Lileks on the New Penn Station

James Lileks waxes nostalgic on the death of the old Penn Station and the birth of the old-style new one.

What to do with Penn Station after the new one’s done? Roll up the concrete trucks, boys. Lower the chutes. Open the sluice gates. Fill it in.

That said, Penn Station had one thing going for it. Trains. Nothing compares to arriving by train; you’re not dropped off in a climate-controlled center on the edge of town, but dropped in the humid middle, surrounded by machinery and steam and shouts and clangs. You don’t slide up the jetway – you schlep yourself along the platform to the stairs, you jostle and maneuver and find your place in the throng; you thread through the station, head outside – and oh, my, GOD, there it is, loud and wide and high and alive, the city.