New York's Penn station – and other ugly train terminals around the world

[marmar]

New York's Penn station – and other ugly train terminals around the world
The city council has ordered Madison Square Garden to move within 10 years, making way for a redeveloped Penn station. What about other ugly stations from around the world?

Jason Farago in New York
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 July 2013


[font size="1"]The original Penn Station, torn down to make way for Madison Square Garden. Photograph: New York Public Library[/font]


The New York City council voted overwhelmingly this week to renew the lease of Madison Square Garden only for 10 more years – essentially serving an eviction notice to the hulking stadium in midtown Manhattan. The decision was cheered by architectural and civic organizations, who have been pressing for decades to redevelop Pennsylvania station, the neglected railway terminus underneath the stadium. Penn station is by far the busiest railway station in North America, and Madison Square Garden has been one of the principal roadblocks to redeveloping it.

The eviction notice for Madison Square Garden offers the best opportunity in decades to revive Penn station. Earlier this year the Municipal Art Society presented a quartet of new design proposals from architects such as Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who masterminded the reconstruction of Lincoln Center, and ShoP Architects, designers of the Barclays center stadium in Brooklyn. All the proposed designs eliminate the underground maze of today's Penn station, and bring passengers back up into the city.

While the US has long suffered from some of the worst infrastructure in the western world, other cities have built some hideous stations too.

Old Penn station

The original Penn station, which opened in 1910, was a beaux-arts masterpiece. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, the most prominent architectural firm of the era – responsible also for the Morgan library and the Brooklyn museum – the station served as a breathtaking arrival point for visitors to New York. The station's waiting room, modeled on St Peter's Basilica in Rome, was the largest indoor space in New York at the time. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jul/25/new-york-penn-station-ugly-train-world