Penn Station in New York City is known for the groan it elicits when people tell you they’re traveling through it. It’s that bad. Hugely busy, claustrophobic, and poorly maintained, the train station in New York needs a lot of love. It doesn’t help that it lives directly below Madison Square Garden, the famous arena, which makes it all the more difficult to renovate or change.
Thankfully, the state of New York is well aware of this, and have had a number of plans to renovate and improve the station. The most recent proposal is by HOK and Practice for Architecture and Urbanism. It calls for a more modestly facelifted and expanded design than some earlier proposals, which called for the demolition of Madison Square Garden.
The new designs call for a large, welcoming entryway into the station, as well as an adjoining glass entry mid block, which looks modern and welcoming, bringing needed natural light into the space. The airy entryways will go a long distance to improving the station’s appeal, and will allow the flow of people to feel less like mice in a maze.
“Our proposal envisions two main train halls – a soaring Eighth Avenue entrance and a light-filled mid-block hall – that together will restore the civic gravitas that has been absent since the 1963 demolition of McKim, Mead & White’s original edifice,” said PAU founder Vishaan Chakrabarti.
“Our new stone facade mirrors and reinterprets McKim’s masonry colonnade across Eighth Avenue at Moynihan Station, creating a great public outdoor room that brings the historical in conversation with the contemporary, all while prioritizing light and air, an improved public realm, a great mix of civic uses, and compatibility with planned rail and neighborhood growth.”
The existing Madison Square Garden will be clad in a stone facade and modernized, making it look stately and museum-like, after decades of feeling outdated. It will match the new Moynihan Train Hall across the street, which is a welcomed place for travelers.
All of this is planned to take around 6 years and $6 billion to complete, if all goes well.
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