for the fate of the station itself.
Already by 1954 there were the first plans to demolish it and build an 80-storey skyscraper that would be 500 feet taller than the Empire State Building (ironically it would have been the first major commission for Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei who went on to design the Louvre’s famous glass pyramid and so might have ended up a landmark in its own right). The plan was shelved but as the New York Central Railroad’s decline continued plans for the station’s demolition multiplied. In 1968 the company finally merged with its once hated rivals, now similarly ailing. Their own, in many eyes, equally magnificent Pennsylvania Station, had been demolished amid an international outcry in 1964, its proud pink granite columns replaced with the concrete slab that holds the sports arena known as Madison Square Garden.
The new railway, then known as Penn Central, submitted plans to treat Grand Central the same way and build a new skyscraper office block on the site, only to find itself facing opposition led by a no less iconic figure than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who pleaded with New Yorkers not ‘to let our city die by degrees’. Grand Central survived – after a 1978 court case fought by New York City against Penn Central, by then a moribund freight company. The passenger division had been ended by bankruptcy as early as 1970, a cathartic moment for the whole US passenger rail network which ended with government intervention and the creation of Amtrak, effectively as a rescue vehicle, in 1971. Grand Central’s survival in the end played its part in the destruction of the company that created it, an old lady ruined by an excess of youthful vanity.
Today Grand Central is simply the world’s grandest commuter hub, but long-distance trains continued to roll in until 1991 when a new line linked tracks from Canada and upstate New York into the underground mire ofmodern ‘Penn Station’. And that, regrettably, in an anodyne underground concourse that has more in common with a provincial airport terminal, is where I have to start my journey. At 10:00 a.m. Penn Station concourse is awash with people bustling from the subways, consuming coffee in litre-size cardboard cups at takeaway stalls, flicking through magazines at news stands or feeding their faces with huge ‘deli’ sandwiches. I should feel exhilarated; in fact I feel rather ill.
I had vaguely hoped for some sense of occasion, even the noisy echoing grime of London’s Paddington or King’s Cross if not the restored Victorian splendour of St Pancras. At least some sense of echoing train shed and, however restricted, a view into the distance, light at the end of the tunnel. Instead I have a few airport armchairs in the middle of an underground shopping mall, an escalator disappearing into the floor and an electric sign saying Train 283 will depart on time at 10.45 a.m. It would be nice if they even called it by its name ‘The Empire Service’. But there is nothing imperial as we queue up to have our tickets checked and descend the escalator disappearing into the floor of the concourse.
The platform is dark and the train scarcely more impressive than a subway train; the locomotive itself is invisible in distant darkness beyond the platform end. I clamber aboard trying to inspire a spring in my step but at least breathe a sigh of relief to see that the seating, even in coach class, has been designed with the average girth of the normal – non-Manhattan – native in mind, and is therefore more than ample for a middle-aged European with middle-aged spread. Unless of course, a larger than average native takes the seat next to you. But out of high season the train – in blessed comparison to the overpriced, overstuffed cattle cars that run on some British lines – is barely one-third full. Perhaps the only noticeable disadvantage is that the windows are slightly grubbier and not quite as large as the camera-toting traveller
Already by 1954 there were the first plans to demolish it and build an 80-storey skyscraper that would be 500 feet taller than the Empire State Building (ironically it would have been the first major commission for Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei who went on to design the Louvre’s famous glass pyramid and so might have ended up a landmark in its own right). The plan was shelved but as the New York Central Railroad’s decline continued plans for the station’s demolition multiplied. In 1968 the company finally merged with its once hated rivals, now similarly ailing. Their own, in many eyes, equally magnificent Pennsylvania Station, had been demolished amid an international outcry in 1964, its proud pink granite columns replaced with the concrete slab that holds the sports arena known as Madison Square Garden.
The new railway, then known as Penn Central, submitted plans to treat Grand Central the same way and build a new skyscraper office block on the site, only to find itself facing opposition led by a no less iconic figure than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who pleaded with New Yorkers not ‘to let our city die by degrees’. Grand Central survived – after a 1978 court case fought by New York City against Penn Central, by then a moribund freight company. The passenger division had been ended by bankruptcy as early as 1970, a cathartic moment for the whole US passenger rail network which ended with government intervention and the creation of Amtrak, effectively as a rescue vehicle, in 1971. Grand Central’s survival in the end played its part in the destruction of the company that created it, an old lady ruined by an excess of youthful vanity.
Today Grand Central is simply the world’s grandest commuter hub, but long-distance trains continued to roll in until 1991 when a new line linked tracks from Canada and upstate New York into the underground mire ofmodern ‘Penn Station’. And that, regrettably, in an anodyne underground concourse that has more in common with a provincial airport terminal, is where I have to start my journey. At 10:00 a.m. Penn Station concourse is awash with people bustling from the subways, consuming coffee in litre-size cardboard cups at takeaway stalls, flicking through magazines at news stands or feeding their faces with huge ‘deli’ sandwiches. I should feel exhilarated; in fact I feel rather ill.
I had vaguely hoped for some sense of occasion, even the noisy echoing grime of London’s Paddington or King’s Cross if not the restored Victorian splendour of St Pancras. At least some sense of echoing train shed and, however restricted, a view into the distance, light at the end of the tunnel. Instead I have a few airport armchairs in the middle of an underground shopping mall, an escalator disappearing into the floor and an electric sign saying Train 283 will depart on time at 10.45 a.m. It would be nice if they even called it by its name ‘The Empire Service’. But there is nothing imperial as we queue up to have our tickets checked and descend the escalator disappearing into the floor of the concourse.
The platform is dark and the train scarcely more impressive than a subway train; the locomotive itself is invisible in distant darkness beyond the platform end. I clamber aboard trying to inspire a spring in my step but at least breathe a sigh of relief to see that the seating, even in coach class, has been designed with the average girth of the normal – non-Manhattan – native in mind, and is therefore more than ample for a middle-aged European with middle-aged spread. Unless of course, a larger than average native takes the seat next to you. But out of high season the train – in blessed comparison to the overpriced, overstuffed cattle cars that run on some British lines – is barely one-third full. Perhaps the only noticeable disadvantage is that the windows are slightly grubbier and not quite as large as the camera-toting traveller
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