The Grand Penn Group Alliance (GPCA) introduced its proposal for renovating Penn Station on the New York Historic on Tuesday, March 11, outlining a return to the unique transit hub’s pre-demolition Beaux Arts glory and a complete relocation of Madison Sq. Backyard (MSG), amongst different options.
Led by former New York Metropolis Chief of City Design Alexandros Washburn and funded by the Nationwide Civic Artwork Society (NCAS), a Washington, DC, nonprofit that advocates for classical structure in federal buildings, the proposal seems to construct on President Trump’s push for classical federal structure amid Penn Station’s slow-moving growth plans. Governor Hochul spoke with Trump about allotting federal {dollars} for bettering the station final November after he was elected.
The board of the NCAS, fashioned in 2002, consists of Thomas D. Klingenstein — a far-right political scientist, Trump ally, and board chair of the conservative Claremont Institute suppose tank who poured over $10.5 million in contributions to Republican campaigns and PACs throughout the 2024 election season.
The renderings launched by the Grand Penn Group Alliance present a classical façade lined with Doric columns in entrance of Vornado Realty Belief’s PENN 2 enterprise middle on the station’s Seventh Avenue entrance. GPCA’s proposal would additionally stage the contentious Madison Sq. Backyard’s round fashionable structure totally to make means for a grassy public plaza that’s roughly the scale of Bryant Park and accessorized by a fountain.
Regardless of being essentially the most well-known leisure and sports activities venue on the earth, MSG sparked worldwide outrage for its function within the demolition of the unique Beaux Arts-style Penn Station’s quarters in 1963. Loathed by many, the venue that opened in 1968 compelled the station to depend on its underground core, prompting structure historian Vincent Scully to remark that “One entered the town like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.”
In an interview with Hyperallergic, NCAS President Justin Shubow recalled that late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan referred to as the unique station’s demolition “the biggest single act of vandalism within the historical past of New York.”
In 2013, the Manhattan Group Board 5 voted to impose a 10-year time restrict on the sector’s working allow reasonably than permitting it to run in perpetuity. A number of structure companies proposed the relocation of the venue in bids to renovate and develop Penn Station, and in 2023, the identical group board solely afforded MSG a five-year working allow, closing in on the location’s eventual relocation for the station’s profit.
That very same yr, the MSG’s Government Vice President Joel Fisher recommended that the venue could be amenable to transferring throughout the road on Seventh Avenue, the place the world-famous and now-demolished Resort Pennsylvania as soon as stood. The plot additionally belongs to Vornado, which intends to develop the location, dubbed PENN15, right into a skyscraping workplace tower when market situations align with the plan.
Hyperallergic contacted Vornado Realty Belief and the Madison Sq. Backyard Leisure Company for remark. Along with MSG’s relocation, the Alliance’s renderings for the Commuter Corridor evoke the unique Penn Station concourse’s excessive ceilings and iron and glass entrances — full with a duplicate of the unique clock — that may hook up with the Moynihan Practice Corridor throughout the James A. Farley Submit Workplace via an underground tunnel. The boarding concourse would characteristic 18-foot excessive ceilings and a number of elevators and escalators as nicely.
Washburn, a chief architect of the Moynihan Practice Corridor improvement, estimates that the Penn Station overhaul would price about $7.5 billion, with $3.5 billion dedicated to the relocation of MSG. Within the FAQ part of GPCA’s web site for the challenge, the Alliance notes that the fee estimate is “ought to price $1 billion lower than the schemes proposed by New York State and Amtrak,” each of which go away MSG above the station.
“What we’re doing right here is in the end a civic transfer,” Washburn mentioned in a telephone name with Hyperallergic, pointing on to the Ephebic oath for Classical Athenian youths that pledged to go away their metropolis higher than how they discovered it.
Close to Penn Station’s turning into a hub for unsheltered individuals, particularly because the COVID-19 pandemic, Washburn mentioned that public restrooms and public seating have been unquestionably included within the proposal, “whereas many designers merely take out [those amenities] as a result of they don’t need to take care of the problem.”
In response to potential apprehension towards each President Trump’s involvement in addition to the controversial name again to classical structure, each Shubow and Washburn stood by recalling the unique station’s memorable look.
“If individuals object to the structure, nicely, they’re welcome to take action. But when President Trump will get concerned, that doesn’t imply that we’re not going to get an exquisite station,” Shubow mentioned. “The design speaks for itself — no matter what individuals may take into consideration Trump’s politics, that is one thing that can make all New Yorkers proud.”
Washburn, who’s half Greek, shared that “classical structure comes naturally” for him, and expressed that the shape works as an “interplay between the pure and the classical,” citing the Corinthian column’s use of the acanthus leaf motif as one instance.
In January, Trump issued a memorandum titled “Selling Lovely Federal Civic Structure” that referred to as for “regional, conventional, and classical architectural” designs. The memo prompted speedy pushback from teams together with the American Institute of Architects, who mentioned the president’s preferences might stifle architectural freedom and innovation.
