![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It was the most elaborate of Penn Station's entrances. The main entrance was at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street, at the center of the Seventh Avenue facade. The building had entrances from all four sides. The roof was made of Monel alloy, an Inco product. The ornamentation was intentionally simple, with emphasis being placed on the "unity and simplicity" of different parts of the design. The colonnades had a strongly horizontal orientation, interrupted only by the lunette windows and the roof of the waiting room. The colonnades embodied the sophisticated integration of multiple functions and the circulation of people and goods. Peter's Square in Vatican City, as well as the Bank of England headquarters. The rest of the facade was modeled on St. These columns, in turn, were modeled after landmarks such as the Acropolis of Athens. The exterior of Penn Station was marked by colonnades of Roman unfluted columns based on the Classical Greek-style Doric order. Exterior Ī sketch of Pennsylvania Station, Office of McKim, Mead and White At the time of Penn Station's completion, The New York Times called it "the largest building in the world ever built at one time". Some 25 acres (10 ha) or 28 acres (11 ha) of track surrounded Penn Station. The building had an average height of 69 feet (21 m) above the street, though its maximum height was 153 feet (47 m). The superstructure consisted of about 650 steel columns. Over 3,000,000 cubic yards (2,300,000 m 3) of dirt had been excavated during construction. The land lot occupied about 800 feet (240 m) along 31st and 33rd Streets. Covering an area of about 8 acres (3.2 ha), it had frontages of 788 feet (240 m) along the side streets and 432 feet (132 m) long along the main avenues. After McKim's health declined, William Symmes Richardson oversaw the completion of the design, while Teunis J. The overall plan was created by Charles Follen McKim. Occupying two city blocks from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue and from 31st to 33rd Streets, the original Pennsylvania Station building was designed by McKim, Mead & White. The sole remaining portions of the original station are the underground platforms and tracks, as well as scattered artifacts on the mezzanine level above it. Over the next six years, the below-ground concourses and waiting areas were heavily renovated, becoming the modern Penn Station, while Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania Plaza were built above them. Starting in 1963, the above-ground head house and train shed were demolished, a loss that galvanized the modern historic preservation movement in the United States. Passenger traffic began to decline after World War II, and in the 1950s, the Pennsylvania Railroad sold the air rights to the property and shrank the railroad station. The original building was one of the first stations to include separate waiting rooms for arriving and departing passengers, and when built, these were among the city's largest public spaces. The station contained 11 platforms serving 21 tracks, in approximately the same layout as the current Penn Station. Its head house and train shed were considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the great architectural works of New York City. The building was designed by McKim, Mead, and White and completed in 1910, enabling direct rail access to New York City from the south for the first time. As the station shared its name with several stations in other cities, it was sometimes called New York Pennsylvania Station. The station occupied an 8-acre (3.2 ha) plot bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. Pennsylvania Station (often abbreviated to Penn Station) was a historic railroad station in New York City (named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR)), its builder and original tenant. ![]()
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