place

Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963)

1910 establishments in New York City1963 disestablishments in New York (state)Beaux-Arts architecture in New York CityDemolished buildings and structures in ManhattanDemolished railway stations in the United States
Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)Former Lehigh Valley Railroad stationsFormer Long Island Rail Road stations in New York CityFormer New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad stationsFormer Pennsylvania Railroad stationsHistoric American Buildings Survey in New York (state)McKim, Mead & White buildingsNew York Tunnel ExtensionPennsylvania PlazaRailroad terminals in New York CityRailway stations closed in 1963Railway stations in ManhattanRailway stations in the United States opened in 1910Railway stations located underground in New York (state)Stations on the Northeast CorridorTransit centers in the United StatesTransit hubs serving New JerseyUnion stations in the United StatesUse mdy dates from June 2020
Pennsylvania Station aerial view, 1910s
Pennsylvania Station aerial view, 1910s

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. 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 station shared its name with several stations in other cities, it was sometimes called New York Pennsylvania Station. 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. 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 station contained 11 platforms serving 21 tracks, in approximately the same layout as the current Penn 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963)
Pennsylvania Plaza, New York Manhattan

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963)Continue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.7503 ° E -73.9931 °
placeShow on map

Address

Pennsylvania Station

Pennsylvania Plaza
10119 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Pennsylvania Station aerial view, 1910s
Pennsylvania Station aerial view, 1910s
Share experience

Nearby Places

Pennsylvania Plaza
Pennsylvania Plaza

Pennsylvania Plaza (Penn Plaza) is the office, entertainment and hotel complex occupying and near the site of Pennsylvania Station, between 31st and 34th streets and Seventh and Eighth avenues in New York City. It includes the current Madison Square Garden and its Theater, opened in 1968; the current below-ground Pennsylvania Station; and the One Pennsylvania Plaza and Two Pennsylvania Plaza office buildings. Other buildings around the complex use the Pennsylvania Plaza name as an alternate address, such as the 5 Penn Plaza office building on Eighth Avenue, to the northwest; the Pennsylvania Building at 225 West 34th Street (14 Penn Plaza), north of the station; and the Hotel Pennsylvania at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza), east of the station. The numbering of the Penn Plaza addresses around the area does not follow a consistent pattern.The Penn Plaza complex remains one of the most controversial in New York City history because it involved the destruction, beginning in 1963, of the original McKim, Mead and White–designed Penn Station (1910), a revered piece of New York architecture. Its replacements were what architects and civic purists regard as mediocre office and entertainment structures.The demolition of the first Penn Station led to the city's landmarks preservation movement and helped save another landmark of railway architecture, Grand Central Terminal.With the sports arena and railroad station at its hub and 34th Street retailers (including Macy's) nearing the complex, Pennsylvania Plaza remains one of the busier transportation, business and retailing neighborhoods in Manhattan.

Big Apple Comic Con

The Big Apple Comic Con is a New York City comic book convention, the longest-running comic book/speculative fiction/pop culture convention in New York City. It was started by retailer Michael "Mike Carbo" Carbonaro in March 1996 in the basement of the St. Paul the Apostle Church. During its heyday from 2001 to 2008, the Big Apple Comic Con often featured multiple shows per year, with a large three-day "national" convention held in November, usually held at the Penn Plaza Pavilion. The show was owned by Wizard Entertainment from 2009 to 2013, but was reacquired by Carbonaro in 2014. Over the course of its history, the convention has been known as the Big Apple Convention, the Big Apple Comic Book Art, and Toy Show, and the Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Expo; with the larger three-day November shows known as the National Comic Book, Art, Toy, and Sci-Fi Expo, the National Comic Book, Art, and Sci-Fi Expo, and the National Comic Book, Comic Art, and Fantasy Convention. In 2014, the name "Big Apple Convention" was revived by Carbonaro for its March 2015 show. Though it primarily focuses on comic books, the convention features a large range of pop culture elements, such as books, cinema, science fiction/fantasy, television, animation, anime, manga, toys, horror, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels. Along with panels, seminars, and workshops with comic book professionals, the Big Apple Comic Con often features previews of upcoming films, and such evening events as the costume contest overseen by "Captain Zorikh" Zorikh Lequidre.The convention regularly hosts hundreds of artists, exhibitors, and film and television personalities in a huge floorspace for exhibitors. The show includes autograph and photo op opportunities with all of the guests, as well as the Artists' Alley where comics artists can sign autographs and sell or do free sketches.

Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylvania Station. It is the fourth venue to bear the name "Madison Square Garden"; the first two (1879 and 1890) were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden (1925) farther uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street. The Garden is used for professional ice hockey and basketball, as well as boxing, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling and other forms of sports and entertainment. It is close to other midtown Manhattan landmarks, including the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and Macy's at Herald Square. It is home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and was home to the New York Liberty (WNBA) from 1997 to 2017. Originally called Madison Square Garden Center, the Garden opened on February 11, 1968, and is the oldest major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area. It is the oldest arena in the NBA and the NHL. As of 2016, MSG is also the second-busiest music arena in the world in terms of ticket sales. Including two major renovations its total construction cost was approximately $1.1 billion, and it has been ranked as one of the 10 most expensive stadium venues ever built. It is part of the Pennsylvania Plaza office and retail complex, named for the railway station. Several other operating entities related to the Garden share its name.

Pennsylvania Station (New York City)
Pennsylvania Station (New York City)

Pennsylvania Station, also known as New York Penn Station or simply Penn Station, is the main intercity railroad station in New York City and the busiest transportation facility in the Western Hemisphere, serving more than 600,000 passengers per weekday as of 2019. It is located in Midtown Manhattan, beneath Madison Square Garden in the block bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets, and in the James A. Farley Building, with additional exits to nearby streets. It is close to Herald Square, the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and Macy's Herald Square. Penn Station has 21 tracks fed by seven tunnels (the two North River Tunnels, the four East River Tunnels, and the single Empire Connection tunnel). It is at the center of the Northeast Corridor, a passenger rail line that connects New York City to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and intermediate points. Intercity trains are operated by Amtrak, which owns the station, while commuter rail services are operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and NJ Transit (NJT). Connections are available within the complex to the New York City Subway and buses. Penn Station is named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original owner, and shares its name with several stations in other cities. The current facility is the remodeled underground remnant of the original Pennsylvania Station, a more ornate station building designed by McKim, Mead, and White and considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style. Completed in 1910, it enabled direct rail access to New York City from the south for the first time. Its head house was torn down in 1963, galvanizing the modern historic preservation movement. The rest of the station was rebuilt in the following six years, while retaining most of the rail infrastructure from the original station. A new direct entrance from 33rd Street to the LIRR concourse opened in December 2020. Moynihan Train Hall, an expansion of Penn Station into a mixed-use redevelopment of the adjacent Farley Post Office building, opened in January 2021.Plans call for further expanding the LIRR concourse, adding railway platforms in a new southern annex to accommodate two proposed Gateway Program tunnels under the Hudson River, and renovating the core Penn Station under Madison Square Garden.