A montage of scenes and sequences featuring Pennsylvania Station before its destruction in 1963 as captured by the motion picture industry, with some snippets of Grand Central:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zasDjwQXXUA

Coverage of a childrens book I'd not yet heard of that beautifully illustrates the birth, life, and passage of the structure into obsolescence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOC-OifK ... re=related

"We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tin-horn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed." -"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times editorial, October 30, 1963

In my two trips to the "new" Penn station I recall climbing the old staircases from the platforms to the upper level, seeing the old iron railings from what could believably be the original steps, looking skyward imagining what once was. To add irony to insult, many photographs of the original Penn Station decorate the Amtrak waiting area.

In the case of Old Penn Station, did we lose one only to ensure the survival of hundreds more?

Kelly Lynch