New York S Original Penn Station

In early twentieth-century New York, few could have imagined a train terminal as grandiose as Pennsylvania Station. Yet, executives at the Pennsylvania Railroad secretly bought up land in Manhattan's infamous Tenderloin District to build one of the world's most spectacular monuments. Sandhogs would battle the fiercest of nature to build tunnels linking Manhattan to New Jersey and Long Island. For decades, Penn Station was a center of elegance and pride. But the ensuing rise of the airplane and automobile began to diminish train travel. Consequently, in the mid-1960s, the station was tragically destroyed. The loss inspired the birth of preservation laws in the city and the nation that would save other landmarks like Grand Central. Author Paul Kaplan recounts the trials and triumphs of New York's Penn Station.

This book recounts the heroic story of a public landmark: the masterpiece by McKim, Mead & White that opened in 1910, its tragic demolition in the 1960s, and the dazzling new station by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, due to open in 2005.".

An illustrated account of the construction, history, and demolition of one of the most famous railroad stations in America-- New York City's Penn Station.

A history of the various plans to get the Pennsylvania Railroad into Manhattan (over & under the Hudson R.) and out to the Northeast (across Hell Gate), and the monument that was Penn Station. Covers the tragic loss of that great edifice to the Quislings of Penn & the vulgar boosterism of NYC (which

The story of the spectacular and much-lamented train terminal whose destruction inspired a new passion for historic preservation. Includes photos. In early twentieth-century New York, few could have imagined a train terminal as grand as Pennsylvania Station. Yet, executives at the Pennsylvania Railroad secretly bought up land in Manhattan's infamous Tenderloin District to build one of the world's most spectacular monuments. Sandhogs would battle the fiercest of nature to build tunnels linking Manhattan to New Jersey and Long Island. For decades, Penn Station was a center of elegance and pride. But the ensuing rise of the airplane and automobile began to diminish train travel. Consequently, in the mid-1960s, the station was tragically destroyed. The loss inspired the birth of preservation laws in the city and the nation that would save other landmarks—such as New York’s Grand Central, just blocks away. Here, Paul Kaplan recounts the trials and triumphs of New York's Penn Station, with extensive photos and illustrations.

A poetic look at Penn Station from Louis Stettner, one of the masters of street photography, published in book form for the first time Louis Stettner is one of the last living members of the avant-garde New York School of photography of the 1950s, which challenged many of the long-accepted foundations of art form. His Penn Station series of the late 1950s represents some of his most important work, gathered here in a single form for the first time. The series is less a portrait of the building than a study of people at once in transit and in suspension. The pivotal moment for Stettner occurred in 1957, the year before he began the series in earnest. He had taken a photograph of a girl in a party dress stepping from one circular patch of sunlight to another across the vast floor of Penn station, away from the photographer into the shadowy distance. A year later Stettner felt compelled to return and create the series, but he found the photographs not “newsworthy” enough to publish. With time and distance, their significance has been recognized, and the series is now considered a major work of art.

This work traces the history of the creation, operation, and demolition of New York's Pennsylvania Station.

“Superb. [A] first-rate narrative” (The Wall Street Journal) about the controversial construction of New York’s beloved original Penn Station and its tunnels, from the author of Eiffel's Tower and Urban Forests As bestselling books like Ron Chernow's Titan and David McCullough's The Great Bridge affirm, readers are fascinated with the grand personalities and schemes that populated New York at the close of the nineteenth century. Conquering Gotham re- creates the riveting struggle waged by the great Pennsylvania Railroad to build Penn Station and the monumental system of tunnels that would connect water-bound Manhattan to the rest of the continent by rail. Historian Jill Jonnes tells a ravishing tale of snarling plutocrats, engineering feats, and backroom politicking packed with the most colorful figures of Gilded Age New York. Conquering Gotham will be featured in an upcoming episdoe of PBS's American Experience.