Monday, October 28, 1963: Penn Station

NEW YORK -- With not a pause for sentiment, wreckers Monday began demolishing lofty, drafty Pennsylvania Station to make way for a giant new Madison Square Garden.
     But the trains ran as usual, and they will continue to run during the wrecking, the construction and afterward. All the tracks are below ground.
     For 53 years, nine-acre Penn Station has stood, a monument of neoclassic architecture in which untold millions of travelers have moved.

     Leading New York architects fought to save the stately structure, designed after the Roman baths of Caracalla by Stanford White's noted architectural firm and built with tons of imported Italian marble.

     -- Associated Press. Full story: @

     -- 1962 photo from Library of Congress.

* "Farewell to Penn Station" (New York Times editorial, October 30): @

* Entry from New York Preservation Archive Project: @

* Entry from www.greatbuildings.com: @

* Entry from www.nyc-architecture.com: @

* Photos (from Business Insider): @

* Videos (from Gothamist): @

* "Conquering Gotham -- A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels" (Jill Jonnes, 2007): @

* "The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station" (Lorraine B. Diehl, 1985): @ and @

* "The Destruction of Penn Station" (photos by Peter Moore, 2000): @ 

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