New York's LOST marvel – The Story of Pennsylvania Station – IT'S HISTORY
New York's LOST marvel – The Story of Pennsylvania Station – IT'S HISTORY
Today we explore the rise and fall of New York Cities famous Pennsylvania Station. This station was once one of the most beautiful structures in America, but now – little remains beyond photographs.
Pennsylvania Station was a historic railroad station in New York City, named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original tenant. The station occupied an 8-acre (3.2 ha) plot bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. As the terminal shared its name with several stations in other cities, it was sometimes called New York Pennsylvania Station, or Penn Station for short.
Index
01:11 – The land acquisition to build Penn Station
04:15 – Penn Stations opening day
05:34 – VIP guests at Pennsylvania Station
05:45 – The expansion of Pennsylvania Station
06:18 – The down fall of Pennsylvania Station
07:32 – The demolition of Pennsylvania Station
09:00 – The construction of Madison Square Garden
10:25 – What artefacts remain of Penn station?
11:38 – What do American’s wear pyjamas to work?
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Meh. clothes doesn’t tell you anything about the person. There are plenty of crooks on wall street who are dressed with the best money can buy. They are well dressed scum.
What a travesty! It’s as if San Francisco would be so stupid & tear down the Golden Gate Bridge. Very sad.
If you believe that was built in 13 months I have ocean front property in Arizona I’d like to sell you
Seems Democrats destroy everything they control.
In the movie and In it’s video game, Robots has an AMAZING Tribute to Penn Station.
Penn Station was cold, dirty, uncomfortable, and ugly.
Ford Motor Company is restoring Detroits famed train station
Urban decline is always preceded by moral decline.
Today, we vote for openly morally bankrupt individuals.
And because we have no morals we refer to them as good.
This is why American’s come to Europe and look at things centuries old in awe. The house I own is older than Penn Station.
Sad that there was no desire to remodel what was already there, think the Millennium Dome becoming the O2. Manchester managed to change one of its stations into an exhibition centre and old mills around the first ever railway station, into a museum.
We trade our heritage for trinkets.
This could have become a grand art or history museum
They didn’t build that’s why they tore it down .
11:50
It’s actually criminal to build and not maintain a beautiful building.
They built it in 18 months? What utter bullshit. Can we stop with the fake history? What companies built this, where are the surveying records and suppliers info? You would need thousands of highly skilled workers to accomplish this in 10 years let alone less than 2. It looks like a roman or parisian monument yet seems to have been thrown up like a 2 storey house
9:06 Penn Station’s replacement looks like a giant spray painted garbage can. Well I sapose its fitting….. most of Americas streets are strewn wtih trash now lol.
This is perfect for migrant shelter the mayor needs to know about this jewel
Regards decay, Londons Saint Pancras station faced very very similar problems, and similar calls to demolish it. Fortunately, and for a change, it would eventually find a new lease of life as the terminus for the Eurotunnel trains, and much as it took a billion dollar plus renovation, is today both beautiful and along with renovated Kings Cross station right next door, thriving. The whole area fell into decay in the 70s and 80s but today it’s been reclaimed by developers to be a thriving part of London. Left, the same would have happened to Penn station no doubt.
There are secret areas in the Station that were important in WWII
Had that station had of survived into the 21st century it would now have been as recognised as being in the same league as the Empire states building and the Statue of Liberty . The stunning New York opera house was also demolished . Also in Great Britain two stately homes were being demolished every week during the 1950s. It seems like the 50s and 60s were two decades where mindless historical demolition of magnificent buildings was very clearly at its very height ?. The modern generation who are interested in the past can now only view old photographs of these lost fantasies .
Please please please correct your title! It’s its, not It’s History. Dimwits.
I’m from England and we have plenty of old buildings. I stayed in a hotel directly opposite Penn and went in the postal section there, I was taking photos as it was Sunday and empty but open, I thought it was beautiful, was also taking more photos at subway level. I came home saying that hat Grand Central gets all the attention but Penn is more stunning.
You can’t just put Denver & Rio Grande Western #473 on the thumbnail without me noticing!
I like this channel very much, but Penn Station as "the world’s most beautiful station"?? Really? No, not really! 😀
But it was a good joke… :’D
This documentary has reminded me of the criticism of Henry James against the lack of histórica sense.
The destruction of an iconic building….. this is what money combine with ignorance do…. I guess Penn Station wasn’t as lucky as Grand Central was to have someone like Jackie Kennedy who thanks to her efforts Grand Central was not demolish…… Amazing what Penn Station is today…ugly ugly ugly with Madison Square Garden been the most ugly of them all…
So sad. They should have put a mini army baracks next to it to keep the hooligans away. Something like this will never be built again because of the prohibitively high costs but these stone builldings can survive for thousands of years on their own with no maintenance. If theres ever a non-war apocalypse that monstrosity of top of penn station today will deteriorate by itself in no time.
Possibly the most tragic loss in the history of historic preservation. However, its death wasn’t in vain. It probably played the biggest role in kickstarting the preservation movement in the second half of the 60’s, which has since saved countless landmarks across the nation, like Grand Central Terminal and the Coney Island Cyclone in New York alone.
Pennsylvania station relay Maureen finds by onesie where she says her foster care has the twins tickets wrongly applied by our eschatology house. Was 4 the avenue with 9 St. NYC. If I then lived with you more inclined she got captain marvel’s shot between the eyes have you lost your marbles with what was staged in NYC by videos do you still know Maureen better by 4 the avenue with 9 the st incline Idea
11:54
I disagree. In my opinion the problem is, that they started prioritising car’s and planes.
I mean when you underfund trains, as they did and mainly subsidies car’s it’s not surprising that train travel declined.
Which of course wasn’t a good thing.
Wow, I never thought I’d see someone who approved of the destruction of Penn Station, there it is.
Funny how those same arguments fell flat with the inferior Grand Central, which had the same fucking problems, huh?
Gee, "undesirables". Do you mean the homeless?
No. Just no.
To quote Vincent Scully: "’One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat’".
Funny how you never mention Jane Jacobs.
This is a crime to humanity!😮
Here in Europe such a marvel would still stand proudly..
As a New Yorker, I just want to say that Penn Station today, in fact, is still seedy.
The same thing happened to the iconic singer building in the 60’s
9:37 "y’all, new yorkers can’t take care of themselves. we’d still have this building if people would dress correctly. smh at anyone wearing pajamas in public"
this vid took a weird turn
Integration….
It is disappointing to see such a masterpiece brought to the ground. As you said we began to lose tradition. With that we lost great and beautiful architecture. Everything is bland and looks the same anymore.
Nooooooo
A wonder of the world it was.
Penn station is cool and all, but why the D&RGW narrow gauge K-class locomotive on the thumbnail? 🤨
9:49 it wouldve been fine because the new train hall is there
Well said ⭐️
Government transportation vs private transportation. Where there was a big market for private trains, they built a magnificent station. When the market dried uo, they needed to get out of that business. That’s an absolute tragedy, but the government should have ponies uo the money to buy and maintain the station if it was such a precious public landmark. You scuttle in like a rat now because NYC’s mayor has to spend all the tax revenue on public sector unions to get elected and pay off those who got him elected.
Thank you for stating your views about the decline of pride and formality in the population ( pyjamas on train passengers ).
There are pink lady’s matrices announced already by itineraries by maestro piece’s domestics
I wish the original Penn station was never torn down.. to build msg..
Also me: I wish MSG would move somewhere else
How much would it cost to rebuild?
Recently, just last year, the Moynihan Station was just completed and I was there days later because I recently got Covid-19 for the second time in December 2020
How long do you think it would take to build a replica of Penn Station with all of the technology we have today? It took only 4 years to build this amazing structure. So we are told.