As a lover of Architecture, this really breaks my heart how they demolished such a Masterpiece to put up that Monstrosity of a building in its place. Wow, horrible 😢
They had to tear it down or the people of today would wonder how the people of yesterday could build it with just horses, peaks and shovels, of the time, it had to be destroyed or people would arouse the deception of the story .. Tartaria erased ...
Sadly it wasn't all for nothing, NYC probably would've lost a lot more if it weren't for this as it started historical preservation of buildings and structures.
I think that the Pennsylvania RR saw the hand writing on the wall and should have sold or donated its great Penn Station to the city of New York, instead of selling the air rights to that greedy real estate developer, Irving Felt, for his MSG. I hope Felt is burning in hell for being the man who destroyed Penn Station.
@@AnthonyVassallo A good example is the classic movie from 1960 with Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLane in which the poor schlub who is single works in an office building that is nothing but a tall box with windows and very impersonal and no art about it, and the insurance management of the insurance company are bland, boring and impersonal and have no creativity whatsoever. It personifies the Rat Race of the post World War 2 era of doing anything to be above everyone else to show off who has power. That is why I could never work in an office and was a blue collar worker like my late parents. Some people are fit for office work. The state of thing as it happened in my old hometown of NYC during the Mad Men era and until 2001. I was in NYC public schools in that time.
Breathtaking in its vision, Penn Station was a building for the ages. The Federal Govt. at the time of demolition is as much or more to blame for its demise. They should have had the foresight to realise that this architectural masterpiece was worth saving at any cost but the thinking in the early 1960’s was simply that newer has to be better. What a terrible price to pay for a lesson learned.
Heartbreaking. The colossal stupidity and utter lack of vision of those that made the decision to tear down this magnificent. It boggles the mind. They should rebuild the original.
They had to tear it down or the people of today would wonder how the people of yesterday could build it with just horses, peaks and shovels, of the time, it had to be destroyed or people would arouse the deception of the story .. Tartaria erased ...
Bereft of any beauty, warmth, dignity or humanity. Reduced to being cost efficient, utilitarian, easy to clean and easy to tear down. Everything is sleek, stripped down, shiny and is novel for about 15 minutes before it resorts to being boring. If it isn't blatantly non distinctive to come under budget, its screaming with gimmicks to grab ones attention. All in all, most, not all, are simply awful, ugly, monsters.
Vincent Scully nailed it! I am a native New Yorker who used to visit my relatives in rural Pennsylvania and Upstate New York during the summer months. In the 1950's coming home through the old Penn Station used to be like returning to civilization! Thank you Myles. Sometimes we don't understand what we have lost until it is gone.
I wasn't alive when this station existed, but to this day, I cannot fathom how this city could allow such a grave mistake to happen. This station looks like it was magnificent. I could only imagine what it would have looked like if it wasn't torn down and was modernized instead...sort of like a St. Pancras.
The disgusting robber barons running the city wanted to tear down Carnegie Hall, Radio City and Grand Central. The bankers wanted to emulate the style and life of German concentration camps.
I took a class trip to Penn Station and took a train to Philadelphia not long before the destruction. It was an astonishing landmark. I remember the first glance to the glass house ceiling as the sun poured in. Unforgettable. It was a monstrous act of civic vandalism. They might well have torn down the Empire State Building.
The demolition of Pennsylvania Station is part of the decline of western culture. I was there with my mother in 1961 to take the Silver Comet to Atlanta and then on to Mobile, AL to visit my aunt and uncle. To a seven-year-old boy, it took on the majesty of a cathedral. I'm thankful for having been privileged to see it and experience it. 'Goodnight America, how are ya?
Absolutely breaks my heart. This is so painful to watch what they did to this brilliant, beautiful structure. An architectural capital disgrace what they did. Never, EVER Again!
Moynihan is very nice yes. Small consolTION BUT FIRST TIME i SAW IT i NESRLY CRIED B/C OF HOW, WHILE NICE, PALES IN COMPARIOSN TOWHAT ITS NEIGHTBOR WAS.
An observer in the area might imagine the stately grandeur that the original Pennsylvania Station along with it's adjacent buildings Hotel Pennsylvania across 7th Ave and the US Post Office building across 8th brought to that part of Manhattan. The seedy rundown area it's become since the demolition shames the city.- the new Moynihan Station seems an attempt to right that wrong although it's hard to think it'll be anything like the first Penn.
I've been traveling through Penn Station for almost a year now during my daily commute. I hate it with a passion. It's ugly as all get out, dirty, cramped, smelly, it leaks when it rains and worst of all, during all but a few months of the year it's so HOT that I'm sweating by the time I get where I'm going. And now I see that it used to be a gorgeous, spacious masterpiece before being replaced by the hell hole that it currently is? It's almost too much.
Despite the controversy generated over the demolition, Felt stated that he "believed that the gain from the new buildings and sports center would more than offset any aesthetic loss" and that "Fifty years from now, when its time for [the new Madison Square Garden] to be torn down, there will be a new group of architects who will protest." How wrong he was. We don't build like this anymore, and if anyone undertook this project today, the cost wold be astronomical.
I would have loved to enter NY with the old station. It is like you would have entered a grand location, but this new one looks like shit...what a horrible way to start a trip through that station now
A few major things are missing in this video, the lower level of Penn Station was not shown at all. Till today there are stairs in the lower level exit concourse preserved from the original Penn Station. leading
There are a few staircases and other bits & bobs around, mostly on the lower levels. The old Penn handled the crowds pretty well in part by separating arriving and departing passengers onto separate levels, with passengers getting on trains takings stairs to the platforms directly from the main concourse, while arriving passengers would take shorter stairs up to the exit concourse below the main concourse which had stairs up directly to the exits or to the hallways to the subway. The LIRR areas under 33rd and near 7th Ave were those parts, and those areas were actually almost entirely untouched during the demolition, as the LIRR traffic was already essentially shunted off into its own station from the beginning. Subsequently, those areas have a surprisingly large number of surviving handrails staircases, and even tiled walls. The partition between the seating area and floor in the LIRR 7th Ave concourse is original, for example.
Early twentieth century New York rivalled Paris in architectural beauty but where Paris preserved NY tore down to build giant glass and concrete monstrosities.
I've never liked the current Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. An unfortunate modern architectural disaster. Painful. And there is just something about Madison SQUARE Garden being ROUND that I hate. lol. I never could understand stuffing layers of train tracks below a large stadium. That's just weird. A total loss of sense of meaning; a fracture of form and function. That old station was beautiful, real architecture. The new thing is like a fart that constantly lingers and won't air out.
As someone who traveled between Newark Penn and New York Penn Station, and who loves NYC history. I would walk from 2 Penn plaza to grand central every day that mother nature allowed me to. But I would do that walk during blizzards up 8th Avenue to where ever I had to get of the train. I loved going to grand central to go to Westchester County
Tragically and yet fortunately, Penn Station served as the sacrificial lamb, causing the birth of the historic preservation movement. That such an act of "civic vandalism" could actually happen made a real impact and was so shocking that people began to wake up and realize that, left unchecked, "urban renewal" could destroy and eliminate much of our architectural and cultural heritage, leaving generations of people who would never know what beauty, grace, and humanity in architecture in our public spaces looked and felt like. Jackie Kennedy Onassis was very active in the preservation movement in New York which resulted in the saving of Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie Hall. Also, Robert Moses who had already altered the landscape of New York considerably with his massive highway and bridge projects of the 1950's and '60's was fortunately stopped from razing and decimating the Village/Soho areas to build yet another freeway right through the city. Like others, I was outraged, obsessed, and very sad when I first learned the story of Penn Station. The PBS video, "The Rise and Fall of Penn Station" is an excellent account of this glorious rise and tragic end.
Thanks Miles for the very detailed, in-depth comparison. (Very important!) Well done. One can see at length what was actually lost and the hideous monstrosity Penn Station is now. Keep up the good work. Hope the Moynihan station gets completed.
so that we don't question what we once were. boxes for the boxed mind. dead men walking don't need to think once we were gods... this is the true crime against humanity! it hurts. literally hurts me to tears.
Penn Station has been reduced to a glorified subway station with some original remnants remaining. I've seen store "Bargain Basements" with more character. The last great thing to go away was the live train announcements. I remember sitting there years ago just listening to the melodic incantations of the trains being called by the gentleman in the glass box overlooking the concourse. "Both stairs down!"
I wouldn't have minded being g the train announcer with my New York accent. It tells out of staters and tourists from foreign countries that they have arrived in NYC! After all I am a New Yorker who grew up in NYC during the Mad Men era.
The real irony,dates back in time! The original Madison Square Garden,was a converted railroad station! The former Hudson River Railroad station[ Which Commodore Vanderbilt,combined with the Harlem later on],became the first MSG! The second MSG,was also a converted railroad station! Seems the history repeats! Thank you for that tour,as I went through that station,as a youth,and have seen far too many changes,and not for the better! Thank you 😇 😊!
In the 1950's, passenger rail usage in the US plummeted due to new competition from airlines and the Interstate highway system, and the railroad industry was facing hard times. Pennsylvania Railroad sold the above-ground portion of Penn Station to a developer in a last-ditch effort to stay profitable, and it was demolished in 1963-66, to be replaced by a new sports stadium (Madison Square Garden) and an office building. The original train tracks, being well below street level, remained in place and in use as the station was relegated to the basement. The money that Pennsylvania Railroad made from the redevelopment ended up not being enough, and even after a merger with New York Central Railroad in 1968, the company went bankrupt in 1970.
The tower wasn't built on the old station's footprint either AFAIK. A tower could have easily been built transferring rights across the street without destroying the station. That the tower they built was an ugly, stunted effort in mediocrity was the piss on Penn's grave.
@@visionist7 The one tower (2 Penn Plaza) is in the footprint of the 7th Ave end of old Penn, occupying what had been the shopping arcade between the 7th Ave entrance and the main waiting room, along with the former carriage ways along the 31st and 33rd street sides. The area that had been the main waiting room and concourse is what became the footprint of MSG.
Great job on the video; fascinating to see the comparisons between the old photos and current views. Penn Station has only worsened since this video, as there's a new LIRR entrance being built and taken over 33rd St. There is no architectural cohesion nor functionality amongst the various buildings and entrances in the entire complex. The "new" Moynihan Hall only serves Amtrak and not the much heavier traffic flow of NJ Transit. It tries too hard to mimic a design long gone and seems contrived. The money spent on it should have gone to replacing the 120 year old rail tunnels damaged in the Sandy superstorm.
Such a tragedy to do this to so beautiful a station. The current Penn station is worse than London Euston - much worse.......and reminds me of how Birmingham New Street station was until a few years ago. BNS was a beautiful grand Victorian rail station, but in the 60's it was torn down and replaced by what can only be described as a ''nuclear bunker'. It was a brutalist concrete edifice that soon became a 'subterranean hellhole'...........seems like this applies to Penn station now. I hope that they do rebuild Penn how it used to be but it's going to cost an eye watering amount of money. If they did, it would be worth every penny as the original Penn station was one of the grandest rail stations ever built.
It's been a few years since I've been in London, but I found both the Victoria and Waterloo rail stations to be quite wonderful, even with some of the modernizations. And I also adored a small station across London Dorset Park. Later, when I was in Paris, Gare Du Nord and Gare St. Lazare. All of those stations reminded me of what was lost when our original Penn Station was torn down. Fortunately, on our east coast we still have Grand Central in New York City, Union Station in Washington, DC, Philadelphia Penn Station and beautifully preserved structures in New Haven, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut, saved and still in service. I hear Union Station in Los Angeles, Union Station in Kansas City, Union Station in St. Louis and Union Station in Chicago are all pretty impressive, as well. No doubt they've all been saved because of what happened to the old Penn Station in New York. I love traveling by train and am grateful that not all of the grand old terminals, no matter where in the world, are lost to posterity, but preserved and still serving the public.
@@kellylauren11 The train stations in Philadelphia, DC, Chicago, are leagues more decent and user friendly. Penn Station is execrable and an utter disgrace. It is shameful that this station is the first introduction and encounter that many have with the city. In some ways the demolition of the old station signaled the beginning of urban decay in New York. The city got seedier, shabbier and dirtier with the passing years, and has lost a lot of its luster, pizzazz and character.
The current one looks like they are in a constant state of remodel without a finished result. By the 1960s it did look a bit dingy that's probably because it needed to have a good power wash to bring it back NOT DESTROY IT ! 🤦🏼♂️
From the beauty of classical architecture to the modern monstrosity that replaced it. The greed of business people and developers knows no bounds and has no class.
Almost nothing. The tracks, platforms, and stairs didn't move during the demolition process. Only the most beautiful areas above ground level were demolished to build the more profitable office tower and arena. The old Penn Station was not demolished because it was inadequate or too small... Rather, the owners realized that they could turn a profit by replacing an unprofitable but beautiful structure with a highly profitable but soulless one.
And the slogan was 'Polish it, Don't demolish it". A disgusting architectural travesty for New York City as well as tearing down The Singer Building on Broadway. I believe they saved some of the eagles and put two I believe out in front of the grease pit replacement MSG along Seventh Avenue. Thankfully, they didn't tear down the old GPO on Eighth Avenue. Think how many old hotels that were razed. The Savoy across from The Plaza, The Grand old Astor in Times Square, The Claridge, The Drake, The Ambassador on Park Avenue and imagine what the old original Waldorf-Astoria at Fifth and Thirty-fourth had it not been torn down to build The Empire State Building. and think how grand the original Times Tower would look today had they revitalized it. @@MylesZhang
The city of NY, in conjunction with the PENN Railroad allowed this to happen. PRR sod the station and air rights in the late 50's b c they were going bankrupt bc no one was taking the train anymore...PRR did not take care of or maintain the station and they allowed it to become an sooty eyesore. They sold it--still went bankrupt--and this all ended up for nothing and we lost a gorgeous station. There was no landmark preservation act in 1963 when demolition begun on Oct. 1...so it was allowed to happen. Disgraceful. Horrible. May the people who allowed this to happen burn in Hell for all eternity.
Actually, the impetus for the Landmarks Commission, wasn't either Penn Station or the old Metropolitan Opera House, it was the destruction of the Brokaw Houses at 79th street and 5th ave. The owners were so galvanized to get the destruction started that they worked through the weekend to do enough damage that saving the buildings would be priced out of competition. This worked and we had the usual scenario, 4 excellent buildings were replaced by one sh**** building.
The after video feels like the punchline to a joke. Like those reverse "before & after" weight loss montages where the person starts off in shape and becomes fat.
Such a CRIME that they destroyed such a GLORIOUS MONUMENT!! There is a lot of chatter about bringing, at least a portion of the station back if Madison Square Garden Moves, which it should - they don’t pay Property Taxes and the Facility is Inefficient and Outdated.
I’m hoping that they can make Penn Station look better. To make it feel like you’re not in the dungeon and give the place the dignity it deserves while learning to live with MSG. Like it or not, MSG isn’t going anywhere. So you’re going to have to make due with what you’ve got and attempt to make it look better.
This is heartbreaking. The post-1960s counterculture is so visually ugly. Are there any communities where one can go and live amongst traditionalists, at least in the aesthetic sense, e.g., men who wear hats and suits, women who wear gloves, people who eschew plastic, etc?
