Not many people who have taken a train from Penn Station have enjoyed doing so. It’s a crowded and disorderly mess of a train terminal. It embodies the spirit of New York – cram everything into as small of a place as possible. Though, it wasn’t always like that. Over the escalators by Thirty Second Street and Seventh Avenue connecting the NJ Transit (NJT) and Long Island Railroad (LIRR) levels, there’s a picture of an enormous looking building with classical architecture. Underneath the picture are the words “You are here.” There’s a massive amount of history behind that picture and a few other things in Penn Station.
Before Amtrak, most railroads, including the Pennsylvania Railroad, were privately owned and operated. The Pennsylvania Railroad (Pennsy) is a bit of a misnomer, as they actually operated trains from the East Coast all the way to Illinois, making them the key links between the Mid-Atlantic and Mid-West before Interstates 70 and 80 were built. “Penn Station” was the general name for their train stations in most cities. After the Pennsy decided to build tunnels underneath the Hudson River, New York’s Penn Station was built in 1910, but it wasn’t the dungeon that’s there right now. Pennsylvania Railroad went all out when building their New York station. The well-known architecture firm McKim, Meade, and White, which was also responsible for the Washington Square Arch and Manhattan Municipal Building, designed a station inspired by the Baths of Caracalla from Italy. On the outside, the station was a massive, impressive, classical building that took up the entire plot of land from Thirty First Street to Thirty Third Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. On top of the columns sat 22 eagle statues and a clock. The interior was much more spacious than modern-day Penn Station, and the tall windows provided for some picturesque moments with the natural light.
Beyond aesthetics, the station made it much easier to get to Manhattan from the West. Before the station, there was nothing connecting Manhattan and New Jersey. Even the Holland Tunnel was about a decade and a half away from becoming reality. Everyone had to take a train to Lackawana Terminal and then take the ferry. It was slightly better going from Long Island into Manhattan. There were 4 bridges connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens, but the LIRR had no direct link to Manhattan – everyone would get off at Long Island City and take the ferry. That all changed when Penn Station opened. People could board a train in Greenport or the Midwest, fall asleep, and wake up in Midtown. The station was also excellent for daily commuters, who could rent lockers. It allowed people to store a separate pair of clothes for after work, something more casual to change into after work and and enjoy the city in.
New York lives off of trains, so why would we ever get rid of such an amazing train station? There were actually a few reasons, but the biggest reason was that the Pennsy had financial difficulties. It was becoming more and more expensive to maintain the station, especially since train ridership declined as the interstate system got closer to completion. Madison Square Garden was looking to relocate from Forty Ninth Street and offered the Pennsy a downgraded, underground train station and a 25% stock in the new theater in exchange for Penn Station. Of course, there was a lot of opposition to the plans, and there were many protests and New York Times editorials against the plans. No one at the time believed the station would actually go down, as they were either overly optimistic or in denial. Unfortunately though, the plans went through in Oct. 1963, and they were done in 1966. There was enough of an uproar after the station was demolished to establish the NYC Landmarks, which preserves famous and historical buildings and sites in the boroughs.
There are still a lot of signs of old Penn Station in today’s station, in addition to the sign above the escalators. There are a lot of black and white pictures of the old station, and some of the staircases were kept. The original staircases have bronze handrails over black X-shaped decorations. The entrance to the LIRR waiting room is a structure that was uncovered after the exterior of the station was torn down. One of the old entrances to an Interborough Rapid Transit train (now an entrance to the 1 train) is from the original station. In the passageway to the Thirty Fourth Street exit, there’s a fallen, broken column etched into the wall. Outside the Seventh Avenue entrance, there are 2 of the original eagles from the station. The other 20 eagles are in various places, including the Hicksville LIRR station, the New Jersey Botanical Garden, and outside Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia. Unfortunately though, most of Penn Station went straight to the Meadowlands instead of staying where it belongs – at Thirty Fourth and Seventh.
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