MAKE PENN STATION GREAT AGAIN.

As long as we're indulging in April foolery, let's return to what has long been a nostalgic excursion for New Yorkers.  Here, for reference, is a photo gallery of the old station.  I've had reservations about putting the old Roman bath and Crystal palace great room and concourse back in place.  "It's probably too much to ask that when the current Madison Square Garden goes, the surviving structural members of the Roman Bath and the trainshed be used to put back a Roman Bath with benches and a proper trainshed."

Why?  All those grand spaces were for the benefit of long distance passengers, Pullman passengers bound for Florida or Chicago or Montreal or Bar Harbor, as well as parlor car passengers going lawyering in Philadelphia or rent-seeking in Washington.  New Jersey commuters had trains to Exchange Place in Jersey City, changing to the Hudson Tubes for Manhattan; and once upon a time, the "Gimbels passageway" connecting Penn Station to the Tubes at Herald Square was all Pennsylvania Railroad.  Long Island commuters had the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn, change there for the BMT into Manhattan.  And the mind quails at the thought of somebody proposing to Alexander Cassatt or General Atterbury that Lackawanna electrics be brought into Penn Station using a connecting track at Secaucus!

Never mind that from the opening of the station, The Pennsylvania Railroad never assigned any of its operating expenses to Lines West, which would be right and proper considering the first-class passengers bound for Cleveland or Cincinnati or Detroit or Chicago or St. Louis or Louisville.  Never mind that the conversion of the station into the basement of Madison Square Garden and an office tower was easier with a lot of the passenger traffic going from the Long Island or the New Jersey services rerouted from Exchange Place into Penn Station; many of the commuter facilities were on the arrival level or under 33rd Street and thus the dashing commuters could go from train to subway and back without encountering the demolition work upstairs.  By then there were precious few passengers for the Broad Way Limited, let alone the Penn Texas or the Admiral.

Bringing back those public spaces, though, has been a cause.  My other cause,  "Now, if we can talk about an improved Pennsylvania Station, can we talk about multiple train frequencies to Pittsburgh with overnight services for and from Chicago and St. Louis?" still requires help from St. Anthony, or is it  St. Christopher?  "Put it back the way it was" still has a following.

Jeff Stikeman rendering for Rebuild Penn Station, retrieved from Fordham Magazine.

That rendering envisioned wider platforms (a stair and an escalator pair?) which means fewer platforms, something that would give the Station Master a headache.  The work for the past quarter century has been to add more passenger space, with Amtrak ticketing in the old Post Office, a new Long Island concourse west of Eighth Avenue, and new boarding gates for New Jersey Transit under what was idle space after the south baggage court gave way to the office tower.

And still, it is the open spaces for long-distance passengers that still appeal.  Let's replace Madison Square Garden with a flower garden and put the concourse between the carriageways.

Alexandros Washburn rendering retrieved from New York Post.

The concourse rendering essays a more realistic, which is to say, claustrophobic, passage to each platform.

Alexandros Washburn rendering retrieved from New York Post.

The proposal, published in December 2022, has some of that "Then a miracle occurs" redolent of a New Yorker cartoon in the financial analysis.

The monumental, main indoor public space will be above ground and sunlit — a spirits-lifting portal for riders of Amtrak, the LIRR, MTA subways and New Jersey Transit. This triple-vaulted, glass-and-steel train hall, inspired by the old Concourse, would rise between Seventh and Eighth avenues on the site of what’s now the Two Penn office building. (A 1960s warhorse that landlord Vornado Realty Trust has prettied up with a new facade and other upgrades.)

Two Penn would be demolished, and its office floors relocated to new office towers built to the site’s north. Removing the tower makes way for construction of a new, block-long Seventh Avenue facade of granite or marble to replicate the original facade.

A street-level, green public park will bloom where Madison Square Garden currently stands. Classical pavilions acknowledge the original station, which was modeled on ancient Roman baths. Park-goers and station-users below can glimpse each other through ground-level skylights.

Madison Square Garden would move elsewhere.

And that green space will be free of druggies and hobo jungles.   (April Fool!)

There are proposals afoot to put the old station back, more or less as it was, if perhaps with more synthetic materials than in the original.  (Bear in mind, dear reader, the coffers in the great room were plaster casts suspended from a grid, a drop ceiling with compound curves, if you will; while much of the "travertine" was a custom-blended plaster.)  That might not be a good idea.  The crowded platforms will soon be receiving trains off the former New Haven.

And yet ... if you ring (212) PEnnsylvania 6-5000, you will no longer reach the desk clerk at the Pennsylvania Hotel, which has been demolished, and that has people coveting that lot for the sports arena.

Yet another proposal has emerged for New York’s Penn Station, this one calling for relocation of Madison Square Garden to allow for expansion of the station and creation of a major train hall and park.

The New York Times reports the plan from the Grand Penn Community Alliance would build a new arena on the site of the former Hotel Pennsylvania — essentially across 7th Avenue from its current location — then tear down the existing arena to build the new station. The project would take 11 years and cost about $7.6 billion — $1.3 billion for the land for the arena, $2.3 billion for the arena, and $4 billion for the new station.

Most of the land needed for the arena is owned by real estate company Vornado, which sought to build up to 10 skyscrapers for office and residential space as part of an earlier station redevelopment plan. With demand for office space having taken a major hit as a result of the pandemic, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared that plan dead in 2023, saying a station redesign would not rely on surrounding development [see “Penn Station remodel to move forward …,” Trains News Wire, June 27, 2023].

It's New York, meaning all these plans are tangled in litigation with each other and with the public officials who must wet their beaks.  None of which address the primary challenge with the Pennsylvania Station, which is handling trains.

Alexandro Washburn, a former chief urban designer for New York City, is the primary architect for the Grand Penn plan, outlined on its website. The news site Gothamist reports the alliance is funded by the National Civic Art Society, backed by New York-baed hedge fund manager Thomas Klingenstein. Gothamist also notes that none of the proposals specifically address the expansion of train capacity that will be required with completion of the Gateway Tunnel project adding two additional tubes connecting Penn Station to New Jersey.

Meanwhile, any station redesign would also require the approval of Amtrak, the station owner, and its major tenants, the MTA and NJ Transit. And it is likely to rely on at least some federal funding. Availability of such funding is highly uncertain under new rules established by the Trump administration, as well as the fight between New York and the federal Department of Transportation over Manhattan’s congestion plan [see “Federal government sets date …,” News Wire, Feb. 28, 2025].

Mr Klingenstein has Our President's ear, and perhaps he can sell "Make Penn Station Great Again" and get the likes of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer on board.  But without the space for the trains, it's a fool's errand.