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Conceived to handle fewer than 200,000 passengers, the replacement Penn Station is today the busiest transit hub in the Western Hemisphere, through which more than 600,000 commuters pass each day — an experience as humiliating and bewildering as Grand Central remains inspiring and exalted. — The New York Times
NYT architecture critic Michael Kimmelman takes a look back at the triumphal arrival of the former Pennsylvania Station by McKim, Mead & White in 1910, its steady decline in the following decades, the consequential replacement with the current solution—a disappointing product of mid-century... View full entry
Details and designs have been revealed for the MSG Sphere London, a planned venue that would hold up to 21,500 people. [...]
The Madison Square Garden Company (MSG), which is behind the New York concert and sports venue of the same name, have bought a 1.9-hectare (4.7-acre) site in Stratford, adjacent to the Olympic Park and Westfield shopping centre, that was used as a coach park during the 2012 London Olympics.
— The Guardian
Image: Madison Square Garden CompanyInitially rumored in January 2018, London's sphere-shaped music venue proposal, designed by Populous, has substantially taken shape, and the Madison Square Garden Company (MSG) behind the project has reportedly now filed planning documents. The plans have been... View full entry
I’d been assigned to write a story about Pennsylvania Station, but I wanted to get a caboose-eye view of the decaying tunnels leading up to it, because the only imaginable way the station could be any worse is if it were underwater. Penn, the Western Hemisphere’s busiest train station, serves 430,000 travelers every weekday—more than LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark airports combined. — Bloomberg Businessweek
"As the gateway to America’s largest city," Devin Leonard writes in his piece for Bloomberg Businessweek, "Penn Station should inspire awe, as train stations do in London, Paris, Tokyo, and other competently managed metropolises. Instead, it embodies a particular kind of American failure—the... View full entry
Penn Station is much more than a transportation center. As the heart of the Northeast Corridor rail system, it has the potential to link downtown to downtown along the Eastern Seaboard in a way far more economical, expedient and environmentally sustainable than air travel.
But while the governor’s recently announced plan is a step toward this goal, more must be done. What we propose in addition is a completely new commuter station on the site of Madison Square Garden
— nytimes.com
The proposed plan for Penn Station's redesign comes by way of Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism. Previously, Chakrabarti was the director of Manhattan's Department of City Planning under former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where he also... View full entry
Governor Cuomo unveiled the sixth signature proposal of his 2016 agenda: transform Penn Station and the historic James A. Farley Post Office into a world-class transportation hub. The project, known as the Empire Station Complex.... is anticipated to cost $3 billion – will be expedited by a public-private partnership in order to break ground this year and complete substantial construction within the next three years. — State of New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced another piece of his proposal to revitalize New York's transportation infrastructure at Madison Square Garden this afternoon. Looking towards a private-public enterprise to develop the site, the proposal is budgeted at $3 billion and take three years to build.While... View full entry
“Penn Station did not make you feel comfortable; it made you feel important.” [...]
Unlike McKim’s monument, today’s Penn Station — where many visitors, both domestic and international, encounter New York City for the first time — certainly does not make you feel important. Comparing the vanished terminal with this tawdry replacement, the Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully once wrote, “One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat.”
— nytimes.com
Previously View full entry
In Screen/Print #26: an interview with Jessica Walsh, currently half of design firm Sagmeister & Walsh, was excerpted, from the 2nd issue of Intern Magazine (devoted to "intern culture" in the creative industries). Darkman was confused "Strange choice to interview the most hated... View full entry
Friday, October 24:Architecture in Flux: Reporting from ACADIA Conference, Day 1: The Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture has changed a lot since its inception in the early 1980s; the conference takes a look at the present moment of "digital design" practice, while that term... View full entry
If there’s one thing that all New Yorkers can agree on it’s that Penn Station is pretty awful. And if we’re ever going to get a new home for NJ Transit, Amtrak, and the LIRR, Madison Square Garden will have to move (just don’t tell any die-hard Rangers fans that). — 6sqft
The Alliance for a New Penn Station is proposing in a new report that the world-famous venue Madison Square Garden be relocated to the nearby Morgan Post Office and Annex, which occupies the block bound by 9th and 10th avenues and 28th and 30th streets. They say the mail sorting facility site is... View full entry
Yesterday, led by Speaker Christine Quinn, the New York City Council voted to limit Madison Square Garden’s permit to operate on top of Penn Station to just 10 more years.
Building a new Penn Station and the next Madison Square Garden will not only improve the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people who use the station every day – it will revitalize the surrounding area and bring tremendous long-term economic value to the region.
— mas.org
It might seem like a mismatch: the Dolans, veterans of many public brawls, against Kimmelman, an urbane trained pianist who previously wrote primarily about art. But such is the power of the Times when it’s given to a crusading voice. — NY Magazine
The Municipal Art Society asked four design firms to draw big: Reimagine the ideal Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden.
The proposals — by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture — will be introduced on Wednesday at the TimesCenter. All plans expect the new station to include high-speed rail.
— nytimes.com
SHoP ARCHITECTS Expands the existing site with a lightweight concrete structure that is meant to evoke the old Penn Station and seeks to make the station a social meeting spot. “When’s the last time you heard someone say, ‘Let’s meet for a drink at Penn Station?'&rdquo... View full entry
"While Madison Square Garden maintains that the arena special permit should continue in perpetuity, we believe the term is warranted due to the uniqueness of the site and the importance of Penn Station to the city," said Amanda Burden, the head of City Planning Department who also chairs the City Planning Commission. — Crain's
The New York City Planning Commission has laid out a case for restricting a special permit to 15 years that allows Madison Square Garden to operate in the heart of Midtown. The move would hopefully restart negotiations to get "the world's most famous arena" to relocate, freeing up space to... View full entry
Every day, more than 600,000 thousand rail commuters navigate the crowded maze of tunnels and tracks that is Penn Station. Mass transit advocates would like to replace the aging station with a world-class transportation hub. But there's a big obstacle: Madison Square Garden, the arena that sits directly on top of Penn Station. And the Garden's owners show no signs of moving. — npr.org
Previously: Municipal Art Society Challenges Architects for New Penn Station Vision View full entry
Some 600,000 commuters, riding Amtrak, Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit, now suffer Penn Station every day. That makes it probably the busiest transit hub in the Western world, busier than Heathrow Airport in London, busier than Newark, La Guardia and Kennedy airports combined.
To pass through Grand Central Terminal, one of New York’s exalted public spaces, is an ennobling experience, a gift. To commute via the bowels of Penn Station, just a few blocks away, is a humiliation.
— Michael Kimmelman, nytimes.com
