cool thing about the old Penn Station is that the waiting room was easy to bypass but impossible to forget. Commuters who seldom went upstairs always knew that a magnificent room with a 150-foot ceiling was up there, and that simple awareness provided the antidote to claustrophobia.  Here's an excerpt from a 1913 book, Charles Follen McKim: A Study of His Life and Work by Alfred Hoyt Granger ( of Frost & Granger, the architects who designed LaSalle Street Station and Northwestern Station in Chicago, Omaha Union Station and the Milwaukee Road Station in Minneapolis.)

It was undoubtedly the intimacy fostered by close association in connection with the improvements in Washington between Mr. McKim and Mr. Cassatt which led the latter to entrust to McKim, Mead and White, without any question of competition, the building of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Manhattan. In 1871 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company secured by leases the control of the United Railroads of New Jersey which terminate in Jersey City. From that time the desire of the railroad was to get into or onto Manhattan Island, and many plans were considered, only to be set aside as impractical. The panics of 1873 and 1884 made it impossible to finance any great undertaking from which there could be no immediate return. The beginnings of the Hudson Terminal scheme first suggested tunnels under the North River, but the engineering obstacles to such a plan were deemed unsurmountable. In 1884, the papers were filled with the reports of a suspension bridge over the North River, having a span almost twice as great as the Brooklyn Bridge. This, too, was given up largely because of the active opposition of the river traffic.

In 1899, Alexander J. Cassatt became President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. That he was a man of large vision we have already seen, in his having voluntarily given up the Mall property in Washington. To such a man physical obstacles are as nothing in comparison with an ideal to be realized. Many of his most devoted supporters after the work on the terminal improvements was begun offered him nothing but discouragement at the inception of the scheme. In 1892, the subject of tunneling under the river was again revived, careful surveys were made, and a number of different plans submitted, but the silver panic of 1893 again made the financing of such a project impossible. The purchasing of the control of the Long Island Railroad by the Pennsylvania in 1900 made a physical connection between the two railroads a necessity. During all these years the population of New York and the surrounding cities had grown by leaps and bounds, increasing by thirty-eight per cent in the area of Greater New York between 1890 and 1905. If the Pennsylvania Company were to secure and retain their legitimate share of the traffic of handling such a population, immediate action, in the judgment of Mr. Cassatt, was necessary. No makeshift schemes appealed to him; only a great station in the heart of Manhattan Island could satisfy his dreams for the future growth and supremacy of the Pennsylvania Railroad. To accomplish this before the cost should become prohibitive or the accomplishment of the work impossible, because of the construction of other underground lines, demanded instant work. The plan as conceived in the mind of Mr. Cassatt seemed to his associates at first hearing like a dream from the "Arabian Nights," but only those who dream dreams and see visions accomplish the impossible and the enthusiasm of the leader soon fired his associates.

The plan as outlined, and as it was afterwards carried out, involved not only the acquiring of sufficient land in the heart of the city for a station to meet the wants of the people for years to come, but it was also considered necessary to offer to Newark and the other cities in New Jersey and to the residential sections of Long Island quick transportation to New York and intercommunication and to provide all-rail connections between the South and West on one side and New England and the East on the other. One can easily imagine the eager sympathy with which McKim entered into these schemes. The designing of the portal to the Capital City had been entrusted to Burnham as head of the Park Commission, but here was a greater portal to a far greater city than any other in the Western World. The bringing of the trains into New York and other structural problems had been worked out by the engineers, but the designing of a station to meet the new conditions was surely a problem of sufficient magnitude to fire the ambition of any man.

Many studies were made of most different types, but always the architects saw before them the great baths of Rome, magnificent in their dignity and simplicity, the greatest examples in history of large areas roofed over and treated in a monumental manner. Two ideas were predominant from the very beginning: the building must at once express a great railway station under the unusual conditions of having the tracks so far below ground that no outward expression of their existence was possible, and it must also stand as the great monumental gateway to the metropolis. In addition to these main ideas the station was so planned as to give the greatest number of lines of circulation in order to avoid congestion of traffic. How this was accomplished can best be understood by a glance at the plan.

The central feature is the great waiting-room which can be approached from the center of the Seventh Avenue facade through the arcade of shops which carries Thirty-second Street direct to the waiting-room, also from Thirty-first and Thirty-third Streets and from the carriage court at either end. In this main waiting-room are ticket offices, telephones and telegraph, news-stand and other conveniences for the traveler, so located as to save any unnecessary steps. Between the main waiting-room and the train concourse are two large subsidiary waiting-rooms, one for men and one for women. These rooms, as well as the main waiting-room, open directly into the great train concourse from which very easy flights of steps lead down to the trains. This concourse can also be reached by easy stairs from Eighth Avenue and from Thirty-first Street and Thirty-third Street, without going through the main station. At the west end of the Thirty-second Street arcade is a colonnaded loggia from which one enters the restaurant on the one side and the lunch-room on the other. Sloping driveways, over sixty feet in width along Thirty-first Street and Thirty-third Street, carry vehicles down to the waiting room level direct from Seventh Avenue.

Such in brief are the main features of the plan, which is surely one of greatest simplicity and convenience. In no other large station are the incoming and outgoing passengers kept more separate so that even in the rush hours the station never seems crowded. Another convenience for the public is the mezzanine concourse halfway between the train level and the main concourse floor, from which concourse one can go direct from his train to Seventh or Eighth Avenue or to Thirty-first Street, Thirty-third or Thirty-fourth Street, or can change from the Pennsylvania to the Long Island trains without climbing up to the street level, as what is really a separate and complete station is provided for the Long Island Road at the northwestern corner of the building at the lower level.

So much for the practical features which do so much for comfort and convenience of the traveler. Upon the solution of these questions depends much of the success of any building, but these questions, though they be ever so perfectly solved, do not satisfy the natural demands to be made of such a building as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company proposed to build in New York. To do this, those qualities which make for real architecture, dignity, proportion, and beauty were, in the mind of Mr. Cassatt, quite as necessary as the ones already spoken of, and these qualities McKim was called upon to produce. That he did so in this as in so many other cases no one can deny, but what makes the architectural solution of the Pennsylvania Station supremely interesting is the fact that it was the last work in which he took any active part, and to one who has studied the growth of his style it seems to be the fulfillment of everything for which he had striven so hard, the visible embodiment of those principles to which he had given his life.

When the actual working drawings for the Pennsylvania Station were commenced, McKim's health had begun to fail so rapidly that he was not able to give any attention to the study of the details. The original conception was inspired by him and in its development he took the deepest interest, but his assistants, and among them notably Mr. Richardson, worked out the details and developed the conception into the beautiful structure which is such a monument to New York. Looking down Thirty-second Street from Broadway the picture which fills the eye, of a great Doric portal, behind which rises one of the lofty semicircular windows of the waiting-room, is at once expressive of the whole idea, the gateway to a great city: not a gateway in a solid wall of fortifications as in the ancient city, but the modern gateway through which thousands are daily brought to and taken home from the city by means of electricity and steam; in other words, a railway station, the only possible portal under the conditions of modern life. Standing at the corner of Broadway and Thirty-second Street at any hour of a clear afternoon, the color effect of the station against the blue of the sky is one of such beauty that it almost hurts, it is so simple, so pure, so serene.

Go inside the Seventh Avenue portal, through the arcade lined with shops, and stop at the head of the stairway leading down into the waiting-room; at every step it grows more wonderful, so that instinctively one lowers one's voice as one takes in slowly the intense beauty of this gigantic room. Is this a railroad station, a place of dust and noise and hurry? Where are the things one always associates with such a place? Look around; it is not necessary to ask a single question, everything the traveler can demand is before him, and all distinctly marked and so located as to serve him with greatest convenience and expedition. It is hardly comprehensible that this can be the waiting-room of a railway station; this great hall of simple and lofty proportions, flooded with the light of day, warm in color from the mellow tones of the Travertine stone, here used for the first time in America; almost entirely devoid of decoration except for those marvelous maps which Jules Guerin has painted on the walls. Yes, these are maps, questioning traveler, real railroad maps, and absolutely correct in the drawing, these exquisite harmonies of blue and buff.

Go on into the concourse from which one enters one's train; still no noise, no dirt, no confusion. You are in an even larger room than the main waiting-room, a room as light as out of doors, for it is really a court covered with glass. The steel structure supporting this glass roof is again devoid of ornamentation or embellishment of any sort, but wonderfully impressive from the supreme beauty of line and function like the lean, lithe frame of a young athlete stripped of every ounce of superfluous flesh. From this concourse one descends by very easy steps to a platform on the level of the floor of the cars, which are entered without the usual steep platform steps. It is all so simple, so serene, so beautiful, that even when once seated in the train it is hard to realize that one has been through that which, at the time of its completion, was the largest railway station in the world. Did McKim, whose health had for some years been failing, and who felt that he was near the end of his period of active service, see before him more clearly the vision of the great orderly, simple civilization of which he had always dreamed, and for the realization of which he had so devotedly and unselfishly worked? I think it must have been so. This was a type of what the civilization of to-morrow already demands, calmness, order, beauty. All these are to be found embodied and glorified in the Pennsylvania Station, a mighty portal, a perpetual gateway to a great modern city. "Lift up your heads, oh, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors." These inspired words come to one's mind when gazing upon this poem in stone, the offspring of modern science and modern art.

[schlimm]

Thanks for the Granger excerpt.  I've admired his work with Frost and even more so the solo work of the latter.  Great artistic visions that inspire beyond mere utilitarian designs.  It's somewhat analogous to a pretty cheap, simple, though large, low-ceiling meeting hall vs a cathedral.  Both might hold several thousand people, but what a difference.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I learned this from my brother, who is a licensed architect.  One of the reasons for the high-ceiling waiting rooms was to keep them reasonably cool.  In those pre-air conditioning days, the high ceilings created a chimney effect (warm air rises) which caused a draft to bring cooler air into the waiting room.

[Modelcar]

Wanswheel: 

Awesome, awesome words describing the creation of the Late, Great Penn Station, and how and why it was designed as it was, etc....

I could follow his words describing "paths" thru the Station from my memory of being in and thru it so many decades ago....

A great post.

[timz]

CSSHEGEWISCH

In those pre-air conditioning days, the high ceilings created a chimney effect (warm air rises) which caused a draft to bring cooler air into the waiting room.

You mean there were openings up top? Could they be closed in the winter? Did someone have to climb up there?

[timz]

aegrotatio

All of those pictures of track had been long covered by the new concourse level floor for decades by the time level C and above of NYP were demolished.

Presumably they covered the tracks when they added catenary circa 1932?

[54light15]

  I well recall being in Penn Station in 1962 on a first-grade class trip. The baggage room was very busy; I yelled to a forklift driver, asking what he was moving in a large, unusually shaped wooden box. He yelled back "That's a harp!"  Imagine shipping a harp by passenger train today. We walked through a train that was going to leave soon for Florida. Maybe it was the "Silver Meteor" but it was a beautiful thing! I was only six years old but that has stuck in my mind ever since, how clean and shiny it was. Maybe the railroads and the station were in  a decline, but it did not look it that day.

In one of Lorraine Diehl's books about the station there is a picture of the stone eagles behind a construction barrier. The name on the barrier is "Lipsett" who I assume is the company that demolished the building. They also cut up the legendary ocean liner the "Normandie" back in 1947. New York has lost so much.

 

[Deggesty]

Mike, thank you for last night's post. I forwarded it to my wife (we have separate computers and email addresses)and she was glad to be able to read it. Her first trip to NYC was in the late forties, arriving from Asheville and leaving for Memphis via Cincinnati, and living in New York from 1951 to 1962--arriving on the sleeper carried to Washington on the Tennesean, but finally leaving, headed to Boise, on the Century (change in Chicago to the City of Portland). She was in and out of Penn Station several times while she lived in New York, and she remembers the station well. Sad to say, I did not get to New York until 1969, and I wish could have seen the old station.

[Modelcar]

....As we sort thru memories of Penn Station, I'll add one more....A giant sized flag...{now, I have no idea how big}, was hanging from high up in the main waiting room....Slowly moving in some air movements...

Era:  WWII.