The Destruction Of Penn Station

Mashable has published a photo essay which looks back at the original Penn Station.

In 1910, when New York City transportation terminal Pennsylvania Station opened, it was widely praised for its majestic architecture. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style, it featured pink granite construction and a stately colonnade on the exterior.The main waiting room, inspired by the Roman Baths of Caracalla, was the largest indoor space in the city — a block and a half long with vaulted glass windows soaring 150 feet over a sun-drenched chamber. Beyond that, trains emerged from bedrock to deposit passengers on a concourse lit by an arching glass and steel greenhouse roof. This may sound unfamiliar for present-day residents of New York City, who know Penn Station as a miserable subterranean labyrinth. Though the original Penn Station served 100 million passengers a year at its peak in 1945, by the late 1950s the advent of affordable air travel and the Interstate Highway System had cut into train use. The Pennsylvania Railroad could not even afford to keep the station clean.

The station was demolished in the early 1960s for the construction of the fourth iteration of Madison Square Garden, which was originally located across town, hello, at Madison Square. Hit the link and lament.

Afternoon View - Penn Station Cab Stand

Always a clusterfuck.

Afternoon View - Penn Station Amtrak

Milling about, milling about, milling about. Track number announcement. Mad dash for the gate where 500 people try to fit through a four-foot doorway at the same time. Always a shining moment for modern mass transit, truly.

Penn Station Shut Down

If you're traveling via Amtrak today, be advised that Amtrak and NJ Transit have temporarily suspended service to Penn Station due to an electrical problem. Check Twitter for updates. At the moment it looks like some trains are returning to New Jersey because they can't enter Penn. What a mess. Expect delays to ripple up and down the east coast all day.

UPDATE: The AP has issued a bulletin:

Amtrak power problems have halted trains and stranded commuters in and out of New York City. NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said the low-voltage problem halted Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Line and Midtown Direct trains into and out of New York's Penn Station. Some trains are stranded just outside Penn Station and others are stuck between Newark and New York City. Stessel said there is enough electricity to power the lights and heat on the trains, but not the engines. PATH trains and Port Authority buses are honoring NJ Transit rail passes.

Moynihan Station Deal Alive Again

The on again-off again plan to turn NYC's historic Farley Post Office into a massive and grand replacement for Penn Station is on again.

After months of negotiations — and years after it first pulled out of the project — Amtrak reached a preliminary agreement to move to an annex of Pennsylvania Station planned for the James A. Farley Post Office Building, state, federal and railroad officials announced on Sunday. The deal, whose specifics have yet to be finalized or released, would clear one of the biggest hurdles facing Moynihan Station, which was first proposed more than 15 years ago and has struggled ever since. Under the agreement, Amtrak agreed to relocate its services to a new train hall in the old post office, something it has been reluctant to do because of costs. The project aims to expand capacity and create an eye-catching new entrance to Penn Station, which is now underneath Madison Square Garden and would be connected to the annex.

The project is forecast to cost about $1.5B. That's what they say today, anyway.

Morning View - Madison Square Garden

The fourth incarnation of Madison Square Garden sits atop Penn Station in midtown, about a mile and a half from the actual Madison Square, where the first Garden was built in 1879. The current Garden was built in 1968 at the cost of the grand above-ground Beaux Arts portion of Penn Station (which you know if you are watching Mad Men). That decision is now considered one of the greatest travesties in the history of American architecture and led to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Below is how the original Penn Station looked on postcards in 1910 when it was built.And here's what the interior looked like.UPDATE: JMG reader Vincent provides another interior shot.