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Penn­syl­va­nia Sta­tion seg­ment from New York: A Doc­u­men­tary Film

I wrote a cou­ple of posts sev­eral years ago about New York’s Penn Sta­tion, and that var­i­ous other Penn Sta­tions that existed along the East Coast (1, 2). I’m still think­ing about Penn Sta­tion, par­tic­u­larly now that I work just around the cor­ner from its gravesite.

Zom­bie build­ing from Curbed

Try­ing to find the name of a par­tic­u­lar bike shop on Google Maps just now, I stum­bled across WYNC’s map of halted devel­op­ment projects. Whoa. Take a look. This is like being hand­ing a photo project.

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.

Tomor­row, we’re going to play the Charleston on Bed­ford and N. 7^th St, so come out! It’s gonna be bitchin. I can tell you about all the things that have hap­pened in per­son and meet the Jon­benet, and we can drink beer, eat free pizza and watch the dudes rock the fuck out. Show’s at 9pm! Here’s the face­book event page and here’s the lineup:

wet­nurse (http://www. myspace. com/​wetnursenyc)
the jon­benet (http://www. myspace. com/​thejonbenet)
wel­come home (http://www. myspace. com/​welcomearewelcomehome)
pol­lu­tion (http://www. myspace. com/​pollutionpollutionpollution)

Team Gallery, April 2008