Anybody know of a good Link/Web-Site that chronicles what become of the parts in the station.?..Like the statute of Alexander Cassatt for example.
Thank You
I believe Cassatt’s statue is at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA. If my understanding is correct, that organization also has other Penn Station artifacts as well.
Tom
Wow…Great info. Thank You Both.
So incredibly sad…a building that still, in 2016, would be in its infancy. Some things use to be better, that is for sure.
In Garrison, New York at the train station are some of the eagles that stood atop the building. Yes, sad. I toured the building on a class trip in 1962 and it was a busy, busy place. When it was demolished and the Garden built all at the same time, it was considered a “miracle of progress.” Ah, hell…
In London, Euston station was pulled down at about the same time but pieces of it were found at the bottom of a canal and recovered and placed on the lawn in front of the station. There is a movement afoot in Britain to rebuild Euston back like it was, or at least rebuild the arch. I think it may happen, given the beautiful restorations of King’s Cross and St. Pancras which are nearby. Penn is a lost cause.
The Lipsett company which demolished Penn also scrapped the S.S. Normandie in 1947.
As has been noted in various places (and on this forum), it was the destruction of Penn Station that begat the architectural/historical preservation movement.
Too bad the movement didn’t start sooner. I would suspect that it falls into the realm of "they wouldn’t tear down a landmark like that, would they? And then they did…
Didn’t the Taliban and ISIS do the same thing? …in the case of Penn Station it was Stuart Suanders and the $$'s God. What a disgrace. Future generations will not believe it.
From my understanding, a lot of the rubble of Penn Station went as landfill in the NJ Meadowlands. The original Giants Stadium sat on it (along with Jimmy Hoffa perhaps?) There was a trucking company somewhere in that area that had some of the columns surrounding the parking lot as wheel bumpers. I heard about it and saw pix of it many years ago. The eagles got dispersed to different places. (After posting this I found a link that shows the columns being used as bumpers: http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/penn-station-found-in-the-meadows-1.364783?page=all )
I wonder who and what else is buried in the Meadowlands if “The Sopranos” is anything to go by.
No statues to Stuart T. Saunders, are there ?
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_T._Saunders :
“Stuart Thomas Saunders, Sr. (1909–1987) was an American railroad executive, better known as the “Vandal of Penn Station” to New Yorkers. . . . Under his term, the old, Roman-inspired Pennsylvania Station in New York City was callously razed to make way for an underground Penn Station: an indelible act of grand vandalism that has lastingly scared the sensibilities of every resident of New York City and the art lovers around the world. Saunders saw to it that the magnificent building was neglected so that he could declare it “derelict” and pull it down in order to replace it with the most unoriginal eyesore of two office buildings and Madison Square Garden. The outtcry over the destruction of the ornate structure instigated the landmarks preservation movement. Saunders has forever registered his name in the annals of the grand vandals in art history.”
There’s a quote about this attributed to several people, though I understood it came from former NY Senator Daniel P. Moynihan. Anyway,here’s one version:
"Comparing the vanished termi
Four of the eagles wound up on the Market St. Bridge over the Schuylkill River.
Thanks, Don ! [bow] The classy-looking building in the low background is 30th Street Station. You can see why I said above that’s where Cassatt’s statue belongs - proves my point exactly ! There are other similar memorials there already, including one to J. Edgar Thomson, one of Cassatt’s predecessors and certainly his equal:
http://www.philart.net/landmark/30th_Street_Station/72.html
For more on 30th Street, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30th_Street_Station
(The glass building in the right high background ? The Cira Centre - mehh, just another modern office building, like those on the site of the former NY Penn Station . . . ).
[:-,] Why are there no such eagles at airport terminals ?!?
- Paul North.
It is Sad/Funny…in the “American Experience” documentary about the construction, and subsequent demolition of the station, there is footage showing several of the eagles down on the ground.
With their hollow eyes, and addition of time, dirt and demo debris, it looks like the eagles are crying…or at least wearing very sad faces.
It’s really depressing…
I couldn’t speak to that, Paul, but there usually seem to be vultures at bus stations and (night) owls at the Cleveland Amshak. [;)]
Ah yes, Stuart Saunders, the assassin of Norfolk and Wesern steam.
Hate to speak ill of the dead, but Mr. Saunders strikes me as someone who was lucky enough to find himself in various positions at various times where he couldn’t help but look good without exerting himself, or by relying on the exertions of very talented subordinates, and kept moving up the corporate ladder until the day came when his luck ran out.
We all meet people like that as we go through life, don’t we?
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1928&dat=19300411&id=EB0gAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lWYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4368,1163206&hl=en
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1060968.1334295525!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/gallery_1200/stanley-cup-playoffs-rangers-senators.jpg
Hmmm, as a Pennsylvania Railroad man wouldn’t Mr. Rea have been a Philadelphia Flyers fan?
I’m surprised the statue didn’t come to life and kick those two Rangers fan’s butts!
Firelock76- 100% yes on both of your posts. Gets one to thinking about what really was going on and what we have become. Assassin and then bread and circus’s. Penn Station remains dumped in the swamp …could that even be imaginable? …yet it is reality.
Rea’s allegiance would be Broad St. Bullies first then Pittsburg Penquins for sure.
“+1” He was smart, he was clever (Harvard Law), knew the corporate law thing really well. But as to railroading, he was more lucky in timing and events than knowledgeable. Also, he was of the mindset - as were many back then (and even now, see E. Hunter Harrison) - that a merger was the magic wand to cure everything. But then he had no idea what went wrong or how to fix it (see “The Wreck of the Penn Central”, by Daughin and Binzen, I think).
John Kneiling summed it up best when he said that the management knew it was losing a lot of money, was surprised when bankers refused to lend them any more - and then it came out that the losses were running close to $1 million a day (in 1969 $). What did they expect ? The alleged fraud and other chicanery was just a side-show - the real problem was the operating side was fundamentally and financially broken, and they couldn’t see it - thought a merger would fix everything. Sure sign of an amateur, I think Kneiling said.
Mike/ wanswheel, thanks again for those neat photos (I could live without seeing the hockey jersey one, though).
- Paul North.
Rush Loving’s “The Men Who Loved Trains” does a good job of telling the whole sordid Penn Central story as well. Corporate blindness, arrogance, refusal to see the handwriting on the wall, it’s all in there.
It’s a hard book to put down once you start it, trust me.