The famed Hotel Pennsylvania at 401 Seventh Avenue in Midtown South, New York, which opened in 1919 was designed by the preeminent firm of McKim, Mead & White for the Pennsylvania Terminal Real Estate Company. Directly spurred by the erection of Penn Station, developers began to capitalize on Midtown South as a new location to live and work through a Grand Central-like terminal city plan. Located directly across from the station, the hotel offered easy accessibility for travelers by rail. When built, it was the largest hotel in the world with 2,200 rooms and the world’s first high-rise elevators to service 22 stories.

McKim, Mead & White’s chief designer for the hotel was also involved in the design of the original Penn Station. William Symmes Richardson had joined the firm of McKim, Mead & White in 1906, and remained a working architect until about 1925. The base of the building was clad in Indiana Limestone matching the height of Pennsylvania Station. Its portico was designed to complement the station's grand colonnade across the street. The rusticated stone façade is punctuated by a series of pilasters, the predominant number of these having scrolled capitals. The building forms four individual towers partially conjoined at the building’s center which were constructed to maximize the exposure to sunlight and airflow.

The business was operated by hotel magnate Ellsworth Statler, famous for bringing the notion of luxury hospitality to the masses. Statler was the first to introduce novel services pioneered by mass manufacturers into the hotel industry. Often called palaces of the people, Statler's hotels delivered on the populist ideal of providing the same excellent level of service to each guest regardless of their status or wealth. Guest amenities included a dentist, hospital, barber shop, drug store, coffee shop, library, carpentry shop, florist, shoemaker, and rooftop restaurant. 

The Hotel Pennsylvania was also a cultural icon for hosting many important events of New York society. Its grand ballroom was a big-band hotspot for great performers of the day like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Glenn Miller. In fact, the hotel was made famous by the song "PEnnsylvania 6-5000," a phone number that still rings at the Hotel Pennsylvania switchboard. The hotel was connected to the NBC Red Network which brought live music to audiences across the country.

While admittedly tired in the current state, McKim, Mead & White's design still shines through. Of all the resources threatened by the Empire Station project, the hotel is probably the best-known and beloved. If its embodied history were not enough, the iconic Café Rouge could easily be restored to its original condition. It was most recently an event space before the hotel closed. Under the layers of white paint is a wealth of ornamentation waiting to be rediscovered. Its original fountain is also still intact. 

While there is much focus on the exciting new improvements, there is very little discussion of what will be lost. Estimates from the project’s draft Environmental Impact Statement state that 500 businesses and over 200 residents would be eventually displaced. Furthermore, as part of the multiple blocks of wholesale demolition, six National Register-eligible buildings and three potential New York City landmarks are at direct risk of being lost. Among the others immediately slated to be lost are the St. John the Baptist Church (211 West 30th Street), Stewart Hotel (371 7th Avenue), Gimbels Department Store (100 West 33rd Street), Holmes Building (370 7th Avenue), and the Gimbels Traverse bridge (33rd Street). The Penn Station Service Building at 242 West 31st Street, one of the most important remnants of the original station, will also be demolished.

As a part of this plan, all of this history would be washed aside to create 20-million square feet of commercial office space, effectively the area of the central business district of a mid-sized American city. Ironically, New York City's landmarks law was created in response to the demolition of Penn Station and yet, the hotel and the original station's service building from that complex, are slated to be lost. The situation we face today is ironically analogous to the struggles of the 1960's.

Penn Station, even with this project, will look and feel much the same, with some minor cosmetic changes. While renderings have been released for an expansion of the station, those improvements are not included in this project. Barring a plan to claim the above-ground Madison Square Garden space to expand the terminal, the underlying physical constraints of the cramped subterranean space are not subject to meaningful change. The focus of the project at this time is the area around Penn Station, and not at all Penn Station itself. 

Since the pandemic, the office vacancy rate in the city has nearly doubled. While that can be attributed to temporary conditions, the market is not at all what it was; new trends will likely end up transforming the market for traditional office environments. With the sudden explosion of telecommuting, there is reasonable doubt that the pre-pandemic level of office space will be needed even under the best scenario.

As we are entering a new era of climate change, it is also disheartening to see the demolition of these structures--with all of their embodied energy--instead of reusing them to take advantage of historic tax credits. The owners of these buildings would probably save a bundle of money on their redevelopment through these tax incentives while also upholding sustainability best practices. There is a long tradition of reusing historic structures with great success. Adaptive reuse of historic structures is a proven part of what makes New York so great and unique.

The key to finding a way forward is to use the existing fabric of these remarkable buildings which are still full of life instead of obliterating them. While the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has declined to landmark the exterior or any part of the interior, there has been considerable community support for it. Sites like 550 Madison Avenue, 120 East 56th Street, 30 East 60th Street, 405 Park Avenue, 430 Park Avenue, 522 Fifth Avenue, and 21 East 52nd Street are all former hotel or apartment buildings which have been specifically transformed from residential into coveted office space. It has been done, and can be done again.

While this is a very large-scale project with great ramifications, one thing is clear: The Hotel Pennsylvania, along with the other historic resources in the path of the Empire Station Complex, deserve to be protected and celebrated instead of unceremoniously destroyed. While maybe not as shiny or new as others, these buildings still have a role to play within the ecosystem of the city. As the forces of politics and money doomed the 52-year-old depot many years ago, we must remember the lessons of Penn Station, and strive to never see those mistakes repeated.

Questions or comments? Please email andrew.cronson@gmail.com.