NEW YORK (AP) — When Manhattan's original Pennsylvania Station was demolished in 1963, it marked the undignified end to one of America’s great public works, a monolithic Beaux Arts train terminal with Roman-style columns and a spacious central waiting area that at the time was the largest indoor space in the city.
In its place rose Madison Square Garden — home of NBA’s New York Knicks and NHL’s New York Rangers — while train commuters were forced underground
into gloomy, claustrophobic, low-ceilinged corridors by the decidedly more utilitarian redesign completed in 1968.
“Through Pennsylvania Station one entered the city like a god,” the architectural historian Vincent Scully famously lamented. “One scuttles in now like a rat.”
But a dramatic new vision for the busiest transit hub in the Western Hemisphere calls for a return to the old grandeur of the station, which was originally opened in 1910 and currently serves Amtrak, the national rail carrier that owns the terminal, as well as commuter rail lines to the surrounding suburbs and connections to the city’s vast subway system.
Renderings released Monday by Amtrak and Penn Transformation Partners, the design and development consortium picked for the project, feature a rectangular, stone facade lined with imposing columns along a grand entry way.
Inside, commuters are to be greeted by a sunlight-drenched grand concourse with soaring ceilings more than 50 feet high in places. It includes such touches as bronze finishings and other ornamental details, like a bas relief of the city’s famous skyline and a large, classic station clock, also made of bronze.
An interior wall near a entryway bears the seal of President Donald Trump, who had Amtrak assume control of the project last year after decades of bureaucratic red tape and political infighting among transit agencies and the competing interests of other powerful players, including James Dolan, the billionaire owner of MSG, the Knicks and the Rangers, who has staunchly opposed moving the arena.
Trump has mentioned renaming his hometown station in his honor as he's sought to burnish his legacy through public works projects, from a massive new ballroom at the White House to a triumphal arch leading into the nation's capital.
For now, though, the name etched in capital letters across the proposed grand facade would still read, “Pennsylvania Station,” renderings released Monday show.
“I’m not focused on names at all,” said Andy Byford, who Amtrak named as a special adviser to oversee the redevelopment, when asked about a potential name change.
“This building has a name, and the name is there,” added Peter Cipriano, one of the lead developers.
The proposed design draws from the ornate, Beaux-Arts design of Grand Central Terminal, the city’s other major rail hub, as well as Art Deco landmarks like the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center, according to Vishaan Chakrabarti, one of the leaders of the team awarded the project.
Designers also looked to the monumental, federalist style of government buildings in Washington, D.C., and those built by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression.
The vision, he said, is to restore Penn Station's place among the pantheon of the city’s greatest landmarks and bring a “sense of public ambition” back to one of the nation’s vital civic spaces.
“There was this fearless embrace of ornament and decoration that in some ways we’ve lost,” Chakrabarti said. “We want to bring some of that sense of craftsmanship back.”
The redesign is projected to cost around $7 billion to $8 billion, and construction is targeted to begin before the end of 2027, officials said Monday. Penn Station would remain in operation throughout as the project progresses in phases over about six years.
More than 600,000 commuters traverse through the rail hub on any given work day, or more than the three major international airports that serve greater New York City — John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty — combined.
Plans floated over the decades have called for relocating MSG, but under the plans revealed Monday, the “World’s Most Famous Arena” would remain in place.
A theater owned by MSG and built directly above the tracks, however, would have to be razed to make way for the new facade and concourse.
The developers and MSG owner James Dolan have reached a “memorandum of agreement” for this critical part, which helped the rail carrier in picking the proposal over three other bidders, according to Byford. Final terms of the deal, including payment, haven’t been determined.
“You’ll understand why we wouldn’t want to negotiate that in public,” said Byford.
The next phase of the project will include refining the preliminary designs and going through the extensive federal environmental review process, which will help in generating a more detailed breakdown of costs, according to Byford.
He stressed there are no plans for the government to take surrounding properties to expand the station, as some concerned locals have suggested. The project will also not be borne of the backs of commuters.
“There will be no fare hike to pay for this project,”, Byford said. “It’s not going to happen.”
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