Pennsylvania Station (New York City)
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The Pennsylvania Station ( colloquially short Penn Station ) is a through station in the west of New York's Borough of Manhattan. It was built in 1910. The historic station building was demolished in 1963, completed the current 1968.
History
The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR ) had until the beginning of the 20th century no direct connection to Manhattan. Since their routes from the west led, was between its end point in Jersey City and Manhattan, the Hudson River. Travelers had to cross it on a ferry. The routes of the competitive society, the New York Central Railroad, on the other hand resulted from north to Manhattan into it. She had opened there in 1913 with the Grand Central Terminal on 42nd Street and its two predecessor stations always a major railway station in the middle of Manhattan.
The tunnel under the Hudson River ( for the then possible bridge engineering, he was too wide ) has been attempted since the 1870s. All projects, however, remained stuck. After the PRR had but bought the Long Iceland Railroad, they then possessed both east and west of Manhattan, a railway network that was to connect it. As at that time the second largest railway company in the world - after the Prussian State Railways - they went to this project. From 1905 to the tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan, worked the North River tunnels. In fact, there are two single-track tunnels that were completed by 1910. The maximum slope of the Einfahrrampen was 19 ‰. The tunnel ended in the new Pennsylvania Station, two more tunnels under the East River to Queens on Long Iceland further led to the other end. Because of the long tunnels solely electrical operation was planned from the beginning.
In 1904 the station was built and inaugurated in 1910, together with the tunnel system. The station building was designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White and was considered a masterpiece of the Beaux Arts style. The building combined pink granite and a façade with colonnades in Greco- Roman style with station - hall roofs made of steel and glass. The main hall with 150 feet height was then the largest public halls in the world, modeled after the not nearly as high Baths of Caracalla in Rome. With just under 46 meters, the height was between the nave of Cologne Cathedral (43.35 m) and the Cathedral of Milan ( 46.80 m). The station took two blocks 7 to 8 Avenue and 31st and 33rd Street and comprised 3.2 hectares. The cost of the entire project from the railway station and access tunnels amounted to 114 million dollars.
Due to the rising price of land in Manhattan and the now desolate financial situation of the PRR began in 1963, the demolition of the reception building to allow a residential development with high-yield real estate. This happened despite heavy criticism of the New York that led to the preservation establishing a citizens' movement. The campaign, however, was successful in that preservation law changed and thus in the 1970s also provided for demolition of Grand Central Terminal was prevented. In place of the old Penn Central station building created until 1968 Madison Square Garden, the high-rise Pennsylvania Plaza and other buildings. Opposite the train station, the Hotel Pennsylvania.
Operation
The station has 21 tracks, some of which are used by the Long Iceland Railroad tracks are head. Next run here today of the New Jersey Transit commuter trains and long distance trains from Amtrak.
The station is now chronically overloaded and is considered a " design disaster and logistical failure". Currently, there are plans to expand it by including the neighboring James Farley Post Office, which he would receive again a historic entrance to increase capacity and functionality of the existing station. The project will run under the slogan " Moynihan Station" after U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003), who had used it.
Worth knowing
Grand Central Terminal is available in a small branch office of the New York Transit Museum, an exhibition on the station building demolished Pennsylvania Station.