CONTEXT IS IMPORTANT, GIVE ME SOME HISTORY

The original Pennsylvania Station was designed by Charles F. McKim, a partner at the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White—legends in their own time, having received commissions for buildings of considerable consequence from far and wide. Mr. McKim was in fact busy on a redesign of the White House for President Roosevelt, when he was summoned to Philadelphia to meet with Alexander Cassatt, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, America’s largest and most important company.

When service began in the autumn of 1910, Penn Station was immediately regarded as one of the finest buildings ever constructed. It was a majestic awe-inspiring space that elevated the most common among us—providing a truly triumphant entrance to American’s most important city. The station’s demolition in 1963, is to this day, regarded as an epic civic crime and an unprecedented architectural desecration.

While politics and money played roles in 1963, the fact remains there was no mechanism in place at the time to prevent a private company from doing what it wished with their property, no matter its role in the civic zeitgeist. The roiling irony of this is that the demolition of Penn Station gave birth to New York City’s Landmarks Commission which went on to save Grand Central, the Empire State Building, Central Park and many others.