Passenger Trains > Article on the sordid history of Penn Station replacement plans

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/29/penn-station-robert-caro-073564

Good article - but very lengthy as you might expect for this topic.

Dave

Interesting reading for sure and a topic that has held my interest for some time - that of Penn Station and its ruination from 1963 for the next 3 years or so followed by the subsequent aftermath of all these years. A good encapsulation here of the events mainly after the Madison Square Garden disaster. The main thing that can be learned from this article though is the gridlock of politics. Basically the thought of NIMBY's expressed to the ?th power. 

Under the section entitled "Moynihan Station, Maybe" and then going down to the 15th paragraph, it begins with "In the dozens of interviews I conducted with those who have worked on Penn Station during the past three decades..." there are a number of "if only" statements. There is one more though that could be added, predating the three decades which of which the author speaks, which if done would have eliminated most of the others. That is "if only the organizational movement which was in place to save Grand Central Terminal had only been operational in time to save Penn Station".
 

I would venture to say, that most people riding Amtrak in the NEC today, (or NJT for that matter) have no memory of the original Penn Station at ll, 
You would have to be in your 60's--or even much older to remember it 's heyday of the 1920's, 40's or 50'

So, they don't know what they lost.  To illustrate what I mean-- I once had a Millennial (my seatmate on Acela) ask me--why do they call
it Pennsylvania Station?  Why not New York Station or Manhattan Station?

I'm sure a story on the Post Office re-build would be much more interesting to them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/19 17:17 by ronald321.

That's a superb article, really well researched.  The dispute with the Two Steves simplifies a number of issues as folks like the Rudins, Trumps, Tisches, Dursts,etc had fingers in the adjacent real estate, and blocked various proposals. And the Local Community Boards had their own grievances along with the power of veto.  And, folks like Ed Koch, Rudy Guiliani, and Mike Bloomberg wielded administrative obstacles like cudgels.

For what it's worth, I'd also point out that New York City and State have undertaken two magnificent projects in the decades since the Verazanno Bridge opened.  The East Side Access project for LIRR, and the Third Water Tunnel are epic projects. Projects that rank up there with the original Croton Reservoir, etc

It’s not that difficult. Build a new MSG somewhere. I think there has been talk of that anyway. Raze the present version. That clears the space for a new development. No, you don’t get the old Penn Station back but the development would have room for all the rail functions and some grand open spaces.

Then above that a high rise structure with hotel, commercial, maybe residential as well; whatever the developer decides. The developer pays for it all and it costs Amtrak nothing.

I suggest pretty much the same thing in Chicago to replace the bland office building that replaced the old concourse building astride the CUS platforms.

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Struck me as a solid history but it would have benefited from better copy editing to catch a couple of egregious wrong-word errors.

Not an impressive article.  In New York there have been other major rail projects which either have been completed, or are underway (East Side Access to Grand Central Terminal).  Moreover,  would the author explain the rapid development of New York City's Select Bus Service which would be subject to many of the same barriers he describes in the article.

Given all the people the author spoke with, he provides almost no information on what environmental issues held up the Penn Station modernization project.

The Westside Highway Project was ill-conceived and deserved to die.

Lastly, proposal to relocate Madison Square Garden greatly complicated the Penn Station modernization, a complication irrelevant to the ideology of New York's politicians and citizens.

Who besides me here has used penn station in NY?    I dont need history.  Plain and simple, it is easily the WORST excuse for a train station in a big city just about anywhere.
1960's/70's ugly low ceiling design.  Never really finished.  narrow halways and low ceilings everywhere. Its a mess.
 I dont care what they do, but do SOMETHING.   The post office across 8th ave would make a nice train station. not perfect, but are we just going to hold up building a decent train station oin NYC, because we have to wait till the design and location is perfect? 

The current penn station is an embarrassment, and the city certainly should have come up with the funds to build something more respectable by now.

You can disagree with me all you want....but I dont see how anyone can defend the place as a nice train station, or the building that should welcome visitors to NYC.

My .02.....  but I remember walking thru the old Penn Station when I was very young.

I've been in large railway stations (not train stations) all over the world including many third world and former Soviet countries. Penn Station is by far the worst and a complete dump.  And the arena above it was until refurbished one of the worst in the NHL with horrible sight lines, cramped corridors, and lousy ice  and bland architecture. In fairness, haven't been there since the rebuild but players still complain about the poor ice conditions. So maybe the entire area is cursed for destroying such a magnificent building in the first place. 

I've been through both Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal many times and the difference is night and day. Penn Station is a travesty. The article's main point is a variation on the theme, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." After Moses and others rode roughshod over (in particular) minority communities during the mid-20th century, there was a drive to disperse power and give the little guy a voice, but that has left government impotent to do important public works. And no, I don't think fancy buses constitute important public works. East Side Access, that qualifies.
 

The old Penn Station would not have worked well as the decades since have progressed. It was a completely different animal than GCT

• The huge taxiway off 7th Avenue would have had to been shut down by 9/11/01, if not sooner. It would have been hard to re-purpose it. By contrast, GCT's is tiny, off Vanderbilt Avenue, and no longer used as such.
• Very bad HVAC, very sultry at times, and would have been hard to retrofit
• Few places to sit.
• Too many nooks and crannies to attract vagrancy, more than today. 

NYPS was designed as a LIRR terminus and thru station for PRR trains to Sunnyside or New England. It is today that plus a huge number of NJ commuters, though not nearly as many as the LIRR's, and an Empire Corridor terminus. The LIRR is also a far different operation today than 100 years ago. Huntington, Ronkonkoma, and Babylon trains are the heavy hitters now. They did not exist 50, 30, 90 years ago. The LIRR lower level concourse's waiting and ticketing sections have been a *hithole since 1910. 

The NJ commuters into Penn Station are a relatively modern part of the picture.  Before the 1960s-1970s, most Pennsy commuters went to Exchange Place in Jersey City and took the ferries or Hudson Tubes to downtown New York.  The Jersey Central, Lackawanna, Erie, and West Shore ferries also went to downtown. NJ commuters were a relatively modest part of the mix at NY Penn Station in the 1930s.

The 1967 Aldene connection, which affected the Jersey Central, dumped a lot of former ferry passengers into Penn Station Newark

ronald321 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would venture to say, that most people riding
> Amtrak in the NEC today, (or NJT for that matter)
> have no memory of the original Penn Station at
> ll, 
> You would have to be in your 60's--or even much
> older to remember it 's heyday of the 1920's, 40's
> or 50'
>
> So, they don't know what they lost.  To
> illustrate what I mean-- I once had a Millennial
> (my seatmate on Acela) ask me--why do they call
> it Pennsylvania Station?  Why not New York
> Station or Manhattan Station?
>
> I'm sure a story on the Post Office re-build would
> be much more interesting to them.

It was an excellent article. I actually remember going to see the RBB&B Circus at the "old" Madison Square Garden!

TJY

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

•  The LIRR lower level
  > concourse's waiting and ticketing sections have
  > been a *hithole since 1910.

Yup.  I was there in early November for the first time in many years.  Looks just about the same.  No, in fact it's worse.

I can’t honestly agree that Penn Station is the worst station I’ve ever been in. That honor goes to Beijing south back in 2003,  ( picture a line of 100+ passengers, all lined up to use a toilet that consisted of a pipe sticking out of the floor) but I understand that one has been replaced since. Worst ever in the US?  Springfield Mass during the 1980s and 1990s. The only place I’ve ever had heroine aggressively pitched to me waiting for a train. Boston North Station in the 1980s was right up there, too. Some of the midwestern stations like St Louis and KC had their horrible periods. 

But it the worst currently in service major city station, serving intercity trains?  NYP by a mile. Worst psychological introduction to a new visitor?  NYP, hands down.  It’s only LaGuardia airport’s status as a somewhat-competitive hellhole that keeps NYP out of everybody’s mind.  

But it what to do?  The decisions we make (or have made for us, by those lovely geniuses in the NY real estate development business) will haunt us and our grandkids for another hundred years. Let’s make sure we get this right. 

The post office is a cool building, and I support using it in he rehab, but it’s whats below that is the issue. There aren’t enough tracks to do what we need the station to do, and there still won’t be enough when we move a third of the commuters to Grand Cental in a couple of years. 

The eventual solution will require a big rethink, centered around a new tunnel system. Picture a tunnel that goes basically from Secaucus to New Rochelle, passing a few hundred feet beneath NYP. That’s doable with modern tunnel boring machines. Arrange the tracks to allow NYP to be a station, more than a terminal. Through services from upstate to Long Island, or down the NEC to Philly and Washington. Likewise with at least some of the commuter trains passing through from Long Island to NJ (yes, I know the LIRR power system isn’t compatible with NJT, etc). The idea would be to dramatically simplify operations, with far fewer trains terminating and reversing in the station. 

That deep tunnel to New Rochelle is a superb idea. One version includes a stop deep under LaGuardia.

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march_hare Wrote:
> The idea would
> be to dramatically simplify operations, with far
> fewer trains terminating and reversing in the
> station. 

Most LIRR trains do not reverse in the station, but run through to the West Side Yard. Their dwell time is usually 10 minutes, give or take, each way. Forgetting the billions of dollars worth of incompatible equipment issues (i.e. 1,000 LIRR 3rd rail MU's and growing), nobody in their right mind would want to link their operation to NJT's, probably the schlociest commuter outfit in the western world. It is hard enough to manage LIRR complex  operations, and keep up with their schedule changes every 2 months, but to add the constraint of  NJT and its issues with slots on the NEC, service planning would be impossible.

I've been through there several times and never thought it was that bad.  Kind of exciting even with the big crowds and long escalators.  I'd venture to say that railfans or history buffs are the only ones who think it's so bad; the commuters are just there to get to work or get home.

Andy

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And no, I don't think fancy buses
> constitute important public works. East Side
> Access, that qualifies.
>  
As someone who has ridden New York City's Select Bus Service, I can assure you that there's nothing fancy about the buses used in this service.  A key element of this service is establishment of reserved lanes to address the issue of continued declines in bus speeds on New York's streets.  Maybe that's not important to you, but it has been important to the bus riders and the New York City Transit Authority.

The reason I bring it up is that it is extremely politically difficult to convert general vehicle travel lanes and parking spaces to non-automobile uses.  In other cities, such as Chicago and Nashville, such proposals have been shot down.  The fact that it was done in New York is a rebuttal to the notion that progressives have made it impossible to accomplish important public works.

> I can’t honestly agree that Penn Station is the
> worst station I’ve ever been in. That honor goes
> to Beijing south back in 2003, 

Try the suburban stations around Mumbai, India.