The catacombs of Penn Station past

Forty years ago today at 9 a.m., in a light rain, jackhammers began tearing at the granite walls of the soon-to-be-demolished Pennsylvania Station, an event that the editorial page of The New York Times termed a "monumental act of vandalism" that was "the shame of New York."

This grim anniversary falls in Halloween week, when spirits of the departed seem so notoriously restive, and those searching for the insistent phantoms of Penn Station can find them deep in the bustling, claustrophobic warren that has been carved out of the old terminal's subterranean remains. Ghost hunters need only know where to look.

Consider, for example, the eroded splotch in the new imitation tile floor down a corridor off the station's busy rotunda.

Peeking through, and clearly visible, are exposed blocks of surviving pink Milford granite, adjacent to a section of the original tan herringbone-patterned bricks that once supplied the paving for Penn Station's southern carriage drive. Horse-drawn buggies — not to mention Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and five decades of passengers — traversed bricks identical to these as they rushed to waiting trains.

The article goes on to mention many other relics of the old station, and the walking tours organized around them. From the NY Times.

Posted by David on October 28, 2003 1:19 PM