Pennsylvania Station Documentary

a weekday morning in New York City and this modest stairwell is the entrance to one of the most important buildings in railroad history and Sylvania station more than 500,000 people population of Wyoming will go in and out of this entrance today in spite of its volume of passengers the Pennsylvania station of today is little more than a glorified subway station low ceilings dim lighting and poor acoustics make it a place most people want to scurry through as quickly as possible and few of these people have any idea of what a glorious monument to railroad is once here built between 1906 and 1910 Penn Station was a place of inspiring beauty and elegance of soaring inspiration as well as clockwork efficiency it was perhaps the loftiest expression of corporate architecture ever erected in this country until it was tragically demolished in 1966 it was the grandest train station of them all if I were passenger coming into Manhattan arriving in Penn Station in 1910 I would have felt like a king it would have given me a sense of entitlement that would have surprised me because the station was so extraordinary because there was so many elements of the station put together just to make me feel good about arriving in this city I would have understood that I was very very special [Music] I want to give you a sense of what it was like to enter Pennsylvania's station when that wonderful building was in fact here now you could have come out the exit concourse and avoid the main concourse but if you decided to treat yourself what you would do is take this staircase up here and being probably one of the most dramatic rooms in the country the ceiling of the train what I call the Train shed of Pennsylvania station was a series of intersecting barrel vaulted arches imagine standing in this room you've got the light pouring down filtering down the dust particles are caught in the air coming down onto a glass floor in fact we have a little bit of the ghosts of Pennsylvania station still with us I like to think of Penn Station as a stubborn ghost in fact it won't go away and we have some of it right here and these glass blocks actually used to light the exit concourse below if we were in the old Penn Station we would exit the concourse from some rather inauspicious doors but when we walk through them we would be in one of the most magnificent rooms in the entire country you're I left the floor sword up the 60-foot Corinthian columns soared up 150 feet high to a coffered vaulted ceiling the room was made of a travertine marble which is a warm honey colored marble that in effect is enhanced by where all that's left of the main waiting room of Pennsylvania Station is right over here if you look down here with me beyond this terrazzo is some of the original pink Vermont both it was absolutely exquisite when it was here and most people who come over here and make telephone calls don't realize that they're actually standing on history the history of the Pennsylvania station begins in the early years of this century was an exciting and dynamic time the country was booming with growing strength and accomplishment Teddy Roosevelt the perfect embodiment of an energized America sent the Great White Fleet to impress the world with the nation's Awakening potency and influence New York City was changing the L now reached into new and different neighborhoods the automobile would soon appear on city streets to challenge the horse and carriage skyscrapers rose everywhere as the city grew and moved continuously uptown it had reached 42nd Street where the New York Central Railroad had built its Grand Central Station and no facet of American life better represented the robust strength and optimism of a country entering a new century and its railroads in 1900 Americans were traveling over a railroad system that ran over 37,000 locomotives on almost 200,000 miles of track from the tiniest hamlet to the nation's great cities no other industry dominated American life like the railroad and of the over 1200 separate railroads in America at the turn of the century none was the equal of the Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Railroad was the most powerful of all of these railroads they hauled more passengers more Freight than any other railroad they were the richest railroad they had by far the greatest power the Pennsy as it was known was the unquestioned leader in technology and operating practices although other lines such as the Union or Southern Pacific had more tract no lion served a more profitable root system the Pennsylvania Railroad was really uniquely situated being located where they were in in the heart of Pennsylvania where the steel mills were established so much of the mining was done so much of the heavy industry was filled up but the railroad needed a direct link to New York City if it was to grow and compete in 1871 the Pennsylvania leased the United canal and railroad companies of New Jersey so that took them to the west bank of the Hudson where they could look across at New York and built a big terminal there and they had ferry boats took their passengers across to Manhattan the ride across could be smooth and direct or a heaving rolling ordeal that had some passengers seasick before they reached the other side and when they docked in Manhattan passengers were swept into a jostling traffic choked West Street crowded with teams of horses peddlers panhandlers and even prostitutes their archrival the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad run by the van der Bilt's came right into Manhattan right to their Grand Central Depot on 42nd Street and this was something that the Pennsylvania simply couldn't accept for not only was it inconvenient for passengers whose destination was Manhattan but the Pennsy also lacked a direct connection to New England railroads such as the New Haven and it was prestige involved they were the Pennsylvania the greatest railroad in America they couldn't let their rival continue to dominate the greatest destination in the nation a solution had to be found and in 1899 it was his name was Alexander Cassatt he was chosen as the president at the Pennsylvania Railroad he came from a wealthy Pittsburgh family and studied engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic as a young man had gone to work for the Pennsylvania as a civil engineer rose rapidly through the ranks and in the 1880s became a vice president and finally in 1899 at a critical point in the history of the railroad he was elected president and immediately set out not only solving the Manhattan and access problem but in carrying out over a ten-year period the greatest program of improvements in the railroads history Cassatt was determined to find a way into New York and present his railroad to the city and the world in a manner that was deserving of its greatness the solution would be one of the most ambitious engineering feats in history Cassatt was determined to find a better way than ferry boats to shuttle 72 million people across the Hudson building a bridge or a tunnel was no easy task the river at the point of the Pennsylvania ferry crossings was close to a mile wide and 65 feet deep with strong tides no engineering project to date had confronted such a challenge [Music] Cassatt began by putting in charge his assistant Samuel Rey black Cassatt Ray had worked his way up at the Pennsylvania as a civil engineer when he was named to be assistant to the president his first task had been to study alternatives to crossing the Hudson Ray was the perfect choice to head up the New York project different plans for bridging the river were explored all tremendously ambitious one called for a massive cantilevered bridge with a main span of 2,300 feet carrying six railroad tracks another would a feature to span twice as long as the Brooklyn Bridge supported by 500 flipped hours but each of these plans fell away either the railroad withdrew because of the enormous potential cost or the federal government opposed the bridges as a hindrance to navigation on the river with bridges no longer an option ray and Cassatt turned their attention to a tunnel tunneling underwater had been done in England as early as the first half of the 19th century but nothing had been done on the scale that was required to tunnel under the Hudson until very late in the 19th century there were several things that had to be developed one was the ability to work under pressure which was required to to tunnel below water like that and even if a tunnel could be built there was the problem of pulling trains through it with such a long tunnel steam locomotives would asphyxiate the passengers before they got to the other side but Ray thought he'd found the answer electricity [Music] electric traction had been developed in the 1880s and in the mid 1890s it was used successfully in a railroad tunnel in Baltimore but in 1901 electric traction was used to bring trains through a tunnel along the Seine to an underground station at the new K d'Orsay station in Paris Cassatt was traveling in Europe at the time and Rea cabled his boss to stop in Paris and have a look at this new electrified tunnel Cassatt went to Paris and came away impressed also in 1901 the Pennsylvania took advantage of an opportunity and acquired control of a Long Island Railroad this new line will allow the railroad to carry passengers to the tip fast-growing Long Island now it also had to cross the river on the east side of Manhattan with belief in electric traction technology and the financial incentive of the Long Island Railroad casada announced the Pennsylvania Railroad would do what had never been done they would build tunnels under not just one but two rivers the elements of Cassatt's plan were first of all the tunnels under the Hudson River which got them to tunnels under the East River which provided a way to take the trains across to a new storage and servicing yard at Sunnyside and Queens but also to bring the Long Island trains into Manhattan from Long Island there was the New York connecting railroad through the Hell Gate Bridge which was to be built connected them to the New Haven Railroad in Connecticut and tying all of this together would be a magnificent new terminal in Manhattan a terminal the likes of which the world had never seen but first the tunnels had to be built two tunnels would go under the Hudson and four under the East River each shaft would start from opposite sides of the rivers and meet at mid Chandler this was a enormous engineering undertaking for its time these these tunnels were were longer and larger than anything that had been done up to that time it was a very difficult River to tunnel under because of the conditions on the bottom one of the problems that they faced was that the tunnel had to be drilled through nothing but soft materials clay and sand and silt on the bottom of the river the Hudson tunnels would have to be drilled at 40 feet below the low tide level to avoid damage from heavy anchors or sunken vessels and to ensure they could pass below existing piers each singletrack tunnel would be formed of a cast iron shell with an outside diameter of 23 feet this shell would be made from a series of 2 foot wide rings bolted together the cast iron shell would then be lined on the inside by 2 feet of concrete since the tunnels would be drilled not in rock but in soft silt Rey and his staff decided on a driven shield tunneling system the shield only slightly larger than the diameter of the tunnel was hydraulically pushed through the muck the 200 ton shield was all that stood between the workers and the river bottom seven doors in the shield allowed workers to scoop out the debris then a large hydraulic arm lifted a section of ring into place for bolting in the beginning it took five or six hours to install one ring which advanced the tunnel by two and a half feet by the time the work was in full progress a ring could be put up in 30 minutes [Music] the other great challenge of the tunnel was pressure in order to keep the river out of the tunnel compressed air had to be forced into an airlock to build up pressure in the tunneling area workers coming out of this high-pressure area too quickly faced the agony of caisson disease later known as the bends it was hard work building these tunnels that was hard working under the compressed air pressure he was damp there was always some water leaking into the tunnel there was a lot of danger involved it they had to be concerned about on the Hudson River tunnels they had a few what were called blowouts where the compressed air would find a weak spot in the material and the river and blow out through that up into the river and there was a great danger whenever that happened that water could could then enter the tunnel and and drown all the workers there on the East River tunnels where they were very close to the bottom of the river they had even more problems at that time that there were a number of serious blowouts there and several fatalities from flooding of the tunnel as best he could Cassatt provided his workers with some comforts each man's locker was heated so he wouldn't have to put on cold wet clothes each day hot baths were available as well as a full-time doctor and hot coffee was standing by around the clock [Music] on September 12 1906 less than two years after starting at six days ahead of schedule the two ends of the first Hudson Tunnel finally met they were less than one inch from perfect alignment an incredible feat considering the fairly primitive surveying techniques that were used but the other Hudson River tunnel and the for East River tunnels had to be completed concrete poured and roadbed and track laid it was not until June 21st 1909 that Rey and his staff would make the first crossing through the tunnels not by train but in a shiny lousy automobile the first amazing Stephon Alexander Cassatt's master plan had been achieved the rivers have been crossed the Pennsylvania Railroad had reached Manhattan [Music] now Cassatt would create the ultimate train station the grand gateway to New York that had eluded him for so long [Music] Alexander Cassatt wanted a monumental gateway you have to remember he was so frustrated he was so anxious to get his trains into Manhattan I mean for 30 years he'd been trying to get his trains into Manhattan when he finally did he wanted something that reflected the greatness of the railroad he wanted it to be announced with fanfare and bugles and what better way to say I've arrived than to have this extraordinary building at the turn of the century the people who ran in corporations were different than the people who run corporations today they had a different value system it came from the fact that someone like casat would regard architecture something that should have integrity and he would it would make sense to him to spend money on that to design his great terminal Cassatt chose Charles McKim an architect he knew would share his respect for the traditional forms of classical architecture Charles McKim was one third of the noted architectural team of McKim Mead and white together these men had produced some of the most notable buildings in Manhattan including Madison Square Garden and the low library at Columbia University McKim was a studious and contemplative architect with enormous respect for the structures of the past while his more famous partner Stanford white worked from bravado and inspiration mcinnes trademarks were research and thoroughness but he also had a great sense of the dramatic which would soon reveal itself in his plans for Pennsylvania Station both of these qualities were best shown in the admiration he felt for the Baths of Caracalla in ancient Rome McKim had always been thrilled with his immense structures haunting use of light in space to enhance brilliant engineering the Baths of Caracalla would now become Charles McCombs inspiration for Penn Station for years the railroad had quietly been buying up real estate on Manhattan's West Side just below 34th Street and a few blocks east of the Hudson River it was not what anyone would call a choice piece of real estate its eastern edge was part of the old Tenderloin district of bars and brothels to the north gangs of hoodlums wandered Hell's Kitchen the western edge was a network of railroad tracks slaughterhouses and slums [Music] in all the Pennsylvania would acquire title to 28 acres of which seven and a half acres would be used for the station itself the station complex would truly match the Roman Baths for all inspiring size there would be 21 tracks and 11 platforms overall the station and yard would contain 16 miles of track but before any construction could begin 500 buildings would be raised and more than 1500 people would be displaced entire blocks of tenements shops factories and even a church would all have to be eliminated in all five million bricks and 6,000 truckloads of rubble were carted away [Music] excavation started in the summer of 1904 and would continue for nearly five years the hole had to be dug 58 feet down through Manhattan Rock and two city blocks wide on either side of 8th Avenue the work of digging the foundation was extremely difficult sewers water and gas mains had to be protected at all times a ninth Avenue with its elevated railroad had to be supported by an elaborate system of support beams trusses and posts as Penn Station grew out of the hole people at last grasped the scale of McKim vision [Music] the building's principal facade which would run for 430 feet or two city blocks along 7th Avenue was to be a colonnade of 30 columns four and a half feet wide and 35 feet high the main entrance was 102 feet wide with twin maidens representing night and day towering over the portico the maidens would flank a clock with a seven-foot dial [Music] trains moving on the many miles of track which would be part of the overall terminal system would require so much electricity the railroad had to build its own power station in Queens mccombs design would be nearly three times the size of the st. Louis station been the largest in the nation New Yorkers had heard these statistics and seen sketches in the newspapers of what McKim and Cassatt had in mind there was a growing sense of anticipation and excitement as the months passed and the huge station grew out of the immense hole and raised its great presence over the old streets on November 27th 1910 after more than seven years of construction the station opened for service more than 100,000 people got their first look at the new station that day they were not disappointed Charles McKim planned very carefully a sequence of spaces that went from large to small from wide to narrow and from level to level when you entered the station at the 7th Avenue side there was a vestibule and beyond that a very wide arcade it was meant to look like the arcades and Milan and Naples so you walk past all of these shops and then at the end of them was about two-thirds of a block long there were places to eat the beautiful main dining room had corinthian pilasters a coffered ceiling and seating and fine walnut chairs for 500 passing by the dining room passengers then came to the head of the grand 40-foot stairway the main waiting room that now opened before them was breathtaking that room was considered the largest and most monumental single room in the world at that time it had a vaulted ceiling that is at its highest point really was 150 feet which is the equivalent of 15 modern stories today the room was lit with natural light from very large half-round windows at the clerestory level that sent these wonderful shafts of sunlight into the station the room just stood there waiting to receive you again this extraordinary generosity of spirit when you went and it was also intangible but it was really there every single element in that station was designed to make you feel good about yourself it would have been very hushed restful echoing and the sheer size would have been overwhelming in the height of the ceiling so that it would have been beautiful but it would have also been dwarfing although it was called the main waiting room that was in fact not a single seat in this space larger than the nave of st. Peter's the real waiting rooms were elsewhere men and women still waited in separate areas the men's waiting room featured a bootblack and a barbershop a proper gentleman also found other services here they used to have a changing room for him so that if he was going out to the theatre that night he could change into his tuxedo there would be there would be a little tray laid out for him with a whisk and combs and all sorts of things it was very grand it was marvelously grand beyond the general waiting room in Pennsylvania station was the concourse McKim intended this very structural straightforward kind of space to be a transition for the traveler between the Roman splendor of the general waiting room that they had just come from to the utilitarianism of the tracks and the viaduct sand the train yards and everything that they were going toward picture a room made of glass and steel a vaulted ceiling your mind took a journey long before you got on a train and when the train announcer announced called out the station's announced the trains that were departing it was as evocative as a as a train whistle in the night there was an extraordinary room casada mcinnes creation was truly a product of a very special time in America for travelers a long journey was an extraordinary experience people expected it to be heightened by a sense of luxury however we still wanted to be on the cutting edge of modern technology which means that Pennsylvania station didn't simply have stairways it had elevators it had ramps it even had an escalator it had conveyor belts for the mail and of course the ultimate thing was it was this very large underground electrified station which had never been done before in this country for all its beauty Penn Station also had to function efficiently and that it did for those who wished carriageways on either side of the building would drop passengers at steps leading directly to the main waiting room which housed the ticket counters and baggage facilities baggage was delivered to and from trains by a special subway in only seven years the Pennsylvania Railroad had achieved the long-sought goal of delivering passengers to Manhattan but it had achieved much more than that the Train riding public now entered America's greatest city through a stunning edifice of steel and glass of swirling light and glowing marble a magnificent Palace of railroading had been born where journeys began and ended with a sense of magic and fantasy sadly Alexander Cassatt and Charles McKim never saw the gym they had created both died before their station was completed they would not be a part of the 50 years of greatness which lay ahead after its opening Americans by the millions discovered there was nothing quite like Penn Station it's great spaces efficient layout and inviting luxuries made the terminal more successful every year people could now see the great organized vision of Cassatt's plan the glamorous station received all the attention but an important key to the station's success was a huge Sunnyside rail yards across the East River and Queens here hundreds of trains each day were cleaned and restocked with food and supplies before heading back to the station to pick up departing passengers the final part of his master plan was the construction of a bridge across Hell Gate the narrow connection between Long Island Sound in the East River this would at last connect the news station with New England railroads the important thing here was it wasn't just the station it wasn't just the tunnels it wasn't the electrification it was all of them put together to make up a whole you had a whole system of railroad facilities that all had to work together to serve this important channel in New York and it worked wonderfully by the 1920s Penn Station had eclipsed its rival Grand Central it was handling 300 trains a day and 60 million passengers annually the busiest of all North American stations gradually Penn Station became one of New York City's important landmarks and its trains were quickly part of every New York travellers vocabulary the Florida special in Miami and took vacationers south the Crescent limited left daily for New Orleans the st. Lucie into the gateway city and the congressional limited became the Train on the New York Washington but far on the way the greatest train operating out of Pennsylvania station was the Broadway limited this star of the New York Chicago run was an all Pullman train of sleeping dining and lounge cars only no expense was spared to offer passengers the ultimate luxury and service fresh flowers and fine linen were everywhere the best champagne was on ice a barber and stenographer were available as was a piano player in the lounge four chefs could prepare as many as 24 different dishes Penn Station and the Broadway limited were popular with celebrities like Charlie Chaplin Sophie Tucker loved to sample new dishes in the dining car kitchen Will Rogers the Duke and Duchess of Windsor Franklin Roosevelt and many more all fans of this great trade the Broadway limited was also famous for its races with its great crosstown rival the New York Central's luxurious 20th century limited their competition was most dramatic on the return trip to New York both of the Magnificent trains left Chicago daily at the same time at Englewood Illinois the two trains raced side-by-side for six miles thrilling passengers and prove to their special competition throughout the 20s and 30s the number of passengers using Penn Station increased enormously a small army of people were employed at the station to take care of the tens of thousands of passengers who move through the station daily nearly 3,000 people worked at Penn Station 335 Redcaps assisted passengers with bags seventy-six clerks sold tickets 20 operators answered the 700 phone calls which came in every hour 400 cooks waiters and waitresses served an estimated 5,000 meals every day a police force of 32 officers patrolled the station and during the Christmas season an organist serenaded passengers in the main waiting room with carols Pennsylvania stations finest hours came during World War two at all hours soldiers and sailors move through the station often entire units packed into the concourse or waiting room to board special trains at night servicemen could be found sleeping on waiting room benches or even on the steps of the grand stairway the years of World War two provided the ultimate test for Charles McInnes design the architect had been gone for forty years but his vision for the efficient movement of great numbers was never more successful day after day year after year ever-increasing numbers of passengers poured into the station to board around the clock stream of trains [Music] the peak here for the station was 1945 when a record 109 million passengers swarmed through the station during that year 350,000 people passed through every day to board 900 different trades [Music] once the war ended the Pennsylvania Railroad thought the post-war years would continue railroad success but forces a fundamental change in America had begun forces which would profoundly affect Penn Station [Music] the GIS who arrived home were in many cases not the same young men who had gone off to war after stressful years of depression and the war American values were about to undergo great change which would have enormous effect on Penn Station and the nation's railroads after World War two men were coming back from the war or the keen sense of the future I think that most of them felt that they didn't want to go back to the past I think they felt that the past and betrayed them a British city was not the place they wanted to live a new American dream had arrived a house in the suburbs in a car real estate developers provided the houses by the thousands and Detroit poured forth an endless stream of shiny new cars and in 1946 the federal government started what would become the interstate highway system the biggest construction project in its history Americans took to the roads and numbers that could not have been imagined before the war and for millions of GIS who had spent so much time in planes during the war commercial airlines now offered a tempting faster alternative to long-distance rail travel ridership of American railroads fell dramatically although it would take 20 years to complete the decline of the Pennsylvania Railroad and its terminal was actually very rapid but the 1950s the Penn sees ridership was down to a quarter of its wartime peak and the railroad was seventy-two million dollars in debt each year there were fewer passengers as the railroads financial condition deteriorated the staff at Penn Station was cut and upkeep was neglected when Penn Station was built its 1910 the exterior was this pristine pink Milford granite and exquisite looking material by the 1960s it looks so played and it looked dark and that wonderful Roman quality that actually became a negative once the station was no longer kept up because it looked intimidating it looked like a huge dark tomb Pennsylvania Station was never what you would call a moneymaker for the from the Pennsylvania Railroad and from about 1950 the Pennsylvania is looking for some way of using the very valuable air rights over the station to create something that would bring some income to the railroad after several proposals for developing the space over Penn Station one was finally selected by the railroad in 1961 a press release announced that a new Madison Square Garden Sports Complex would be built above the tracks buried in the announcement was the news that many had feared one of the greatest buildings in the history of American architecture would be torn down and you have to keep in mind there was no landmarks preservation law to protect the building there was no law on the city books there was no law anywhere to say you can't take this building so in in effect even though Pennsylvania Station belonged to the country it belonged to each and every one of us it was also the property of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad could do whatever they wanted and they did and they destroyed it [Music] little by little the old Penn Station gradually came down [Music] McKim magnificent sun-splashed waiting room the magical lace work of the concours roof each section gradually yielded to the Wreckers ball by 1966 it was all gone [Music] in its place is a low ceiling subterranean station with an office building in Madison Square Garden smashed down upon it the original tracks and platforms all remain the tunnel system still works as efficiently as ever and trains bound for New England still cross the Great Hell Gate Bridge but mcinnes magnificent generosity of space and light was replaced by a cramped fluorescent-lit Wharram practicality and cost-effectiveness Cassatt's grand gateway now welcomes passengers with trinkets tags and advertising after Pennsylvania Station was demolished it dawned on people what had happened not so much just because the absence of this wonderful building but because of what they found in its place the new Penn Station was a shock it's really just a basement with a bunch of escalators it's about as alienating and boring as a parking garage all that remains today at the site of the old station are two of the 20 proud eagles which once guarded the entrances night and day the Magnificent maidens who once marked Times passage now sit Brian covered and forgotten the park in New Jersey it wasn't until the station was torn down people turned around and realized it was much more than a building that was destroyed we had been deprived of our past we've been robbed of our heritage we became instant orphans millions of people come through Penn Station every day and unless they look at some of the pictures of the old station that you can see here they have no idea of what was taken from them Penn Station has been gone for over 30 years but recently a plan has been created to build a new Penn Station using this building the James Farley post office building across the street from the old station it was built by Penn station's architects directly over the tracks to handle mail it finally approved the classic Bo's arts building would be renovated to create a magnificent new entrance to the station inspired by the old one in addition to expanded platforms and other Amtrak facilities the new station will include 275 thousand square feet of shops stores theaters and restaurants this magnificent building as solid as timeless as it seems would surprise many people if they realize it was built over operating station platforms trains are going underneath us right now people are coming off those trains getting on those trains in the crowded most crowded busiest station in the nation and our hope is that we'll be able to take people off those platforms which are now desperately overcrowded and move them upwards into this great building the purpose of the plan to redevelop Penn Station is to create a gateway once again in this city a gateway that transports more people than any other place in America it is also it will be the center piece of the multi-billion dollar high rail system that will eventually be built in a Northeast Corridor right now when someone comes into New York they come into that what we hope is that when someone comes into New York they'll come into this this is the most magnificent facade possibly in America if we can rebuild Penn Station in the Farley building New York will have this as its front door Senator Daniel Moynihan remembers the old Penn Station and looks forward to the new way when I was a lad I was in the Navy or ship would come into port at Norfolk and you get on a train or a weekend leave and you derive all the hopes of youthful possibilities in this wonderful space that welcomed you and said you are home and you're going to have a wonderful time when you came up the steps into the great oh you knew you had arrived in the most important city in the world no question about that it is a remarkable serendipity that we shall have a second chance to recreate a Pennsylvania Station it was an act of vandalism to destroy this station and it is an act of of confidence and understanding to recreated Thomas Wolfe perhaps best described Pennsylvania Station in his book you can't go home again for here as nowhere else on earth men were brought together for a moment at the beginning of time or end of their innumerable journeys here one saw their greetings and farewells here in a single instant one got the entire picture of the human destiny men came and went they passed and vanished and all were moving through the moments of their lives to death all made small ticking zin the sound of time but the voice of time remained aloof and unperturbed a drowsy and eternal murmur below the immense and distant roof Pennsylvania Station Alexander Cassatt's Great Palace of railroading sadly lasted for only fifty years but it's legacy to us all is a heightened awareness of America's important buildings and their meaning to our cultural heritage it's a great gift from a great building [Music] [Applause] [Music]

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Views: 236,695

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Keywords: pennsylvania station, new york city, trains, train stations, pennsylvania railroad

Id: 7YwZFm3RrFw

Length: 45min 27sec (2727 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 17 2019