Re: Penn Station, Real Estate Developers


View of Penn Sta­tion from the North­east, ca. 1911.

On read­ing my prior Penn Sta­tion post, my sis­ter in law told me about a pro­fes­sor she had who spoke of Penn Sta­tion this way:

You used to stroll through it like a Roman and now you scut­tle below it like a rat. That’s it, I can’t speak of this more today.

I’m para­phras­ing, but I that’s pretty much the idea, I would say. What was his name again?

Also, just gen­er­ally on the topic of real estate devel­op­ers. I’ve been read­ing Gotham, which is the his­tory of New York City, which is, more or less, the his­tory of real estate devel­op­ers. I’m not switch­ing sides on this issue, but they’re more impor­tant to our eco­nomic eco-​​system than I think we give them credit for. Not that don’t totally destroy some pretty price­less stuff.