Pennsylvania 9-1-1 or Reflections & Redevelopment: Keeping a Historic Railroad Hotel on Track

Joe Urso PR-891 05/13/2020 Bethany Bingham Lakan Cole Advisor: Kevin Wolfe Reader: Steven Lepore

Acknowledgements:

I would like to take this opportunity to bestow my sincerest gratitude to all who both inspired my thesis topic and dedicated their time to helping me develop it in writing.

Thank you first to my thesis professors, Bethany Bingham and Lakan Cole for assisting me in identifying my topic and organizing the components of this study. I realize that leading this class was not your sole obligation this semester, so the time you gave to each of us in our quarterly progress meetings, as well as the feedback you gave for each of our chapters we consider invaluable. Your help was greatly appreciated!

Thank you to my thesis advisor, Architect Kevin Wolfe. Your careful evaluation and stern notation of my writing in every chapter tremendously improved the overall quality and fluidity of how it reads. Speaking of credit where credit is due, thank you also for indicating where citations were needed and clarifying the proper format of all citations in my thesis. Without your input throughout the semester, my writing would be far inferior to what it is.

A special thank you to my ideal third reader, Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society member, Steven Lepore. I was honored to be able to work with you to develop my thesis. You possess a wealth of knowledge about the history of Hotel Pennsylvania as well as current events taking place there. I couldn’t have asked for better sources and images of the hotel than what you provided for me. Thank you for helping me to refine the accuracy in many details throughout. Having contact with a fellow preservation advocate for Hotel Pennsylvania reinforced my confidence in this thesis as being part of a much larger cause. Thank you Mr. Lepore and the entire Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society!

Thank you to all my fellow classmates and all members of the faculty for your valued and appreciated feedback to my in-progress thesis presentations. Over the past two semesters, I have taken very seriously all the input and suggestions you have given me. Through all the stressful working and reworking, I have been grateful for your support from the start. Thank you all and I wish you the best of luck in return!

Lastly, I would just like to include this excerpt from a speech given by the inspirational Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis during the fight for preserving Grand Central Station:

“If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future. We’ve all heard that it’s too late, or that it has to happen, that it’s inevitable. But I don’t think that’s true. Because I think if there is a great effort, even if it’s the eleventh hour, then you can succeed and I know that’s what we’ll do”. Table of Contents:

Chapter I: Introduction - Prologue………………………………………………………………………………….04 - Goal Statement…………………………………………………………………………...09 - Methodology……………………………………………………………………………..09 - Literature Review………………………………………………………………………...11 - Organization of Study……………………………………………………………………19

Chapter II: About the Case - Midtown Redevelopment………………………………………………………………...20 - Hotel Pennsylvania: 1919-2020………………………………………………...…….….28 - Advocacy Groups………….………………………………..……………………………37

Chapter III: Analysis - Recent Development in the Penn District………..…………………………………..…..38 - Development Pressure on Hotel Pennsylvania………………………………….……….44 - Evaluation of Integrity…………………………………………………………………...46 - Interior Landmarking…………………………………………………………………….49 - Prospects for Hotel Pennsylvania………………………………………………………..52

Chapter IV: Precedents & Findings - Hotel Commodore………………………………………………………………………..53 - Roosevelt Hotel…………………………………………………………………………..57 - Findings: Renovation…………………………………………………………………….59 - Findings: Rehabilitation………………………………………………………………….60 - Renovation vs. Rehabilitation……………………………………………………………62 - Findings: Finances & Penn District Active Projects………………………………...…..64 - New York City & U.S. Federal Standards for Historic Preservation…………………….66

Chapter V: Conclusion - Recommendations………………………………………………………………………..68 - Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….76

Bibliography - Chapter I…....…………………………………………………………………………….81 - Chapter II………………………………………………………………………………...81 - Chapter III………………………………………………………………………………..82 - Chapter IV………………………………………………………………………………..84

Chapter I: Introduction

Prologue

New architectural development universally defines and redefines the cityscape. Each day New

York City gains a new tower, each one climbing ever higher into the atmosphere and competing for a place in the skyline. Rapid large-scale development is accepted as a vital ingredient for any city to stay “globally competitive” (Horsely 2010). Thus, it is not difficult to understand how preserving historic architecture has been met with opposition from real estate developers who prefer to keep marching forward into the new. Ever since the 1960s, historic preservation has gained a significant following in major cities. Wherever redevelopment is sought, controversy is sparked between groups, be them public vs. private, moral vs. political, or social vs. economical, on whether existing historic buildings can contribute to the revised city district. This thesis aims to bestow legitimacy on retaining historic structures in urban areas experiencing new waves of redevelopment. Case studies and published work will provide the foundations for validation of urban historic preservation on economic, legal, and educational levels.

The overwhelming tendency of real estate enterprises to underestimate the tangible and intangible value of historic buildings has claimed or endangered great swathes of unique aged structures over the past century. An old building is seldom considered important when it falls into developers’ hands, particularly if the area around it is built up over time. In this situation the building may become expendable. The advent of the Landmarks Law, the National Register of Historic Places, as well as the state and local registers helps to ensure the protection of select historical works of architecture (nypap.org 2016). Regardless, for all their efforts and accomplishments, historic preservationists are constantly facing setbacks, hurdles and roadblocks on the path to success.

New York’s Landmark’s Law is only 55 years old, being enacted officially in 1965 (nypap.org

2016). Since then, historic preservation has thrived significantly with the enactment of subsequent policies and legislations further defining the technicalities of preservation in urban settings. It has proven effective over the past half century in spite of the pressure for redevelopment. New York City has over 140 historic districts and more than 30,000 historic buildings listed at the federal or state levels (1.nyc.gov 2019). Unfortunately this saving grace is not applicable to every aged structure. The criteria for listing and designation is not always present in buildings that may otherwise be considered by their community to be historically significant. The lack of such designations may put these buildings in a vulnerable position.

Hotel Pennsylvania located between West 32nd and 33rd Street at 7th Avenue across from Penn

Station is one such example of preserve vs. redevelop. The historic hotel has been falling to the wayside in the rapidly developing Penn District of Midtown, Manhattan. For the last two decades its owner, Vornado Realty Trust has been entertaining a plan that involves the demolition and replacement of the hotel with a 65-story mixed-use tower featuring over 8 million square feet of commercial office space.

Throughout this period of time there has been little concern from the preservation community about the possible fate of Hotel Pennsylvania. Previous evaluations for landmarking it were requested in 2007 by the Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society. These efforts were ultimately unsuccessful and since then advocacy for preserving the hotel has been fairly quiet (Horsely

2010). The hotel briefly came back into the spotlight when it reached its centennial in early 2019.

Unrelated to this, Vornado Realty Trust has frozen its plans to redevelop the lot and has committed itself to a three-phase renovation of the hotel’s interior guest spaces (Little 2019). The first two phases consist of improving the guest rooms and are mostly complete. Phase three will involve more guest rooms, but will more importantly focus on the underutilized public hospitality and commercial areas of the hotel’s lower floors.

Vornado Realty Trust bought Hotel Pennsylvania in 1997 in a joint venture with Singaporean hotel developer and financier, Ong Beng Seng. After an ultimately disinvested attempt at capitalizing on the hotel, Vornado Realty Trust announced in 2007 that it had made the first official plans to demolish and replace it with a 65 story skyscraper by 2011 (Schnell 2013). The plan seemed imminent, but issues with securing a reputable anchor tenant to occupy the lower floors of the tower have repeatedly halted the project up to the present. Now, at least for the current time, Vornado Realty Trust is investing in Hotel Pennsylvania through extensive renovations and updates to the guest rooms as well as the public areas. Unfortunately there seems to be minimal effort put forth by the firm to showcase the hotel’s historic qualities (Little 2019).

In the surrounding area, what has long been a mix of districts and building use has become the site of extensive rebranding and development. Most notably to date, the opening of new attractions like Hudson Yards three blocks to the West has created a huge increase in tourism to this part of the city (Kimmelman 2019). There is also ongoing redevelopment both in and around

Penn Station by Vornado Realty Trust. The work encapsulates the properties owned by Vornado

Realty Trust as part of a grand design to rebrand the Penn District as a popular commercial, retail, and office district as well as an improved major transportation hub.

A major improvement to Penn Station is its new extension beneath the James A. Farley Post

Office building across 8th Avenue. Christened the “Moynihan Train Hall”, the new addition is nearly complete with platforms serving the Long Island Railroad, Amtrak, and New Jersey

Transit lines. Moynihan Train Hall is scheduled to be completed sometime in 2020 (Levy 2018) relieving congested passenger traffic in the existing Penn Station by about 20%. The current

Pennsylvania Station occupying the subterranean remains of Charles McKim’s original design is undergoing renovations and improvements of its own. The latest work in progress is a new entrance on the corner of 33rd Street at 7th Avenue directly across from Hotel Pennsylvania.

According to Governor Cuomo, the entrance is intended to provide greater accessibility and admit natural light down into the station below (Slowey 2019).

Long-term plans are also being proposed by multiple development firms for an entirely new

Penn Station building where Madison Square Garden sits today. One plan in particular intends to accurately reconstruct the original Pennsylvania Station according to McKim, Mead, & White’s original design, with necessary modern updates and improvements (Labine 2019). When the improvements going on in the Penn District are complete, Hotel Pennsylvania will have a strategically advantageous position in Midtown between 5th Avenue and Hudson Yards, as well as residing among a newly reimagined state of the art transportation hub, and an array of popular retail stores like Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Saks 5th Avenue, and the New York City Mall.

Historic hotels are a popular draw for visitors, particularly “Heritage Tourists” on the premise of their ability to withstand and outlast decades of change (Laurie 2008). It is not uncommon for these hotels to profit from tourism even when tourist money is not spent solely on room reservations. Hotel Pennsylvania itself garners Vornado Realty Trust over $30,000,000 in gross profit annually (Horsely, 2010). This revenue is not only based on reservations of the hotel’s

1700 guest rooms but also the renting out of multiple function and commercial spaces, which were once (and could be again) the hotel’s restaurants, lounges, grills, and bars (Facebook 2019).

Financially, Hotel Pennsylvania is a valuable asset to its owners and the surrounding area. Today the problem lies in the building’s all too sedated condition. Viewed in situ among the new developments happening in the vicinity, the hotel’s significance is difficult to see. Yet it is easy to imagine what a grand contributor it could be if its surviving authentic features were prominently showcased. As was the case with Grand Central Terminal in the 1960s, steps can be taken to uncover the vitality of Hotel Pennsylvania in its surroundings before it is forever lost.

Goal Statement

The aim of this thesis is to formulate a conservation procedure for historic buildings among redeveloping urban districts to establish a sustaining means of compatibility between historic resources like Hotel Pennsylvania and their surrounding context.

Methodology

Investigation into the current state of Hotel Pennsylvania is geared toward preserving the building and to identify its degree of importance in this rapidly changing part of Midtown.

Investigation into how the hotel itself has changed over the last century as well as planned future changes will be equally important to this study. Historical photographs and old architectural journals will be the main sources used to gather this data. Analysis of the history of renovations to the interior and exterior of the building and the consequences thereof will garner a better understanding of the steps taken in the past which led the hotel to its current state.

Hotel Pennsylvania’s significance, identifying its historical and present role(s) in the neighborhood is vital to its legacy and preservation. What past and present notable figures the hotel may be connected to, any significant historical events which involved the hotel, and its utilization through time in relation to the evolution of development in the surrounding area are important components of this study. Addressing these questions will aid in making a thorough plan for saving buildings like Hotel Pennsylvania and ensuring their longevity in an evolving setting. Extensive archival research into the history of the hotel as well as multiple site visits to the area for visual aid and verbal interviews with members of the staff will be required to determine the hotel’s worth in the city today.

In 2007 Hotel Pennsylvania was recommended by the Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society, backed by the Landmarks Committee of Community Board 5 for designation as a historic site. A light evaluation of integrity was given, but unfortunately the hotel was never positively determined by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to possess sufficient criteria needed for designation. The hotel has a significant connection to historical figures and events, and though its interiors have been extensively altered, its exterior fabric remains mostly intact. Designation records will serve as the primary source for data on the topic of identifying why Hotel Pennsylvania was rejected by LPC with secondary sources coming from online articles and journals. The criteria present in the hotel will be measured against the criteria required by the LPC, the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for historic preservation (SOI) to determine if Hotel Pennsylvania was unjustly denied landmark status.

Resolving the issue of saving the hotel from demolition depends heavily on understanding the motivation behind the owner’s past development proposals. Being a real estate company,

Vornado Realty Trust is not accustomed to operating hospitality venues but rather is more focused on utilizing properties for a maximum return on investment. For the duration of its ownership the firm has proposed to demolish Hotel Pennsylvania in order to build a modern office tower (Horsely 2010). No proposals have surpassed the planning phase so it is also relevant to uncover information about the reasons behind the delays. News articles and architectural journals will assist in acquiring details about the circumstances in which each proposal took place, what was intended to replace the hotel, and why these plans have not yet been implemented.

One of the two main stakeholders in Hotel Pennsylvania are its owners, Vornado Realty Trust.

The firm’s part in the equation is unclear as significant effort has been put into both razing the hotel and investing in it during its 20 years of ownership. The reasons behind Vornado Realty

Trust wanting to demolish Hotel Pennsylvania will be determined through similar analysis of journals and news articles mentioned earlier. The second stakeholder at the other end of the spectrum, the other stakeholder is the Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society who is striving toward the preservation and eventual restoration of the hotel. Interviews both in-person or via phone or email with the Preservation Society will be arranged to inquire what the group’s recent activity has been to save the hotel as well as what they may know about the long and short-term plans Vornado Realty Trust has for the building.

Literature Review

John Laurie. 2008. “Historic Preservation and Cluster Based Economic Development”. Economic Development Journal 7, no. 1 (Winter): 38-46. ​

The use of aged buildings to spur economic development is a common practice in the United

States according to this excerpt by John Laurie. The author describes multifaceted ways in which historic buildings, regardless of landmark status, may contribute and adapt with the changes in its setting through time.

The four uses Laurie gives for aged buildings in a developing urban setting are entertainment, environmental management, housing, and tourism. Referring to these uses, he explains the different means by which businesses may capitalize on the significance of their aged buildings.

When turned into useful assets through these means, aged buildings may be implemented into local, state, and national competition within the global economy. In this article, Laurie provides a respectable argument on how historic buildings serve their neighborhood as a valuable resource for economic stimulation.

A cluster is identified in this article as a geographic concentration of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, standards agencies or institutions in a particular field that compete but also cooperate. In the case of Hotel

Pennsylvania, the surrounding Penn District may be identified through its concentration of commercial and retail space as a cluster. Clusters are located through the careful observation of an area based on its industries and the sectors within those industries. Once these industries are identified, boundaries can be drawn around the cluster after which the interrelationships between sectors are defined and links are made, strengthening the internal composition of the cluster

(Laurie 2008, 39-40).

Laurie writes that of all uses for historic buildings, tourism is the most important ally to historic preservation. Based on a 2003 study by the University of Florida Center for Government

Responsibility, historic sites just within the state of Florida generated $4.2 billion tourist dollars annually. A key term related to this topic is “Heritage Tourism”. Heritage visitors contribute more money to the tourism industry than any other visitor. The study confirmed that people willingly spend money to enjoy tangible and intangible attributes of historic preservation.

According to the study, $3.7 billion of annual tourist dollars spent in the state of Florida alone were found to be directly related to heritage tourism. Students who conducted the study say the dollar amount was surprising on account of Florida’s many other attractions. This establishes a clear connection between preservation and economic gain (Laurie 2008, 40).

Laurie determines that the most frequently visited states for heritage tourism to be California,

Pennsylvania, and New York (Laurie 2008, 40). There is a colossal amount of historic fabric in

New England, let alone New York City. Hotel Pennsylvania is located in an up and coming part of Midtown among other historic resources in tandem with new developments. All of this development revolves around one of the country’s busiest transit hubs. Though not quite celebrated as it might be for its history, the hotel still draws a large number of visitors, some of them heritage tourists who, according to one hotel employee, wonder and ask “what happened?” upon entering the heavily altered lobby.

John I. Renne, David Listokin. 2019. “The Opportunities and Tensions of Historic Preservation and Transit Oriented Development”. Cities International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning ​ 90 (March): 249-262.

Transportation hubs, particularly train hubs, are typically located in historic areas with a number of aged structures (Renne, Listokin 2019, 249). This article focuses on the advantages of preserving historic fabric directly in the vicinity of major transit hubs and the tools which make it feasible. The authors also shed light on the probable yet unintended consequences of such a practice. The authors claim that aged and historic buildings near a potential Transit Oriented

Development area (TOD) can be a strong asset by providing a tangible connection to the contextual heritage of a place (Renne, Listokin 2019, 249).

Simultaneously there is opposition to this fairly new strategy of urban planning and placemaking.

The highly accessible regions of TOD’s create a natural breeding ground for ideal dense high-occupancy construction. Advocates for TOD’s, because of their emphasis on retaining the area’s historic fabric, develop a basis for tension between real estate development and preservation. The potential for high-density redevelopment near transport hubs has resulted in a dilemma based on the potential return on investment by maximizing Floor Area Ratio (FAR), and utilizing a property at its “highest and best use” (Renne, Listokin 2019, 252).

The authors include six case studies in the article to reference the degrees of past success for historic preservation near transportation hubs (Renne, Listokin 2019, 253). Each case study uses differing methods and incentives to save historic buildings of multiple types near TOD’s with varying results. One study on Central Station in Memphis, Tennessee utilized a mix of public-private partnerships, tax credits, and grants to salvage and rehabilitate the city’s historic train station in 1995. The city’s vision was to create a mixed-use, multimodal transportation hub.

Partnerships between the public and private sectors proved to be most beneficial to the stakeholders because each was able to leverage funding for the project based on their individual strengths (Renne, Listokin 2019, 255).

A case study based in Denver, Colorado focused on preserving select buildings from the old

Gates Rubber Factory after its headquarters was relocated downtown. The owners tried to sell the land as-is and received offers from several developers between 2001 and 2012. The plans universally intended to use public financial participation along with federal historic tax credits to rehabilitate the factory buildings into a unique residential mixed-use redevelopment (Renne,

Listokin 2019, 257). These plans would never come to fruition as Gates made the executive decision to demolish the buildings and sell the land as a blank slate. Variables such as the abatement of hazardous materials and a layout that was non congruent with the local Tax

Increment Financing made demolition a more profitable option (Renne, Listokin 2019, 258).

The preservation tools, and the studies in which they were used were cross-examined in an attempt to identify which case study demonstrated the best method to achieve rehabilitation and preservation. The chart featured in the article reveals that historic preservation tax credits were the most popular tool used among the other methods for preservation. Ultimately, the study concluded that despite the availability and utilization of these tools, each project is unique and requires a diverse selection of different tools depending on the situation (Renne, Listokin 2019,

260). Regardless of the outcome of these six case studies, Renne and Listokin emphasize the importance of adaptive reuse and preservation in TOD’s to aid in orienting the heritage of place.

James R. Brindell. 2012. “Improving the Standards and Process of Historic Designation”. The ​ Urban Lawyer 44, no. 1 (Winter): 265-277. American Bar Association. ​

The philosophies and theories backing Historic Preservation make a respectable argument for the conservation of historically and culturally relevant buildings around the U.S. A community’s emotional connection to its tangible heritage is strong because it allows its identity to manifest for others through the architecture that moulded it. Passion alone must have an administrative element working in tandem to ensure the protection of heritage from a legal standpoint. Since the legislation of the Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the legal process of landmarking and historic designation have evolved to work in conjunction with the public to protect heritage sites. This involves the implementation of police power by local governments so as to not excessively restrict individual actions and choices.

In this passage, Mr. Brindell goes in-depth to explain the criteria for preserving historic buildings and the processes that compose their designation. He then goes on to describe the relationships between communities and their own unique contributions that warrant the preservation of their history. The value of these contributions changes over time with its community. What may contend with one owner of a landmarked building could be problematic for subsequent owners.

This passage provides a thorough understanding of the criteria for landmark preservation as it is defined in legal conservation policy. Mr. Brindell includes potential issues presented by designation criteria as it exists and proposes a revision of the designation criteria vocabulary designed to avoid these issues at the source. The author aims for specificity in policy phrasing, without changing the criteria altogether.

The author emphasizes the importance that only extraordinarily significant properties be landmarked and that the criteria are not generalized to the point that the prestige of historic or landmark designation status is diminished. Simultaneously, the building type matters in that the designation creates a positive impact on the entire community. If a building is privately owned or otherwise not available for public access other methods besides designation of the building may suffice. For those buildings that are historically relevant, are accessible, and eligible for designation based on the criteria as it is currently written, Mr. Brindell challenges the wording in each of the criterion and provides his own revisions with respectable alternative language.

Taking into account a contemporary evaluation from a credible source of the long-standing criteria for landmark designation provides useful insight. Research into preservation policy is necessary in determining the future of an endangered building. But research into recent legal attitudes and suggested modifications toward those policies must also be studied to predict possible ways in which the criteria for preservation may change in the future. A simple alteration in phrasing can affect the eligibility of dozens of unlisted properties. It may also endanger the protection of landmarked buildings if their formerly approved criteria is no longer mentioned in revised policy. In this article, both the written and modified examples of preservation policy give a solid survey of criteria against which the credentials of Hotel Pennsylvania can be measured.

Example 1: “Exemplifies or reflects the broad cultural, political, economic or social history of ​ the nation, state, county or town”.

Alternative Language: “Is identified with a specific national, state, county, or town cultural, ​ ​ political, economic or social event or movement recognized in a peer-reviewed publication by an ​ academic press or in a publication of the county or town adopted by that entity as its official history publication”. ​

Example 2: “Is identified with historic personages or with important events in national or local ​ history”.

Alternative Language: “Is identified by the public, as reflected in the local, state, or national ​ periodicals published on a recurring basis or in published biographies and histories, with ​ persons or events who were key participants or elements in the history of the nation, state, ​ ​ county, or town”.

Example 3: “Embodies distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type or is a specimen ​ inherently valuable for the study of a period, style, method of construction or use of indigenous materials or craftsmanship”.

Alternative Language: “Embodies the key distinguishing characteristics of a historic architectural type, style, or period or represents in its key structural elements a notable method of ​ ​ construction and is largely original and unaltered”. ​ ​

Example 4: “Is representative of the notable work of a master builder, designer or architect ​ whose individual ability has been recognized or who influenced his age”.

Alternative Language: a. “Is the work of a builder, designer or architect recognized by multiple professional ​ journals or monographs and by his or her professional association(s) as one of the nation’s, state’s, or local area’s leading practitioners in the area of construction, building design, or architecture”. ​ b. “Is a structure previously recognized in refereed professional journals for its construction design or architectural design, or by a written appraisal and a condition assessment by a preservation architect, as one of the best, or few remaining, examples of the work of the builder, designer, or architect”.

Mr. Brindell’s suggestions are not made to discourage historic preservation. Rather he aims to reserve designation for buildings that embody the criteria of a building worth saving and valuing for its historic contributions. Brindell’s proposed modifications eliminate any ambiguity in the criteria that might make defining the significance of a considered building more complicated, labor intensive, or speculatory. This criteria is vital to the present and future evaluation and potential designation of historic buildings. The specified alternative language is only given as an example, but is appropriate in specifying the kind of information that must be gathered in the evaluation of a considered historic property.

Organization of Study

Chapter I: Prologue - Introduction & Issue Statement - Goal Statement & Objectives - Methodology - Literature Review

Chapter II: About the Case - Midtown Redevelopment Past Prospective - The Legacy of the Hotel Pennsylvania - Advocacy Groups

Chapter III: Analysis - Recent Development Pressure on Hotel Pennsylvania - Evaluation of Integrity - Interior Landmarking - Prospects for Hotel Pennsylvania

Chapter IV: Findings - Precedent Examples: Terminal City hotels Hotel Commodore Roosevelt Hotel - Findings

Chapter V: Conclusion - Feasible Recommendations - Conclusion

Chapter II: About the Case

Redevelopment in Midtown Manhattan: 1900

Major cities stay in competition with one another through a series of inter-reliant factors, one of which is the regular construction of larger, newer, taller buildings. Throughout time, the metropolis has evolved to take on wildly different forms across the globe. All too often, this results in a lesser degree of a community’s heritage value with simultaneous alteration of the visual and functional aspects of the urban landscape. An excess of this rapid change can be potentially hazardous both socially and economically if carried out in a reckless manner. An entirely redeveloped city district may result in an area of no discernable origin that few people come to value without distinguishing features that set it apart from other districts.

Theoretically, new construction is important to a city because of the benefits and growth it offers to a wide range of groups. Construction companies commissioned by real estate firms turn a profit for the work, and jobs are thus created for architects and designers to draft and execute the construction work. The real estate companies themselves may also receive a sizable return on their investment and lastly, the finished product is intended to attract users by creating a modern workplace, living space, retail space, entertainment venue, or combination of these for the general public.

Developments such as Hudson Yards and Midtown West are two recent projects in Midtown,

Manhattan that incorporate public spaces for retail, food establishments, art galleries, and entertainment. When Hudson Yards opened in March of 2019, it was received with great fanfare and has since attracted thousands of visitors. With high-end retail, restaurants, and a luxury hotel on-site, Hudson Yards has succeeded in varying its building use to keep people coming for different reasons throughout most of the day.

Hudson Yards is, however, lacking in a kind of diversity that is just as essential to lasting workability in city districts: building age. To its credit, Hudson Yards was built over what was previously open rail yards-lacking any historic or pre-existing structures. However, this hardly makes it an exception to the building age rule. In Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of Great

American Cities,” she emphasizes the concept of diversity in building age and building use.

Jacobs further explains her reasoning that with the “high overhead” construction fees that accompany high-end, large-scale new development, the area attracts only those outfits that can afford the expensive leasing rate. In this case, the district offers services at a set price that caters to a limited demographic. Such a formula will ultimately cause the area to become stagnant in the long-term (Jacobs 1961, 198).

Regardless, in the spirit of this revitalization, the area two blocks East of Hudson Yards around

Pennsylvania Station is beginning to see extensive change and redevelopment. Currently the city’s busiest transport hub, Pennsylvania Station has been subjected to renovations long overdue to improve its space, appearance, and functionality. Governor Cuomo stands behind the proposed changes to the station, claiming its configuration and appearance today are “not fit for the greatest city in the nation”(governor.ny.gov 2019). Work both to and around the station aims to improve on previous interventions that reduced it in size and forced it completely below ground when the area was redeveloped and reoriented in the mid-20th century.

By the early 1960s, rail travel had fallen out of favor as interstate highway systems and air travel became the dominant means of long-distance transportation. Even the mighty Pennsylvania

Railroad Company was impacted by this change and could hardly afford the costly maintenance of its massive Pennsylvania Station (Diehl 1985, 144-5). It was only a matter of time before this flagship of modern engineering was sold quietly by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to a private developer out of self-preservation (Diehl 1985, 145). The entire building from the ground up would be completely destroyed in 1963 to make way for the current Madison Square Garden and PENN 2 office tower. All that remains today of the old station is an underground series of cramped subterranean platforms designed to handle just one-third the amount of people who currently use them (rebuildpennstation.org, n.d.).

To understand this part of Midtown as it is known today, respectful light must be shed on the past hundred years of its development, and in particular, rail travel. This part of the city came to prominence as a place for social gathering after its first major redevelopment over a century ago.

In the early years of the 19th century, this largely remote and uncultivated region on Manhattan

Island was distanced a great deal from the much smaller city of New York, and was ideal for an unobtrusive manufacturing district. The rural setting would not last, for in the mid 19th century, it had been encroached upon by the first northward reaches of urban development. By the late

1800s, the west side of Manhattan had long committed itself to manufacturing goods and foodstuffs and was not at all fashionable. In 1900, the area had endured almost 50 years of poverty, blight, and ill repute with little to no new development or investment. Economically, the scene to the west of 6th Avenue between 30th and 42nd Streets consisted of different factories, mills, and slaughterhouses. The resident community of factory workers and laundresses lived among these buildings in tenement buildings which were intermingled with bars, shops, and even some brothels (Diehl 1985, 68-69).

This part of Manhattan festered in unsanitary conditions generated by the output of industrial waste and animal carcasses from the factories that dominated the area. Ironically, trains, which were later a source of positive change to this part of Midtown and the rest of New York City, was previously what had aided in its being so undesirable. During the era of steam locomotives,

Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s freight lines (now the Highline) as well as his Hudson River Railroad ran through the neighborhood between 10th and 12th Avenues. These lines served as the first means of mass transit for goods and passengers between lower Manhattan and upstate New

York. 1870 brought local public transportation with the 9th Avenue elevated line providing regular passenger service down the middle of the neighborhood, choking it with an eternal smog of soot and locomotive smoke (Diehl 1985, 71).

Before Pennsylvania Station was completed in 1910, railroads mainly provided service north and south in Manhattan. Rail service to the east and west was limited to the width of the island. Up until 1910 the only way for travelers to cross the Hudson River into New York from New Jersey was by ferry. For the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, this meant that all trains terminated at the western shore of the Hudson River in a station at “Exchange Place” in Jersey City. From here passengers would have to disembark from the railroad cars and board ferries which bore them from Exchange Place across the river to Manhattan.

The crossing from New Jersey took an average of 20 minutes and once docked, weary travelers disembarked into a chaotic mix of social commerce. Those without private carriages waiting for them in New York were lucky if able to board a crowded streetcar or meet a Hudson River

Railroad train after locating their luggage. Until 1910 neither bridge nor tunnel could conquer the

Hudson for trains to enter New York directly from the west (Diehl 1985, 34). The ordeal of ferrying passengers to Manhattan was an unpleasant and somewhat impractical business in the eyes of Pennsylvania Railroad Chairman Alexander Cassat, who sought a resolution to the issue.

With Cassat’s obstinate willpower, he traveled to France in 1900 to attend the grand opening of the Gare du Quai d’Orsay where he discovered the innovation of tunneling technology and electrified trains (Diehl 1985, 45). The elimination of steam allowed for the possibility of running trains through subterranean tunnels without the danger of asphyxiation from coal smoke.

The other modern marvel of pressurized air locks used for tunneling beneath bodies of water allowed the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to officially unite the East and the West in April,

1908 (Diehl 1985, 96). Tunnels had also been in progress beneath the East River, connecting

Manhattan to Queens and Long Island. With long-distance and commuter traffic following the rapid growth of the local subway system connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan in 1906, the

Pennsylvania Railroad Company’s New York station quickly became the center of the universe.

It was in Southwest Midtown between West 31st and 33rd Streets at 7th and 8th Avenues where

Cassat chose to build the company’s central train station. The location was chosen on account of its centrally located position on the island of Manhattan for those coming into New York from the West. It was also within close proximity to the piers at which luxury trans-Atlantic ocean liners would dock after they had completed the crossing from Europe and before they began the crossing to Europe. Steamship passengers could make landfall and easily travel the short distance to 7th or 8th Avenues to board a train from Pennsylvania Station to anywhere in the country.

To head the project and design and build the new station, Cassat consulted with the firm of

McKim, Mead, & White. By this time, McKim, Mead, & White was well-established with a healthy record of illustrious large-scale public and private commissions. When the site for Penn

Station was chosen, the firm was regarded as one of the best architectural partnerships in the world. In the first decade of the 20th century, Midtown was just beginning to undergo its first significant economic and social change in half a century. Redevelopment in New York City was climbing Northward fast, drastically changing the appearance and use of dilapidated midtown neighborhoods near Hell’s Kitchen.

The decade between 1900 and 1910 saw radical changes of all kinds from beginning to end.

Construction for Penn Station began in 1904 with demolition of the existing buildings on-site. A decade prior to Penn Station’s opening, the modest dwellings in Midtown started to give way in large plots to major new construction projects. Macy’s (1901) and Saks’(1902) new department stores went up on West 34th Street. Gimbels department store would open in 1910-the same year as Penn Station-on West 33rd Street at 6th Avenue, occupying the eastern half of the block it later shared with Hotel Pennsylvania.

These major flagship stores signified the northward migration of fashionable shopping districts to Midtown from earlier locations like the “Ladies’ Mile”. This popular shopping district was made up of three commercial corridors with a series of smaller department stores which extended up Broadway, 5th, and 6th Avenues from 15th Street and terminated at 23rd Street (Diehl 1985,

72). Aside from Macy’s, Saks, and Gimbels, Pennsylvania Station was the first large-scale development in the neighborhood not directly related to the manufacturing industry, and one that welcomed an influx of new people and expansion in the area.

By 1910, most of the local factories and slaughterhouses in the area had shut down. The demographic was experiencing a shift, aided in part by the condemnation of housing to make way for Pennsylvania Station. Two full city blocks of 500 residential buildings between West

31st and 33rd streets at 7th and 8th Avenues had to be cleared (Diehl 1985, 75), and in their place, Pennsylvania Station rose as a truly unprecedented marvel of modern engineering. A core of steel encased in a classical ensemble of Doric columns, statues, and cornices, all executed in a soft pink granite quarried in Milford, Massachusetts confirmed the expected trend of change and redevelopment to the neighborhood. This change was nurtured by the closing of the surrounding mills, factories, and slaughterhouses as more ideal locations for manufacturing were sought outside the growing city limits. The next two monumental buildings built around Penn Station were the current James A. Farley

Post Office building and Hotel Pennsylvania. Appropriately, they were built to complement the station in their scale, style, and choice of materials. At the turn of the 20th century, railroads had grown into the primary mode of shipping large quantities of mail long-distance. For this reason, in 1903 the Pennsylvania Railroad proposed the construction of a post office directly across 8th

Avenue from where Penn Station was to be built (New York Times 1903, 1). ​ ​

The United States Government approved of the proposal, and the Pennsylvania Railroad again hired McKim, Mead, & White to design and build a postal service headquarters to handle mass amounts mail then arriving in New York by train from the West. Alexander Cassatt died in 1906, leaving his successor James McCrea to oversee the completion of both Penn Station and the Post

Office. In 1914, the equally monumental colonnaded James A. Farley Post Office building opened across from Penn Station’s west entrance on 8th Avenue between West 31st and 33rd

Streets. Originally called The Terminal, it was renamed the General Post Office in 1918.

The Pennsylvania Station area of Midtown surely proved to be a busy, fast-paced hub of activity with hundreds of transients passing through each day. Having local access via the Long Island

Railroad and New Jersey Transit lines, the neighborhood was not just a hub for long-distance travelers, but a substantial amount of commuter traffic as well. Regardless of the journey’s distance or purpose, those awaiting trains or engagements around Penn Station sometimes required lodgings for extended stays. The Pennsylvania Railroad acknowledged their travelers’ demand for comfortable accommodations without the burden of paying top dollar at hotels such as the old Waldorf Astoria situated nearby (currently the location of the Empire State Building).

The need for passenger accommodations near the station inspired Chairman Samuel Rea, who succeeded James McRea in 1913, to add a third contribution to his predecessor’s grand transportation empire.

Hotel Pennsylvania: 1919-2020

The final part of this trifecta of interrelated buildings, Hotel Pennsylvania, was designed by the late (as of 1909) Charles McKim’s protege, architect William Symmes Richardson, who also assisted his mentor in designing Pennsylvania Station. It was commissioned by Samuel Rea and completed in 1919 for the Pennsylvania Railroad Real Estate Company, a division of the

Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Aesthetically, the hotel would complement the design and scale of Pennsylvania Station across 7th Avenue (The Architectural Review 1919, 55). The ​ ​ majority of buildings in Midtown at the time were an average of five stories in height. At 22 stories above ground, Hotel Pennsylvania towered above its adjacent buildings, officially making it one of the first skyscrapers in the area.

Structurally, Hotel Pennsylvania occupies the entire western half of the block bounded by 6th

Avenue, 7th Avenue, and West 32nd and 33rd Streets. Gimbels Department Store, since 1910, had occupied the other half and the two buildings are separated only by a narrow causeway divided down the center by the property line, allowing access for the unloading of large shipments to both buildings. The exterior design of the building is unpredictable as no two sides are alike in form. Fronted on the block’s west end, the facade is tall, unbroken, and gracefully stout as compared to its broad sides.

Each face of the hotel bears a thorough understanding of artistic properties: namely ratio, proportion, emphasis, balance, and repetition. The north face on West 33rd Street is a horizontally symmetrical arrangement of three parts. The first four imposing stories run uninterrupted along the edge of the sidewalk, penetrated on the ground floor by storefront windows, as well as a side-entrance to the hotel and a discreet ballroom entrance. Also present on this side is direct access leading down to the subways. Above the fourth floor, 18 stories take the form of a broad midsection, slightly recessed, and flanked at both ends by two protruding towers with fronts that run flush with the four lower floors.

The south facade of Hotel Pennsylvania is the most impactful in spite of the fact that it is now concealed within the narrow confines of West 32nd Street, across which sits the equally large 11

Penn Plaza. At ground level, there is the same solid procession of four floors. Above the fourth story on this side, however, the hotel rises 18 floors in four massive wings. The towers are separated by open courts that sink deep to where all the towers connect at the hotel’s longitudinal core. This structural feature was implemented out of necessity due to the hotel’s sprawling footprint on half a city block. It is an innovative alternative to the customary central court that allowed light and air to penetrate into the inner guest rooms. The tower design provides open courts for light and air while allowing each guest an outward view toward the city rather than the unexciting inward view of a hotel courtyard.

Each of Hotel Pennsylvania’s three wildly different facades are unified by their decorative elements. Handsomely treated in a classical tripartite arrangement of brick and limestone, the division of the hotel’s exterior was carefully scaled to match the dimensions of Penn Station. In the finer details of the ornamentation, it becomes clear just how much thought and careful planning went into the design of the hotel’s facade.

The ground-level band is faced in pale Indiana limestone, and stands four stories high (the height of the original Penn Station). The scale of the band is enhanced by a procession of three-story

Classical pilasters, executed in the Ionic order, and positioned between the windows which number 13 across the front facade. Above the pilasters is a traditional entablature customary to

Classical design with an architrave and decorative cornice complete with dentil moulding. The fourth-story windows sit above this cornice in what may be referred to as an “attic level.” The main entrance on 7th Avenue is enhanced by six three-story Ionic columns of the same limestone which protrude to form a shallow portico. The entablature is also bumped out here and continues above the columns. The portico is crowned by a decorative limestone balustrade.

Above the lower band, the middle section of the facade is the largest at 13 stories in height, and

13 bays across. Faced in a warm tannish brick, the mid-section is an elegantly structured quadrilateral field of uninterrupted guest room windows. Minimal decoration was incorporated in this band. What ornamentation does exist is at the extreme bottom and top levels with a simple treatment of limestone lintels and trim around the fifth-story windows, and a display of limestone relief panels set between the seventeenth-story windows. The result is understated but effective as these small touches of bright limestone unify the whole by softening the transition between each of the bands. Although the brick color is very bold against the limestone accents, this band deliberately boasts a much more subdued presence which is intended to greatly enhance the other highly stylized bands.

High above Midtown, the top band takes up floors 18 to 21 of the hotel’s facade. Here the classical ornament is continued and greatly emphasized so as to improve its visibility from street-level. Again, three-story fluted pilasters, this time of the Doric order, divide the first three levels of windows, mimicking the arrangement of the same elements in the lower band. A row of alternating pointed and segmented pediments surmount the nineteenth-story windows and form an implied horizontal division between the 2 lower and 2 upper levels of the band. The pilasters uphold a Classical frieze in which the 21st story windows are situated in place of the traditional metope between decorative triglyphs.

The twenty-second and topmost level of Hotel Pennsylvania rests above the cornice in the form of a grandiose granite penthouse or pavilion with large windows and access to a balustraded rooftop. This floor is the highest publicly designated entertainment space in the hotel, perhaps even in this part of Midtown. Originally the pavilion housed the hotel’s “Roof Garden”, one of the popular restaurants and event spaces featured in the hotel’s earlier years. In its lifetime the room has been heavily renovated and stripped of its original decoration, leaving only the basic structural elements. Today it is still used as a rental space, divided as three ballrooms which can be combined for larger functions and events. Public service was an important feature to Hotel Pennsylvania when it opened in 1919. Hotel

Pennsylvania was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, but it was leased and managed by Statler

Hotels Inc. under self-made hotelier Ellsworth Statler who also influenced the hotel’s design.

Statler prided himself on his policy of comfortable and convenient service in elegant lodgings, with good food all available “at a price ordinary people can afford”. His motto became “a room and a bath for a buck and a half” (Turkle 2014). Ellsworth Statler revolutionized the hotel industry through unprecedented services and technological advances.

Entering the hotel field at age 13, Statler was able to excel quickly, learning the tricks of the trade at the McLure House in Ohio, then operating his own restaurant in Buffalo, New York until he was able to open his own Statler Hotel. The Buffalo Statler was the first hotel in Statler’s hotel chain. It was also the first hotel ever to have a private bathroom for each guest room. This was made possible through Statler’s own invention, the “Statler Plumbing Shaft” which arranged bathrooms side-by-side, providing two baths for little more than the price of one. These shafts also contained the major heating and electrical lines. (Turkle 2014).

In terms of their guest accommodations, Statler’s hotels were unsurpassed. They featured many conveniences which we take for granted today. These features were implemented to minimize a guest’s need to interact with the hotel staff for assistance. Among these improvements were ice water running to each bathroom, towel hooks beside every bathroom mirror, a telephone in every room, a full size closet for every room, a free morning newspaper for guests, and a pin cushion with needle and thread for every room. Hotel Pennsylvania features its own unique patented Statler innovation called the Servidor. A Servidor is a bulging panel in each guest room door where the guest could hang their clothes for cleaning or pressing. The valet could then pick up and return the clothes from the corridor without entering the room. A security mechanism inside the compartment ensures that the interior and exterior doors cannot be opened at the same time.

Additionally, Hotel Pennsylvania was the first Statler hotel equipped with complete medical services including an X-ray and surgical room, a night physician, and even its own dentist

(Turkle 2014).

Statler implemented a hospitality code of conduct to be used in his hotels known as the “Statler

Service Code”. Most hotel policies used today are derivative of this service code. Paramount in the code are rules now ingrained in policies of the hospitality industry. One rule was that the staff

“treat our patrons and fellow employees in an interested, helpful, and gracious manner, as we would want to be treated if positions were reversed”, and “to satisfy all patrons or take them to our superior”. Statler was equally as concerned with the welfare of his own employees, devising a profit-sharing plan that allowed hotel workers down to the maids and bellmen to retire with financial security (Turkle 2014).

For its being so economically priced, Hotel Pennsylvania was the most technologically advanced hotel in the city. It was featured in a 1919 editorial of the Architectural Forum which boasted its being the largest hotel in the country with 2200 guest rooms. Amenities like 2200 private bathrooms and electric elevators created a huge public draw (The Architectural Review 1919, ​ ​ 55-66). The hotel catered to the general public as well as guests by providing a multitude of open lounges, a bar, restaurants, a two-story grand ballroom, a lunch counter and barber shop accessible from the subway platforms, swimming pools equipped with Turkish Baths, and various retail facilities.

Live public entertainment played a particularly important part in Hotel Pennsylvania’s history.

The hotel’s main dining room took on an identity of its own as a popular restaurant for both guests and the general public. In time the dining room acquired the name “Cafe Rouge”. A bandstand was installed in the middle section of the room against the south wall for live orchestras to play and the floor in front of it was cleared for dancing. Throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, the Cafe Rouge would host a number of famous Jazz musicians like Artie Shaw, the Dorsey Brothers, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and the Andrews Sisters. So many bands performed at the Cafe Rouge that NBC set up a live remote radio connection out of the restaurant and regularly broadcast the music of bands that were scheduled to perform there. The publicity was invaluable for bandleaders, and some would sign seasonal contracts with Hotel Pennsylvania ensuring them a place where their music would be broadcast.

In the early 1940s, the popular bandleader Glenn Miller broadcast his big band music nearly every week from the Cafe Rouge. Hotel Pennsylvania would come to be forever memorialized in

Glenn Miller’s hit song, “Pennsylvania 6-5000!,” which references the hotel’s telephone ​ ​ number, which is today 212-736-5000; this number is the longest phone number in use in the

City of New York (Sigman 2011). The Cafe Rouge is also the location where actor and singer

Doris Day first introduced the song “Sentimental Journey” with Les Brown’s orchestra in 1944.

The hotel and Cafe Rouge continued to operate successfully under Statler Hotels Inc. long after his death in 1928. The Statler Hotel chain continued under the ownership of Ellsworth Statler’s wife, Alice Seidler who proved a more than capable executive (Turkle 2014). Siedler managed to keep the business solvent through the depression years, and through the war years, eventually buying Hotel Pennsylvania from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in June of 1948 (New York ​ Times 1948, 40). Statler’s ownership was short-lived, barely surpassing five years before Conrad ​ Hilton bought Statler’s entire franchise in 1954.

After World War II, the rise of the automobile age spurred by the new highway systems stretching across the country quickly began to hinder the once supreme mode of rail travel in the mid-20th Century. The increasingly efficient marvel of air travel hastened the undoing of railroads as ticket sales hit record lows (Diehl 1985, 142). The Hotel Pennsylvania could no longer rely on the railroad for a steady source of clientele. The new Madison Square Garden, for being as popular as it was, only attracted out-of-town guests when events were held there. This hardly provided the same amount of guests annually as had Pennsylvania Station. The hotel went on to sustain itself based on its legacy of attractive, economical hospitality.

Hotel Pennsylvania changed ownership multiple times since the 1950s. During this time, its name was also changed. Even though “Hotel Pennsylvania” is left forever engraved in the masonry above the main entrance on 7th Avenue, a symbol of the hotel’s impressive resilience is its cyclical history of names. Statler Hotels Inc. bought the hotel from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1948. It was rechristened the “Hotel Statler”-a secondary title by which it was also known-but not officially called until after Statler’s purchase in 1948. Statler Hotels Inc. soon resold the hotel to Conrad Hilton of the Hilton Hotels chain in 1954, and it was thus renamed the

“Statler Hilton.”

The hotel operated under Hilton Hotels’ ownership for nearly as long as it had under the

Pennsylvania Railroad Company, from 1954 until 1979. When Hilton Hotels sold it to William

Zeckendorf, Jr. for $24 million, the hotel was renamed the “New York Statler '' and operated under Dunfey Hotels Inc. (Hilton Hotels Corporation: Annual Report 1978). 14 years later in

1983 the hotel was sold again for $46,000,000 to the PentaHotels chain with 50% ownership going to the investment firm Abelco.

The new owners changed the name again, this time to the “New York Penta.” Subsequently the hotel underwent a thorough renovation in an effort to update its aged interiors (Kennedy 1983).

In 1991, Abelco bought out PentaHotels for their share of interest, and took full ownership of the New York Penta. Only then would the name be reverted back to the original ''Hotel

Pennsylvania.'' (Oser 1995). In 1997 Vornado Realty Trust bought Hotel Pennsylvania, operating it in partnership with Singaporean hotel developer, Ong Beng Seng (fundinguniverse.com 1998).

Initially the firm invested heavily in creating an all-star hospitality venue of the hotel that would be a centerpiece in their overall vision of a redeveloped Penn District. Few things have changed in the past 20 years, but the recent expansion of Penn Station into the James A. Farley Post Office building which also sits on property owned by Vornado Realty is part of this overall redevelopment plan. When financial issues arose shortly after purchasing Hotel Pennsylvania,

Vornado halted their effort to revitalize it and instead proposed a plan to raze it and replace it with a modern office tower, 15 Penn Plaza (Cuozzo 2019).

Advocacy Groups

The Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society was established in 2006 by advocates of the hotel who believe it is worthy of saving and rehabilitating. The group’s timing was convenient as it was established one year prior to Vornado Realty Trust releasing its plan to demolish Hotel

Pennsylvania in 2007. Supporters consisted of such organizations as the private non-profit historic preservation advocate, Historic Districts Council, and Manhattan Community Board 5.

New York State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, of the 75th Assembly presiding over Chelsea,

Hell’s Kitchen, Murray Hill, Midtown, and Lincoln Center, also responded with apprehension toward Vornado’s redevelopment plan.

In 2009, Gottfried testified before the Department of City Planning to proclaim his encouragement of preserving the hotel (Gottfried 2009). An additional effort was put in by the

Preservation Society with help from 2600: The Hacker Quarterly to develop a means of saving ​ ​ and preserving the building. 2600: The Hacker Quarterly is a tech magazine that sponsored ​ ​ biennial HOPE hacker conventions held at the Hotel Pennsylvania (2600 News 2007) and volunteered to help the Preservation Society form a platform for preserving the hotel.

The process of building a solid foundation for landmarking and preserving Hotel Pennsylvania was not an easy one. An application for evaluation of the building was drawn up and submitted to LPC by the Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society in late 2007. In the same year, Manhattan

Community Board 5 voted 21-8 to have the hotel designated as a New York City landmark

(Cb5.org 2007). In February of 2008, however, LPC denied the Preservation Society’s request.

Response letters to the Preservation Society from LPC stated no other reasoning for their decision than that it was based on the assessment that the hotel had been “too heavily altered from its original appearance” (Schott 2008).

Chapter III: Analysis

Recent Development in the Penn District

In 1997, Vornado Realty Trust embarked on one of its first sizeable investments in Midtown

Manhattan. Under chairman Steven Roth the company sought to further its endeavors as a major developer. It bought the real estate firm Mendik Co. for $437 million from Bernard Mendik who then became co-chairman of Vornado Realty Trust. Two properties around Penn Station were part of the Mendik real estate fleet (International Directory of Company Histories 1998). Most ​ ​ of these properties are still owned by Vornado Realty Trust today.

After their purchase in 1997, Roth’s desire to maximize the firm’s real estate holdings led

Vornado Realty Trust to buy Hotel Pennsylvania directly across 7th Avenue from Madison

Square Garden. In a joint $160 million deal with Singaporean hotel developer and financier Ong Beng Seng, Hotel Pennsylvania became part of a massive redevelopment plan encompassing the entire Penn Station area to once again establish Penn Station as a popular, profitable transportation hub. Accordingly, Vornado Realty Trust’s plan would include various improvements to the Manhattan terminals for both Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad

(International Directory of Company Histories 1998). ​ ​

Vornado Realty Trust’s overall plan for the Penn District is still being implemented after a series of financial setbacks over the past 20 years hindered its progress. The firm has acknowledged an obvious design flaw apparent in the neighborhood since the mid 20th century: the emphasized orientation toward Madison Square Garden. In 1964 train travel was at an all-time low with the completion of the interstate highway system, and the efficient mode of airline travel (Diehl 1985,

142). When Madison Square Garden was built above what remained of Penn Station, it became the focal point of the district as the station lay buried and il-maintained beneath it.

With the overall drop in traffic through Pennsylvania Station in the 1960s, the feasible relocation of Madison Square Garden to this part of the city was not seen as problematic for the terminus.

Long-distance train travel would never rebound after the 1950s. Over the next 50 years however, commuter train service grew tremendously, eventually surpassing even its pre-war popularity.

Penn Station now handles 600,000 travelers each day-three times the capacity it was configured to manage in the 1960s. Despite the current talk in local business and architectural journals surrounding the relocation of Madison Square Garden when its lease expires in 2023, the likelihood of the venue moving is slim (Bockmann 2018). Vornado Realty Trust is working instead to create a context around Penn Station that is more sympathetic and befitting of the largest transportation hub in the Western hemisphere.

Vornado Realty Trust is doing its part in the process of returning the area to its former status as a central transportation hub by renovating its own properties to reflect a more compatible environment for Penn Station. In addition to redeveloping Hotel Pennsylvania, the grand design includes extensive alterations to two of Vornado’s office buildings around Madison Square

Garden and the expansion of Penn Station into the James A. Farley Post Office building across

8th Avenue. Renovations to each of the buildings are being planned with the goal of capitalizing on a central transit hub that also serves as a versatile retail and hospitality district catering to commuters, travelers, and most importantly to full-time New York City residents (Wong 2020).

Directly across 7th Avenue from Hotel Pennsylvania is the office tower “PENN 2” or “2 Penn

Plaza”. Both Madison Square Garden and 2 Penn Plaza were completed in 1968 by architecture firm Charles Luckman Associates (vno.com/penn-2, n.d.) and compose the complex that replaced McKim, Mead, & White’s original Pennsylvania Station. The sleek steel and glass monolithic frame of 2 Penn Plaza is derivative of the ideal modern style which dominated the mid 20th century. The building front on 7th Avenue is set back from the sidewalk by a vast raised promenade occupied by a kiosk dedicated to ticketing for Madison Square Garden. The facade itself forms an imposing entrance to Madison Square Garden with an exposed promenade that penetrates through the middle of the ground floor to the arena beyond.

It is not to the existing Madison Square Garden that Vornado Realty Trust intends to make improvements as the firm does not own the venue. Work is intended to be done in the lower floors of 2 Penn Plaza to create more space for public use in the form of commercial and retail facilities with complimentary lounges and rest areas. An expansion of the floors above the promenade along 7th Avenue has been designed to expand the floor area of the public portions of the tower. Renderings depict the addition almost as a natural growth jutting out from the building’s main body, cantilevered over the court and supported by slender braces.

Across West 33rd Street from Madison Square Garden is another office tower also owned by

Vornado Realty Trust known as “PENN 1” or “1 Penn Plaza”. Built in 1972 by the firm Kahn &

Jacobs, the building underwent a renovation in 1995 of its office and retail facilities

(vno.com/one-penn-plaza, n.d.). More recently, to maximize the FAR and provide additional public accommodations for non-Madison Square Garden clientele, a 200 million dollar proposal has been submitted to the Department of City Planning by Vornado Realty Trust to again renovate the building. The plans entail the expansion of the tower’s basement floors into a connection under West 33rd street with Penn Station to allow commuters easier access to the office building, and to create more retail space for 1 Penn Plaza as well as more space for Penn

Station.

Additionally the current design of the public spaces on the ground floor of 1 Penn Plaza have stirred up problems concerning public safety. An article in New York’s real estate news bulletin

“The Real Deal” mentions two unsuccessful through-block promenades at either end of 1 Penn Plaza connecting West 33rd and West 34th Streets. According to the article, these promenades are frequented by addicts, and other displaced groups at night. The renovation aims to close these two plazas, filling them in with additional retail space (Bockmann 2019). Vornado Real Estate

Trust Inc. hopes the solution will not only expand retail and hospitality space, but solve the public safety issue.

The epicenter of Vornado Realty Trust’s grand design is a joint venture with the state which owns the James A. Farley Post Office building and other developers which will transform the unused core of the Farley Post Office building into a massive office, commercial, retail, and transportation hub called Moynihan Train Hall. This section will accommodate both Long Island

Railroad and New Jersey Transit commuter lines, relieving congestion in Penn Station by about

20%. The train hall is still undergoing construction but access to the train platforms is already available both from inside Penn Station and above ground at both ends of the front facade of the post office on 8th Avenue at West 31st and 33rd Streets. Adding some 225,000 much needed square feet to the claustrophobic Pennsylvania Station, the train hall will be complete with office space, retail, and restaurants arranged in a tiered rotunda around a central skylit atrium (Gannon

2017).

The most recent development intended to benefit Penn Station is a new entrance at the corner of

7th Avenue and West 33rd Street. In May of 2019 Governor Cuomo announced a project to build a new main entrance which will significantly improve the appeal and accessibility of the east end of the station. The design of the new entrance on 7th Avenue is an open entrance exposed to the street leading straight down to the station corridor below. The entrance will be protected by a large glass canopy, allowing natural light and air to penetrate down into the subterranean station.

The mouth of the entrance will be directed at 7th Avenue facing Hotel Pennsylvania, making both it and the Empire State Building down West 33rd Street the first recognizable buildings one sees when emerging from Penn Station (governor.ny.gov 2019).

The improvements to the mid-20th century buildings around Penn Station, as well as the improvements to Penn Station itself are designed to re-establish the sense of place the area once had as a transportation hub. Yet Vornado Realty Trust is unable to understand the importance and usefulness of historic resources as tangible anchors in this district that establish that sense of place for its own goals. For the present, no landmarking exists in the foreseeable future, but the firm is showing they have made the decision to keep investing in Hotel Pennsylvania. They have begun extensive renovations to update and refresh its accommodations, having renovated 400 of the hotel’s 1,700 guest rooms in 2019.

While Vornado Realty Trust is investing in improvements around the hotel, it would be worth the time and effort to look at expanding those investments into rehabilitation plans and prospects to landmark Hotel Pennsylvania. For the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the aesthetic criteria for landmarking historic properties is based on the condition of a building’s exterior. This is good for Hotel Pennsylvania because although its interiors have been altered, some nearly beyond recognition, its exterior remains mostly unchanged. Were Vornado Realty Trust to request an evaluation for landmarking Hotel Pennsylvania, the expense of restoring the lost elements of the building’s exterior would be comparatively minimal. New York City landmark designation would allow Vornado Realty Trust to apply for grants and federal funding assistance through Historic Preservation Tax Credits as well as other funding programs to further alleviate the cost of rehabilitating the hotel.

Development Pressure on Hotel Pennsylvania

Upon its purchase in 1997, Vornado Realty Trust had initially planned to make Hotel

Pennsylvania a focal point in their grand overall design. To jumpstart the transformation, a partnership was cemented with esteemed Singapore hotelier Ong Beng Seng in collaboration with Planet Hollywood. With its new partners, Vornado Realty Trust embarked on a two-year plan to develop Hotel Pennsylvania into the first official “All-Star Hotel”-a trademark title owned by Planet Hollywood-the use of which would earn the partner royalties plus 20% of the hotel’s revenue. The design was for a sports-themed hotel with food and retail facilities occupying the public spaces (Yasuda 1997).

The project was shelved two years later when Planet Hollywood backed out to tend to its own financial matters, selling its share of interest in the hotel to an investment trust based out of New

Jersey (Byrd 2000). With the loss of funding and permission to use the trademark “All-Star” title provided by Planet Hollywood, Vornado Realty Trust announced a new plan for Hotel

Pennsylvania. The hotel was to be demolished and replaced by a 65 story tower with high-end commercial and office facilities. To ensure financial stability for the project, Vornado Realty

Trust sought to secure the investment firm Merrill Lynch as an anchor tenant to occupy the 100,000 square feet of planned office space in the tower’s five base floors. If Lynch were secured as an anchor tenant, Vornado Realty Trust intended to have the new office tower complete by the year 2011 (Colfort 2007).

Financial problems again delayed the project as the firm was unable to persuade Merrill Lynch to relocate to the Penn District. Additionally, according to one member of the Hotel Pennsylvania

Preservation Society, Steven Lepore, the recession of 2008 terminated the project altogether. The financial crisis saved the hotel from being demolished, but Vornado Realty Trust continued to operate the hotel while planning other possibilities for utilizing the building. Shortly after 2008

Atelier & Co., a design firm that specializes in contemporary Classical design, was commissioned by Vornado Realty Trust to design a proposal for a renovation of the hotel, subdividing it into three individual smaller hotels unified by a fully renovated mall on the ground floor (atelierandcompany.com/hotel-pennsylvania, n.d.). The renovations would have improved the hotel’s accommodations and divided the expense of running the large building among multiple tenants, but the changes also would have eliminated the original interior public spaces.

Atelier & Co.’s plans also were ultimately abandoned almost before they began. Since then, the threat of demolition has loomed over Hotel Pennsylvania. What has been more worrisome is the lack of concern about the hotel from the public sector and even the New York Landmarks

Preservation Commission about possibly losing another piece of New York’s heritage for another office tower. Nonetheless, redevelopment has been slowed periodically by City Council meetings ruling against the new office tower, and a noble effort put forth by those private organizations who continue to dedicate their spare time to saving Hotel Pennsylvania, namely the

Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society.

As recently as 2017, Vornado Realty Trust re-opened the possibility of demolishing Hotel

Pennsylvania and building a newly designed 2.8 million square-foot tower engineered by architect Rafael Vinoly. The design had a more distinctive layered look composed of irregularly staggered levels of solid material and of floor-to-ceiling windows. The top of the Vinoly building bears the only use of color, depicted in renderings with a blue band. Vornado Realty Trust had seriously considered Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook to relocate his company’s headquarters to this location, though Facebook is still fully committed to staying in its current location at 770 Broadway (Fidak 2019).

Evaluation of Integrity

The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission judges a building’s eligibility for landmark status by tangible and intangible historic significance. Tangibly, LPC judges the quality of the building’s exterior preservation (except when considering interior landmarks). Hotel

Pennsylvania retains much of its original exterior fabric. Over the years, reparable interventions have been made to the subtler details of the facade. To date, Vornado Realty Trust is conducting its own work to give the hotel a fresh look. Unfortunately, minimal regard is being given to preserving the authenticity of the exterior, and the resulting “improvements” are muddling Hotel

Pennsylvania’s overall presence in the Penn District. Recent concerning developments have been observed by Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society member Steven Lepore:

The yellow paint that currently covers the limestone facade is in the process of being removed.

This strategy of power washing in order to remove the paint is quite harmful to the authentic material beneath and the concentrated stream of water is chipping the outermost layers causing significant damage to the limestone. According to Mr. Lepore, addressing the damage being done to the hotel’s exterior is of little priority to Vornado Realty Trust because after the paint is removed, the limestone will be prepped for a new paint job. If the owners were to put their best effort into preserving the hotel’s authentic materials, they must properly and carefully remove the paint with a less abrasive method and restore the limestone.

Elsewhere on the facade, metallic elements have been added where they never were, and have been removed from areas where they originally had been. For example, the hotel’s crowning element was the original limestone cornice that boasted an attractive wavelike outline shaped by sculpted garlands, grotesque faces, and shells. The cornice was important in the overall design of the hotel’s exterior as it provided an organic contour to the top of the hotel offering a variance from the otherwise straight, rigid lines composing the rest of the facade. Today this cornice has been covered over by plain aluminum sheathing, crowning the hotel with a thick, heavy band that is aesthetically disproportionate with the building.

Mr. Lepore also bemoans the loss of original cast iron framing around the windows in the lower limestone facade. He explains that the facade of Hotel Pennsylvania’s lower floors appears

“flattened” by the elimination of contrast between the bright natural limestone and dark cast iron and warm orange marble inserts set in the framing around the windows. On the facades along

West 32nd and 33rd Streets, some of this iron and marble survives. Although poorly maintained, these remnants are intact and preserve a look far more interesting than the blandness of the painted panels which replaced them and sealed the windows along 7th Avenue.

Still, the most drastic intervention made to the facade of Hotel Pennsylvania is the removal and destruction of sections of the limestone facing altogether. When Hilton owned the hotel, the vestibule inside the 7th Avenue entrance was extended outward into the sidewalk. To make way for the protruding entry, the lower sections of four of the six Ionic columns in the portico were either concealed or eliminated. Recently, large billboards on either side of the main entrance were removed, exposing the facade underneath. The opportunity to restore and showcase the limestone, marble, and iron features was bypassed when construction crews cut deep holes into the pilasters to anchor mounts which now hold bulky, unsympathetic advertisement screens.

The interventions described have proven to be sufficient enough to make the Landmarks

Preservation Commission reject Hotel Pennsylvania for further evaluation for landmarking.

Additional changes to the exterior since the last landmarking attempt in 2007 have only exacerbated the building’s deteriorated authenticity. Luckily these changes are not severe enough to be irreversible. They will not prevent any future possibilities, near or distant, of restoration and hopefully subsequent landmarking of the hotel. With the rejection of the hotel itself as being a landmark, the Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society sought other ways in which the longevity of the hotel could be attained.

Interior Landmarking

After attaining landmark status for Hotel Pennsylvania failed in 2007, one last attempt at saving it resurfaced. When Zeckendorf owned the hotel, his renovations resulted in the almost complete removal of all original interior treatments and furnishings. Great two-story doric columns, mezzanines, skylights, murals, rich tapestries, coved ceilings, wood paneling, chandeliers, sofas, sculptures, plaster moulding, draperies, and carpets were all but retained in the public and guest rooms, leaving behind only the bare structural elements. Since the refurbishment of Hotel

Pennsylvania, most of the public rooms are today unrecognizable from their former appearance, with one exception. Historically the most famous of the public spaces, the former Cafe Rouge is still structurally intact. The room is unfurnished, but retains nearly all of its architectural and decorative elements.

The Cafe Rouge is now used as a rentable exhibition space. It has served a series of unusual and sometimes decidedly inappropriate uses under Vornado Realty Trust’s ownership. At one point it was even utilized as a basketball court known as “Terminal 23” (denton-cardewdesign, n.d.). In its later years the room faced a series of minor cosmetic changes. The room’s walls and ceiling have been painted white to brighten the space since the south facing windows looking out onto

West 32nd Street were sealed off. Despite these minor interventions, much of the room’s original

Italian Renaissance decor still remains.

The Cafe Rouge, Hotel Pennsylvania’s main dining room, was the largest space of its kind at the time of its construction in 1919. 58 feet wide by 142 feet long with ceilings 22 feet high, the room is designed with symmetrical balustraded “terraces” (now slightly modified in surface area) elevated 18 inches at either end of its length to break up the monotony of such an expansive space (The Architectural Review 1919, 58-59). The longitudinal division of the room was ​ ​ emphasized by four Corinthian columns along the edge of both terraces for a total of eight, implying a separation of the room into three large sections. Today four of the columns have been removed to maximize the amount of unobstructed space.

A row of large arched windows framed in terra cotta along the south wall permitted natural light inside from West 32nd Street. An identical row of arches contained sets of French doors that opened into a spacious circulatory hall connected to the main lobby. The arches ran along the north wall opposite the windows to establish latitudinal symmetry. The west wall at one end of the room was enhanced by a protruding wall in the center flanked by two spiral columns and featuring a decorative tapestry. To the east, a similar protruding wall flanked by two spiral columns boasted an impressive two-tiered fountain. Overhead was an elaborately adorned ceiling treated to imitate heavily carved wood beams imbued sparingly with light pigmentations of color.

The popularity of the Cafe Rouge peaked in the late 1930s and 1940s when the restaurant had a

Big Band remote connection with the NBC Radio Network. The Cafe Rouge soon gained notoriety as a public social gathering and nightclub destination for the live broadcast musical performances frequently held there. Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Doris Day, the Andrews Sisters, and the Dorsey Brothers are among the most notable musicians who performed at Cafe

Rouge in front of live audiences. The famous big band leader Glenn Miller frequently used the hotel, both staying there during his visits to New York City and regularly broadcasting his music live from “the smart and spacious Cafe Rouge at Hotel Pennsylvania”. He even referred to the hotel’s phone number in one of his hit songs, “Pennsylvania 6-5000!”. Because of the renown accumulated by the Cafe Rouge in its lifetime as a public restaurant, and certainly because of its largely preserved state, it is an eligible candidate for designation as an interior landmark.

In April of 2010, with the evaluation of landmarking still pending, the Hotel Pennsylvania

Preservation Society filed a request for evaluation of the Cafe Rouge for interior landmark status by LPC. The following month Manhattan Borough president Scott Stringer disregarded the

Historic Districts Council’s recommendation to landmark Hotel Pennsylvania. Simultaneously,

Vornado Realty Trust’s plan for the new office tower was given approval on the condition that general concerns in the project be addressed and approved by the Department of City Planning and the City Council (mbpo 2010).

In July, 2010 the New York Department of City Planning voted unanimously in favor of the proposed office tower, and by August the City Council approved the proposed Uniform Land

Use Review Procedure submitted by Vornado Realty Trust (Colvin 2010). LPC had conducted its evaluation of the Cafe Rouge as a potential interior landmark, but in October of 2010, the decision was made rejecting the Historic Districts Council and the Hotel Pennsylvania

Preservation Society’s recommendation for landmarking the former Cafe Rouge, stating only that the room was, like the rest of Hotel Pennsylvania, “too heavily altered”

(savethehotelpenn.blogspot 2011).

Prospects for Hotel Pennsylvania

With no landmark protection, and development plans approved, the loss of Hotel Pennsylvania was imminent. But in December, 2011, fate would come to have another plan. Vornado Realty

Trust announced that they were halting their plans due to market conditions and lack of financial backing from an anchor tenant (therealdeal 2011). In March of 2013 Vornado Realty Trust suddenly announced that they were abandoning the tower project completely. Vornado chairman

Steven Roth claimed that the firm was going to invest in Hotel Pennsylvania and turn it into a

“really profitable, really good hotel for our purposes” (wsj 2013).

In 2018 Vornado Realty Trust renewed special permits with the City Planning Commission to continue work for the proposed 15 Penn Plaza office tower. The following month, Chairman

Steven Roth stated in a letter to investors that the demolition and redevelopment of the lot was a

“continued option.” Roth also mentioned that Vornado Realty Trust was at a “tipping point” in redeveloping Hotel Pennsylvania into a “giant convention and entertainment hotel”

(Baird-Remba 2018). Last year, Vornado recently completed the second phase of its three-phase plan to improve the hotel’s guest accommodations. Oddly, no quarterly expenditures or incremental budgets for the work are mentioned in the “Active Projects” section of Vornado’s

2019 expense report. Hotel Pennsylvania is instead listed in the report as a “Future Opportunity” with over two million square feet of rentable space (Vornado Realty Trust 2019). ​ ​

Chapter 4: Precedents & Findings

Precedents: Hotel Commodore, 109 East 42nd Street, NYC

Much like entire city districts that may alter their physical appearance to remain competitive, so too do buildings of every age and type within them. Nonetheless, what methods of adaptation may work well in some kinds of buildings may not always work out as successfully for others.

The value of a historic building’s integrity diminishes with each renovation that removes its original fabric.

Case in point, the Grand Hyatt Hotel located immediately east of Grand Central Terminal in East

Midtown has a longer history on 42nd Street than its outward appearance would suggest. The ultramodern glass-skinned hotel has just been slated for demolition as part of a new redevelopment project in East Midtown. Similar to Vornado Realty Trust’s 2007 proposal for

Hotel Pennsylvania, the property will be developed into a mixed-use supertall office tower with a smaller Grand Hyatt Hotel and retail space in its lower floors (Barbanel 2019).

The secret of the Grand Hyatt literally lies beneath its reflective skin. The hotel itself, seen as a monolith of tinted glass in a sleek steel frame, is really a masonry building now just over a century old. Completed in the same year as Hotel Pennsylvania, the Grand Hyatt opened its doors on January 28, 1919 as “Hotel Commodore”. Designed by architects Warren & Wetmore, the hotel was commissioned by the New York Central Railroad and built as a component of the famed “Terminal City” which consisted of a series of luxury hotels and office towers built around Grand Central Terminal. The name “Commodore” derives from “Commodore” Cornelius

Vanderbilt who founded and owned the New York Central Railroad (nyc-architecture, n.d.).

The exterior of the hotel, like Hotel Pennsylvania, was executed in a balanced treatment of limestone and brick. Ornament was used sparingly on the exterior. In style it incorporated components of the French Renaissance. The form remains much the same as that of the current structure, with a solid platform of public areas, six stories in height, surmounted by two slender towers, 19 stories in height, at either end connected by a recessed mid-section. The upper floors of the hotel are arranged around an open court that sits atop the roof of the lower six public floors. (The Architectural Review 1919, 71). With the row of older masonry buildings along ​ ​ 42nd Street, Hotel Commodore was originally better integrated into its surroundings than the imposing and dark Grand Hyatt is today.

The hotel operated successfully from opening day into the 1960s when railroad travel began to decline with the rise of interstate highways and the new Jet Age. Following the trend of mid-century modernization, a public auction was held at the Commodore in 1967 at which all of its original interior furnishings were sold off in preparation for a $3.4 million interior renovation.

The renovation brought new furniture into the hotel, but kept the architectural elements of the rooms and public spaces mostly intact for another few years until the late 1970s after another gradual decline brought it dangerously close to shutting down. In an act of self-preservation the

Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads merged to combine their assets into what became known as the Penn Central Railroad. Still, this move was not enough to save the Hotel Commodore. By 1976, the hotel was operating at a deficit of $1.5 million per year

(nyc-architecture, n.d.).

Donald Trump was able to purchase the Commodore from the Penn Central Railroad in 1977 with the help of the Hyatt Hotel chain that had partnered with the Trump Organization to secure the deal (Rosenthall 2016). The Commodore would be Trump’s first real estate endeavor in New

York City. Between 1977 and 1980 the hotel would undergo an extensive $100 million renovation headed by the architecture firm Gruzen Samton that thoroughly gutted the interiors. It was in this renovation that the current facade was hung directly over the existing masonry,

“draping” the hotel’s exterior in a glass curtain wall. In September of 1980, the hotel officially reopened as the “Grand Hyatt New York”.

An unexpected surprise to any guest is one section of the Commodore’s interior that remains completely unaltered from its 1919 appearance. The foyer to the Grand Hyatt’s main ballroom stands in sharp contrast to the ultramodern renovated spaces, complete with its frilled Beaux-Arts decor, plaster carvings, Ionic columns and vaulted ceiling. When the remodeled hotel reopened in 1980, it was met with harsh criticism from architects and historians because of its stark presence on 42nd Street. Believed to be one of the most architecturally significant corridors in

New York City, the Grand Hyatt was said to be an “utter and inexcusable outrage” as indicated in The Architectural Guidebook to New York City (Morrone, n.d. 153-4). ​ ​

The Trump-Hyatt partnership was not a successful one. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the partners filed a series of lawsuits against each other over what is described as inappropriate business practices. The Grand Hyatt declined during this time and another renovation of the interiors was initiated by Hyatt Hotels Corporation owner Jay Pritzker in April 1996, and was completed in August of the same year. The partnership between Hyatt Hotels and the Trump

Organization officially ended on October 7, 1996 when Pritzker bought Trump’s half-share in the hotel for $142 million (Bagli 1996).

From 1996, the Grand Hyatt New York operated successfully, winning Corporate and Incentive ​ Travel Magazine’s “Award of Excellence” in 2007 and 2008. A fourth and final renovation of ​ the hotel’s interior was conducted in 2011 for $130 million replacing the dated 80s and 90s interventions with a motif of sterile contemporary minimalism. The guest rooms were heavily modified in this renovation and were reconfigured in a manner that in some cases eliminated original 1919 walls altogether (Bernstein 2011). The decisions made to renovate and strip all historic character from Hotel Commodore since the 1960s likely contributed to the lack of opposition to its recently proposed demolition.

Hotel Commodore’s demolition was announced in February of 2019. A development group, TF

Cornerstone and MSD Partners, plans to raze the hotel and replace it with a 2 million square foot office tower. Like Vornado Realty Trust Inc.’s efforts in the Penn District, redevelopment of the

Commodore is part of a larger Midtown East redevelopment project, the goal of which is to create new, modern office space within a 78-block stretch of neighborhood. Demolition of the hotel has not yet been approved nor has a designer for the new office tower been chosen, but a principal at TF Cornerstone, Jeremy Shell says the firm “looks forward to the opportunity to bring a new icon to New York’s skyline” (Plitt 2019).

Precedents: The Roosevelt Hotel, 45 East 45th Street, NYC

Two blocks north of the Commodore and Grand Central Terminal sits another grand railroad hotel. In 1924 The Roosevelt Hotel was built, also as part of Terminal City. The hotel is similar in design to Hotel Pennsylvania and also is equipped with an underground passageway providing a direct connection to the station. The Roosevelt Hotel is not a landmarked property, and is less associated with significant historical or cultural events than Hotel Pennsylvania. Yet The

Roosevelt Hotel continues to be a popular place for both visitors and residents of the city, operating with a four-star rating.

The Roosevelt Hotel was designed by George B. Post & Sons with Prohibition in mind. Post knew that a series of cafes and lounges on the ground floor serving alcohol were not permissible.

Instead, the hotel features multiple retail spaces directly accessible from the sidewalk, though it would later be fitted with a grill room and a bar after the abolishment of Prohibition. Its other public rooms included a soaring two-story lobby and two ballrooms, all still intact today. There is also a bistro, conference rooms, a business center, and a fitness center. Additionally, similar to

Hotel Pennsylvania’s Rooftop Garden, The Roosevelt Hotel originally included a rooftop bar that today still proves to be a popular Midtown rendezvous for locals and tourists

(theroosevelthotel.com, n.d.).

Like the Commodore, The Roosevelt Hotel was owned by the New York State Realty and

Terminal Company (NYSRTC), a division of the New York Central Railroad, and operated by the United Hotels Company. In 1943 NYSRTC sold the hotel to Conrad Hilton, who would go on to purchase Hotel Pennsylvania six years later. Hilton Hotels Corporation operated The

Roosevelt Hotel for the next 35 years. When the railroad fell on hard times, it began to affect the hotel’s profitability and by 1978 Hilton sold it to the Loews Corporation for $55 million. Within a year, the Loews Corporation immediately resold the hotel at a loss for $30 million to New

York Developer Paul Milstein who, in 1979 leased it to Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).

The contract also provided the option for the airline to purchase the hotel after 20 years (Bagli

2000).

Over the course of the next two decades, The Roosevelt Hotel’s interior remained almost completely unchanged from its original 1920s appearance. But the hotel was beginning to show the wear and tear of 70 years of hard use. By 1995 PIA, in partnership with Prince Faisal bin

Khalid of Saudi Arabia who invested in the original lease, had lost $70 million operating the antiquated hotel. A 2-year $65 million renovation required the hotel to close for the first time since its grand opening, officially reopening in 1997. The guest rooms were updated and refreshed but the majority of the public spaces were minimally altered with most effort going into the restoration of the original details. Once the hotel reopened its doors, the lessee made a profit off of it in the first year (Bagli 2000).

PIA bought the hotel from the Milsteins in 1999 for $59.5 million after winning a lawsuit filed against them by Milstein. It was again renovated in 2011 respecting the original historic architecture. The Roosevelt Hotel is still owned by PIA and operated by Interstate Hotels &

Resorts and today it is lovingly dubbed “The Grand Dame of Madison Avenue”. Although the rooms have been updated, the hotel’s interior and exterior architecture remains unaltered, preserving its historic appearance. The Roosevelt Hotel’s updates are consciously in keeping with the original style, retaining its historic image and prestige as a luxury hotel. Today the hotel is still used for more than its hospitality, serving as the setting for weddings, fundraisers, political events, and even a few films (theroosevelthotel.com, n.d.).

Findings: Renovation

Unlike Hotel Pennsylvania, the lack of concern over the loss of the Commodore does not stem from the fact that it is being underutilized. Rather it is likely that the series of renovations begun in the 1980s ironically make it less remarkable and not worth preserving. It is an imposing and impressive hotel in and of itself. But the renovations that simplified its appearance as well as what is expected to replace it suggest that it is also an expendable building. As it stands, the

Grand Hyatt has no remarkable or rare features that are not common in new architecture.

Excluding the ballroom foyer and the concealed exterior facade, the historic distinguishing architectural features of the Commodore have been mostly lost. Thus, it is obvious that most of the public would not view the Grand Hyatt as a vital historic resource because it has not been treated as such.

It may be argued that interventions that disregard authentic materials in general is an extreme risk to a historic building’s popularity and ultimately its profitability. Mindless elimination or covering over of extraordinary architectural features is, for most historic buildings, also eliminating the key to their significance. Recent renderings of Hotel Pennsylvania depict the building wrapped in a steel and glass skin similar to that of Hotel Commodore. Such a proposal may “preserve” the hotel’s original fabric, but its outward appearance would be completely obscured. With the existing surrounding steel and glass office towers of the Penn District, Hotel

Pennsylvania would no longer rise as an outstanding masonry feature. The resulting design in the renderings is common and unremarkable when compared to the surrounding context.

As for its interior, Hotel Pennsylvania has already lost original features from previous renovations as did the Commodore. These renovations from the 1970s through to the 1990s turned out to be little more than temporary solutions which grew outdated within a few years.

Instead of working with and restoring the hotel’s existing architecture, the owners repeatedly gutted the interiors and replaced them with contemporary schemes. “Improvements” which include significant removal or destruction to original fabric, no matter how much money is spent, are the means to an end for historic hotels. Each alteration to the structure makes the next alteration more complicated, and the increased frequency of modernization and redecoration results in less profit for the owners. More money goes into complete overhaul-renovations for historic buildings than would utilizing Historic Preservation Tax Credits to preserve its timeless original fabric. After haphazard alterations, historic buildings become less significant and in the long term may consume large amounts of the revenue they generate.

Findings: Rehabilitation

What Hilton saw and appreciated in all of his hotels-beautiful historic architecture as an attraction-is what The Roosevelt Hotel has been able to retain in its 96 year history. Sadly this asset has been lost in Hotel Pennsylvania. Educated theories can be made about how these two nearly identical hotels ended up in such differing circumstances. Both are historic railroad hotels built for New York City’s busiest major transportation hubs. It is imperative to identify which factors differentiate the current status of these hotels. Equally as important for this study is to identify the factors which can help make a case for the rehabilitation and preservation of Hotel

Pennsylvania.

The Roosevelt Hotel has been fortunate in that Grand Central Terminal is now a New York City landmark, having narrowly escaped demolition in the 1960s. Today Grand Central is the second busiest rail terminal in the country after Pennsylvania Station. Additionally Grand Central is an icon that attracts millions of heritage tourists to the area every year, stimulating the local economy among other attractions. However, Grand Central’s salvation was borne of the tragic loss of Pennsylvania Station in 1963. Only after the station was destroyed did it become clear to

New Yorkers that their city was not always being improved by urban renewal projects. Rather in cases like Penn Station, the city was being cheated and robbed of its architectural history.

When Penn Station was reduced in size and replaced with Madison Square Garden, the Penn

District no longer served primarily as a major transportation hub. The Garden became a major success and still generates a huge draw to the area. Accordingly, the neighborhood amenities began to reflect its new centerpiece. A historic hotel began to look out of place in an increasingly sports and entertainment-oriented district. To remedy this conflict, Hotel Pennsylvania’s owners set out to reinvent the establishment by giving it a refreshed image within its new surroundings.

Nearly 40 years and multiple interventions later, the hotel is today finishing the second phase of a 3-phase renovation. Currently being used for little more than as a place to sleep, Hotel

Pennsylvania was historically a multifaceted mixed-use hotel. Unfortunately through years of internal alterations, most of the public rooms sit in various stages of retrofit or abandonment, used only sparingly for events.

Rehabilitation vs. Renovation

The unchanged neighborhood context of The Roosevelt Hotel when examined in comparison to the drastically changed area that surrounds Hotel Pennsylvania plays a critical role in the manner in which their owners sought to improve them. PIA refurbished The Roosevelt Hotel around the same time the PentaHotels chain conducted their own renovation of Hotel Pennsylvania with partner Abelco. The Roosevelt Hotel preserved much of its original grandeur as the goal of this refurbishment was not to change the interior architecture. The guest rooms were redone to improve their level of comfort, albeit in a fashion that respected the hotel’s authenticity. Since then the hotel has only seen two more light renovations that also left the hotel largely intact.

When Hotel Pennsylvania was renovated by Penta Hotels in 1983, most of its original interiors had already been removed by the previous owners. It had been subjected to a thorough alteration under William Zeckendorf’s ownership just four years prior (Kennedy 1983). Their work was necessary in one area of the hotel, for in 1981 an arsonist set the grand ballroom ablaze in the early morning hours on the 17th of April (Gaiter 1981). The fire damage was contained but the lower floors sustained moderate water damage when firefighters pumped water into the building.

Penta Hotels’ overall plan was launched as a “multi-million dollar modernization program to be completed in several stages over 18 months” (Kennedy 1983). The admittedly high-end, but dated 1980s design of the PentaHotels renovation is just now being undone by Vornado Realty

Trust. Having started on the guest rooms, the firm has intentions to renovate the interior public spaces in the coming phases of the renovation. An article published in Hotel Business in June of ​ ​ 2019, quotes the hotel’s General Manager, Fred Grapstein. Grapstein proudly boasts about the progress Vornado has made as well as the philosophy behind the project: “We are looking at renovating the lobby...every update that has been done in the last 100 years has been a mistake.

A great deal of what we’re doing is removing the ‘improvements’ done in the last renovation”

(Little 2019). Grapstein does not describe any details of Vornado Realty Trust’s prospective renovations to the lobby or the other public areas in the hotel. Phase 3 of the renovation plan has not begun and the changes made therein remain to be seen.

Findings: Finances & Penn District Active Projects

The key monetary feasibility of a full rehabilitation of Hotel Pennsylvania is demonstrated in

Vornado Realty Trust’s expense report for the year 2019. Over the past three years, Vornado has been heavily engaged in improving its buildings around Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. In Vornado Realty Trust’s 2019 expense report, the projects currently in progress are the renovations to the office towers PENN 1 and PENN 2. The Moynihan Train Hall project in the

James A. Farley Post Office building, of which Vornado has 95% interest is also listed. Begun in the second quarter of 2017, it is predicted to be the next completed job, with a stabilization period between 2020 and 2022. Improvements to PENN 1 began in the last quarter of 2018 with an undetermined date of completion, and work on PENN 2 began in the second quarter of 2019 with an estimated stabilization period in 2024 (Vornado Realty Trust. 2019).

Each of these projects has been given its own incremental budget which is subject to change every quarter-year for the duration of the work. Vornado Realty Trust has been generous with its budgeting for these projects. In each quarter of 2019, only the amount spent on work for

Moynihan Train Hall surpassed half the budgeted funds. These projects are not joint ventures between Vornado and another firm. These buildings are 95-100% owned by Vornado Realty

Trust and solely funded by the company itself. In 2019, the consolidated remaining funds in the project budgets just from the first quarter (January 1st-March 30th) was $729,236,000. The consolidated remaining funds from the budgets in each of the following three quarters left over

$1 billion. In summary, for the full year of 2019, a total of $5,202,877,000 was left over in the budgets for these three Penn District projects (Vornado Realty Trust. 2019).

Hotel Pennsylvania’s quarterly net operating income (NOI) is carefully traced in the 2019 expense report as well. Throughout the year, renovations to the hotel guest rooms reveal a decrease in revenue with each quarter. It also reveals a stunning rebound in profit after the renovations were completed. For each of the first three quarters in 2019, the hotel operated at a loss of between $1 million and $2 million until the renovations were complete. For the third quarter, revenue totaled $24,499,000. In the fourth quarter, however, Hotel Pennsylvania’s revenue more than doubled this amount at a staggering $89,594,000. Overall, in the year 2019, total revenue of Hotel Pennsylvania was $139,618,000. The economic room rates and renting of event spaces continue to ensure the hotel’s position as an asset to Vornado Realty Trust, yet it has the potential to offer many more services to the City of New York. With only 1,400,000 of the hotel’s 2,000,000 square feet in use, the remaining 600,000 square feet of unused floor area is entirely public commercial, entertainment, and retail space (Vornado Realty Trust. 2019).

Grapstein’s claim that every previous update to Hotel Pennsylvania has been a mistake does not necessarily imply a coming restoration project. Nowhere does Vornado Realty Trust describe their prospective renovations as including “restoration”, “rehabilitation”, or “reconstruction”. To date, there are no plans by Vornado to seek landmark designation for the property. Based on their history of ownership, it is unlikely that Vornado’s changes will reflect the hotel’s historic design.

In the end, despite the following recommendations, only time will tell what the future holds for

Hotel Pennsylvania.

New York City & U.S. Federal Standards for Preservation

The standards by which the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) considers a property for listing as a historic site are based on its significance in specific categories of American history and culture as well as its physical state of preservation. In addition, there are standards and guidelines provided by the New York State Historic

Preservation Office (SHPO) as well as the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic

Preservation. These guidelines and rules open the floor to consider not only the eligibility of

Hotel Pennsylvania for listing and preservation, but the steps which can be taken to rehabilitate the building to an acceptably authentic state using Historic Preservation Tax Credits.

The benefit that has made the largest impact on historic preservation across the United States is the availability of federal historic preservation grants and tax credits. The Federal Historic

Rehabilitation Tax Credit Program was authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of

1966. It is intended to serve as a means to ease the enormous costs that can arise during the process of rehabilitating a historic site. There are two versions of the tax credit program with one specially fitted to assist in the rehabilitation of commercial or income-producing properties as well as a version for assisting in the rehabilitation of privately owned historic buildings

(parks.ny, n.d.).

When the Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society filed a request for evaluation for the LPC to landmark the hotel, the resulting consensus from the LPC was that the building was ineligible for landmark status for being too heavily altered. The exchange of letters between the two organizations is published on the Hotel Pennsylvania Preservation Society’s website. Within this correspondence there is no reference to any rules and regulations, either by the SHPO or the

Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation. Further research by Hotel

Pennsylvania preservation advocates into these rules and regulations when appealing to LPC may further solidify a case for preserving Hotel Pennsylvania if implemented into an application for evaluation of the property, and applied to a work plan for the hotel’s rehabilitation.

The position of the SHPO, a branch of New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic

Preservation, is to serve as an overall guide in preserving heritage sites. Among SHPO’s multiple responsibilities is to ensure the procedures for restoration, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and preservation of designated historic properties are followed according to the unique requirements of the state in which they are carried out. The responsibilities of the New York State Parks,

Recreation and Historic Preservation office are many. It is a resource providing the directions and criteria necessary to preserve America’s heritage. These tools of identification, evaluation, and confirmation are especially useful for endangered properties in situations such as that of

Hotel Pennsylvania (parks.ny, n.d.).

Rehabilitation standards apply to both the interior and exterior work performed on a listed historic building as well as its surrounding context, and attached, adjacent, or related new construction. They are to be applied with consideration to both economic and technical feasibility (nps, n.d.). Most of these standards pertain to the select property’s prospective use and the treatment of its existing historic fabric through the restoration process along with the faithful reconstruction of its missing or deteriorated fabric. Many, if not all of the standards may be applied to Hotel Pennsylvania. If followed correctly, and without the reliance on modern changes that may compromise the building’s original form, the standards will ensure the rehabilitation of

Hotel Pennsylvania to a respectable state of historic integrity.

Chapter 5

Recommendations

A long-range Strategic Plan utilizing preservation guidelines with a mix of rehabilitation, restoration and renovation is key to ensuring a proper refurbishment of Hotel Pennsylvania. The

Plan is structured similarly to Vornado Realty Trust’s projects on the other buildings in the Penn

District. It is designed in phases, each of which will be subdivided into annual quarters. The amount of work in the first, second, third and fourth quarters of each year should be calculated according to the budget allotted for the project in each quarter. Consideration will be given to the hotel’s history, the history of its surrounding context, and Vornado Realty Trust’s plans for its prospective use.

The Plan recommends local NYC landmarking and listing on the State and National Register of

Historic Places in order to gain financial benefits, including financial assistance through tax credits, thus making the idea of rehabilitation more appealing to the owner. Throughout the Plan, any use of the terms “restoration”, “rehabilitation”, and “reconstruction” are defined by the standards enforced by the State Historic Preservation Office and the Secretary of the Interior’s

Standards for historic preservation. For clarification purposes, the definitions of these terms are provided:

Restoration - “The act or process of accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a ​ property as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of features from other periods in its history and the reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period.”

Rehabilitation - “The process of returning a property to a state of utility, through repair or ​ alteration, which makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions and features of the property which are significant to its historic, architectural, and cultural values.”

Reconstruction - “The act or process of depicting, by means of new construction, the form, ​ features, and detailing of a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object for the purpose of replicating its appearance at a specific period of time and in its historic location.”

Vornado Realty Trust is working to rebrand the Penn District as an up-and-coming retail and office district. Guests and the general public, be their visit to the area for business or pleasure, must have available to them suitable lodgings that satisfy various creature comforts. The office tower proposed in 2007 to replace Hotel Pennsylvania was intended for mixed use. Yet Hotel

Pennsylvania historically had public spaces dedicated for various services outside its use as a hotel. If rehabilitated, these spaces can offer a range of conveniences for hotel guests, tourists, and city residents alike. The resurrection of some amenities historically offered at Hotel

Pennsylvania, mingled with a mix of contemporary attractions and services will establish it as a vital component in the new Penn District. These services will be explained in more detail later on. It is important to first plan out the steps in the procedure which will lead to this end.

Hotel Pennsylvania is not a designated landmark and currently ineligible to receive Preservation

Grants or Tax Credits. In order for the hotel to become eligible, phase one of the Plan is to acquire landmark status from the LPC. The only way of achieving this goal would be for

Vornado Realty Trust to actively advocate for the designation of their hotel as a historic landmark. They must first be able to envision the potential of Hotel Pennsylvania as a popular tourist draw being a unique hospitality venue with commercial, retail, restaurant, cultural and architectural heritage experiences. If designated, eligibility for financial aid would make it possible for Vornado Realty Trust to initiate significant historic rehabilitation work that is cohesive with a modern revitalization plan.

According to the New York State Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation office, the Historic

Preservation Tax Credit program provides funding for up to 20% of expenditures pertaining specifically to preservation work on a listed historic site. The exact dollar amount depends wholly on the total cost of the proposed work to be done. Designation or listing on the State and

National Registers is not the only means of carrying out a rehabilitation with financial ease.

WereVornado Realty Trust to abstain from designating the hotel, funding to rehabilitate the exterior would still be available through another program. Because Hotel Pennsylvania is an income-producing establishment, a 20% credit up to $5 million may be granted through the New

York State Tax Credit Program for Income-Producing Properties as well.

The Plan will outline a Scope of Work, carried out according to the Secretary of the Interior’s

Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. On the exterior, all added materials-the posters and monitors-are to be removed from the facade and the paint is to be stripped from the limestone. The sheathing covering the original cornice will also be removed. Subsequently, the exposed original masonry will be properly cleaned using methods approved by preservation guidelines available through the Standards. While the facades are being thoroughly restored, the existing canopies above each entrance are to be dismounted, and faithful copies of the original canopies reconstructed and hung above their respective entrances. All cast iron window and door surrounds on the lower band will be reconstructed and reinstalled complete with relief panels to match the original marble insets. The existing original lanterns will be restored and reinstalled.

The windows to the Cafe Rouge will be unsealed, and the added granite surrounds at the entrance on 7th avenue removed. The columns on 7th Avenue that were removed will be reconstructed and reinstalled.

Funding from tax credits can be used in phase two which will focus on the public interior rooms.

Originally, Hotel Pennsylvania offered a series of public amenities available to both the public and hotel guests. Today, the Penn Station area is evolving into a bustling transport hub as well as a new retail, restaurant, and business district. Utilizing an existing building like Hotel

Pennsylvania and reinstating some of its historically offered amenities, while integrating contemporary services and attractions, will make it an important and distinguished focal point in the neighborhood. Among the hotel’s historically offered hospitality facilities were a grill room known as the “Manhattan Grill”, a library, a lunch counter and coffee shop, a bar, a “Men’s Cafe”, a Palm Court, two pools, each with its own spa, a barber shop, a grand ballroom, retail space accessible from the street, and additional floor area dedicated for exhibitions. In their original footprint, each of these rooms is on a grand scale and could effectively serve their original use or be utilized for a variety of similar but contemporary services. Over the years, fluctuating revisions from a succession of ownership, based on economic and social trends, eliminated these services and limited the functionality of the interiors.

Logic is hard to find in the decision making of past renovations. Some of the larger public rooms have been subdivided into smaller spaces, rented for miscellaneous use. Most tragic is the hotel’s main lobby. The lobby of any hotel is vital as it makes or brakes the first impression for guests as they arrive. Hotel Pennsylvania’s lobby was once an empowering two-story chamber illuminated from above by a glorious wrought iron and glass skylight that ran the full length and width of the room. Two-story fluted Doric columns of plastered concrete lined the perimeter upholding the skylight and supporting a second-floor mezzanine that ran around the room overlooking the main floor. Below the mezzanine, a promenade housed the front desk on the south side and allowed easy traffic circulation around the furnished central portion of the lobby.

Today the lobby is closed in and dark. all that remains of its former self is the terrazzo marble floor, and the basic overall footprint. The Doric columns and skylight have been removed and the ceiling lowered to the mezzanine level (eliminating the mezzanine as well). The steel cores of the columns are now wrapped in alternating sides of orange marble and floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

The fine furnishings and artwork are gone, replaced with uncomfortable seating areas in insufficient quantities. Rather than being an impressive and ennobling space in which to linger, the lobby is now but a checkpoint to pass through on the way to one’s room. A number of other public rooms have been treated in the same manner. What large public rooms still do exist intact are not regularly open to the public, and some have been closed off and sealed indefinitely.

These preceding alterations are forcing Vornado Realty Trust to improvise in their own renovations, reutilizing intact original spaces in ways for which they were neither intended nor designed. The strongest example of this is in the use of the elevator lobbies on each guest floor.

These spaces sit virtually unaltered from their original 1919 design with only minor aesthetic changes in the past 100 years. Within these heavy-traffic areas, guests constantly come and go using 12 large elevators that serve every floor. The arriving and departing guests oftentimes would be trailing bulky ensembles of luggage to or from their hotel rooms. The elevator lobbies are specifically designed to be sprawling spaces with an excess of room to allow for easy maneuvering in this regard. Furnishings should be minimal in these areas to minimize both obstacles for guests to dodge, and damage to hotel property.

The functionality and purpose of this spaciousness is now being abused for the depletion of original appropriate public areas. In the latest renovations carried out by Vornado Realty Trust, the elevator lobbies have been commandeered and have been reimagined into public lounges and collaborative workspaces. The two purposes of the elevator lobbies clash with one another resulting in an inappropriate use. The installation of large sofas, chairs, tables, and shelving greatly diminish the amount of open space for guests and their luggage to move through. Likewise, the disruption from the constant coming and going of guests in this high-traffic part of the hotel makes it difficult to accomplish any task here, be it solitary or collaborative work, let alone relaxation with a book or magazine.

Improvised and dysfunctional uses like this could be avoided by the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the hotel’s original public and guest rooms. Before the Hotel Pennsylvania’s interiors were altered from their original configuration, there existed an intimately scaled writing room and library tucked away just off of the second floor mezzanine above the main lobby. This space was utilized by hotel guests for exactly the kind of use that Vornado Realty Trust has designated for the elevator lobbies. The writing room and library provided a private place for guests to relax or work. Unfortunately today these rooms are completely gone without a trace.

The space they used to occupy as well as the upper section of the hotel lobby have been incorporated into a massive exhibition room above the shrunken lobby called the Penn Plaza

Pavilion.

The original 1919 McKim, Meade, & White plans still exist for Hotel Pennsylvania and can serve as a valuable resource for a Strategic Rehabilitation Plan. From a business perspective, it would be wise to first revive the spaces which would generate the most revenue, namely the Cafe

Rouge, the Roof Garden, The Manhattan Grill, the Men’s Cafe (without the men-only mystique), the exhibition venues, retail spaces, the bar, and the barber shop. Improved utilization of the public spaces will expand the possibilities for the hotel’s use within the Penn District, and it will put less pressure on guest rooms as the hotel’s primary source of income. In time, the revenue from these spaces can be invested in the restoration of other public interior spaces such as the main lobby, the private guest library, and the grand ballroom and banquet rooms.

Although the phased Plan includes exterior restoration, it focuses mainly on revitalizing the public spaces through the restoration of original fabric, rehabilitation of the original interior footprint, and reconstruction of the key contributing hotel spaces that have been altered such as the Cafe Rouge, and the main lobby. As of now, Hotel Pennsylvania is heavily dependent on the occupation of guest rooms as its main source of income. Luckily it is not experiencing trouble in this regard as the hotel regularly operates near capacity. In order to balance out the ratio of sources for generating revenue, the Strategic Rehabilitation Plan caters to the publicly accessible regions of Hotel Pennsylvania.

Conclusion

A city district relies on its own ability to be flexible in order to change and grow as time passes.

Redevelopment is a virtual component of what a city represents. Without fresh, new architectural ideas expressed through development done at a moderately constant rate, a metropolis will struggle to remain globally competitive among other leading world-class cities. While change in large cities is necessary, it is important that the echoes of history not be forgotten as urban areas are rebuilt and rebranded. In some cases, districts like the Penn District may be rebranded based on their historical use. The buildings that survived the district’s cycle of different uses may thus be useful in re-establishing that sense of place and origin.

Hotel Pennsylvania is a prime example of a building that has experienced just such a cycle in the uses of its surrounding context. From the time Pennsylvania Station was completed in 1910, it welcomed thousands of long-distance and commuter travelers into New York City. The

Pennsylvania Railroad capitalized on the vital role it played in the city. It also recognized the equally important goal of improving the quality of life for its patrons. Hotel Pennsylvania embodied this goal with the help of its manager, Ellsworth Statler, through affordable hospitality accommodations not just for long-distance travelers and commuters, but the general public.

Equipped with the latest technologies in engineering and hospitality, the hotel was superior, even to many upper-class hotels of the time, in its ability to satisfy and surpass the needs of its guests.

2,200 bright, spacious guest rooms ensured comfortable, but not ostentatious lodging with excessive luxuries present in the form of modern conveniences. As an important means of expanding the utility of the building, publically accessible spaces were designed to occupy the lower floors for use by guests and the public. The public rooms were wisely designated for uses that would regularly attract patrons. Facilities like restaurants, bars, shops, event spaces, and other amenities would ensure a steady flow of income for the hotel, and Pennsylvania Railroad.

For 45 prosperous years, Pennsylvania Station and Hotel Pennsylvania operated in perfect harmony. This perfection is forever encoded through the popular music of Glenn Miller, being referenced in his songs, “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and “Pennsylvania 6-5000”. Both references imply the usefulness of the Penn Station complex as an effective transportation hub, and a popular meeting spot in the city. In time, technological advances interrupted the prosperous air and altered the Penn District. The loss of Penn Station and its subsequent replacement with

Madison Square Garden affected the prevailing demographic of the area. In one respect,

Madison Square Garden is a useful tool for Hotel Pennsylvania as it provides a remarkable influx of room bookings during concerts or other events. Being one of the most popular concert venues in America, it is responsible in part for the steady rate of occupancy for the hotel year-round.

Simultaneously, the building of Madison Square Garden represents economic and social change in New York, as well as in the whole country. By the mid-20th century, interstate highways and airline travel severely crippled the railroad industry. To be sure, the demolition of Penn Station in 1963 was a symptom of time. Hotel Pennsylvania continued regardless of the changes brought about by time under the Hilton Hotels chain until 1979. Resulting from a series of owners after

Hilton Hotels chain sold it, the hotel itself was repeatedly modernized and stripped of its pre-war fittings that reflected the passed era of large, elaborate urban hotels. Nevertheless, Hotel

Pennsylvania survived and has stood long enough to see its centennial, and also to begin seeing a reversion of its neighborhood.

Such as time may take away, so too does it give. Penn Station is much busier now than its mid-century renovations anticipated. Its increased use makes its situation beneath Madison

Square Garden a challenge. Nowadays, travelers to Penn Station are mostly commuters from

Long Island and New Jersey, but their daily quantity still warrants major improvement to the functionality of the station. Limited space to expand in the subterranean Penn Station forced the new Moynihan Train Hall into the James A. Farley Post Office building on 8th Avenue. This preserved historic building has suddenly taken a central position in the District, becoming an essential part of the refreshed transportation hub. In hindsight, preservation came as a friend to the redevelopment plan. If the Post Office had followed Pennsylvania Station into history, and was replaced by an office tower, no such train hall solution could be possible, further stifling the station’s need for expansion.

Though most commuters may not necessarily need hotel rooms to stay in, mixed-use public facilities are in progress in the area. The mall to be incorporated into the Moynihan Train Hall demonstrates that Vornado Realty Trust recognizes the need for more public retail and commercial space around Penn Station. The mall alone will add over 200,000 square feet of commercial stores, restaurants, and shops to the District. Commercial and retail space is also planned for Vornado Realty Trust’s office towers, PENN 1 and PENN 2. The intended result is for an attractive city neighborhood for the general public as an extension of the kind of amenities offered at Hudson Yards and Manhattan West occupying the blocks west of the Penn District.

Hotel Pennsylvania’s economical rates and central location among attractions in the city ensure that its rooms remain in demand with a high rate of occupancy through the year. But the hotel is currently lacking in public attractions and amenities. The Penn District as a frequented commercial district and improved transportation hub will boost the desirability of the hotel’s public rooms for use as restaurants and shops. Two of the three phases of Hotel Pennsylvania’s latest renovation have been completed. Despite the hotel’s manager claiming that phase three will involve the lobby and other public spaces, Vornado Realty Trust has not yet provided any details regarding what kind of projects will be carried out in the final phase.

A feasible solution for Hotel Pennsylvania’s part in the prospective use of the Penn District lies in the services the hotel originally offered. Rehabilitating the public rooms for their original use or for similar uses will make the building a more efficient, profitable, unique, relevant, and beloved landmark within the District. A mix of attractive public amenities intermingled with comfortable guest-only facilities will sanctify Hotel Pennsylvania by contributing more to the

Penn District, through the act of returning it to a semblance of its original state.

Retaining a historic resource in urban districts broadens their overall potency of interest with the public. A successful city district is achieved in part through diversity in building age, and building use. Historic sites provide a fascinating narrative for the evolution of a neighborhood.

Heritage tourists contribute profoundly to a district with tangible documentation of its historic fabric that gives insight on that district’s past use, and association with significant historic events. A building which is both historic while offering modern conveniences will generate a diversity in the type of services being offered. Compared to the high overhead fees of occupying a new building, historic buildings allow a variety of businesses to rent and operate within them, thus increasing the amount of people who are eligible to spend time and shop there. By preserving Hotel Pennsylvania, Vornado Realty Trust will be doing a valuable service to the

Penn District by cultivating a blend of cutting-edge modern taste and rare historic and cultural iconicism. Bibliography

Chapter I

● Horsley, Carter B. 2010. “The Hotel Pennsylvania: Where are the Preservationists?”. Posted September 03, 2010. https://www.thecityreview.com/hotelpenn.html.

● Little, Corris. 2019. “NYC’s Hotel Pennsylvania Emerges from the Past Into a New Era”. Posted June 10, 2019. https://www.hotelbusiness.com/nycs-hotel-pennsylvania-emerges-from-the-past-into-a-ne w-era/. ICD Publications, Inc. ​

● Levy, Alon. 2018. “Why a New Train Hall Won’t Fix Penn Station”. January 4, 2018. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-a-new-train-hall-wont-fix-penn-stat ion/549563/. The Atlantic Monthly Group. ​

● Renne, John I., Listokin, David. 2019. “The Opportunities and Tensions of Historic Preservation and Transit Oriented Development”. Cities International Journal of Urban ​ Policy and Planning 90 (March): 249-262. ​

● Laurie, John. 2008. “Historic Preservation and Cluster Based Economic Development”. Economic Development Journal 7, no.1 (Winter): 38-46. ​

Chapter II

● 2019. “Governor Cuomo Unveils Final Design For New Main Entrance To Penn Station”. Governor’s Press Office. Posted May 16, 2019. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-unveils-final-design-new-main-entr ance-penn-station..

● Jacobs, Jane. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random ​ ​ House, Inc.

● Diehl, Lorraine B. 1985. The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station. New York: Four Walls ​ ​ Eight Windows.

● 1903. “Post Office Sites Selected By Commission; Offers of the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroad Companies--$2,000,000 Needed”. The New York Times, February ​ ​ 25, 1903. https://www.nytimes.com/1903/02/25/archives/post-office-sites-selected-by-commission- offers-of-the-pennsylvania.html.

● 1919. “The World’s Newest And Largest Hotels: The Hotel Pennsylvania and the Hotel Commodore”. The Architectural Review 8, no. 3 (March): 55-75. ​ ​

● Turkel, Stanley. 2014. “Hotel History: Ellsworth Milton Statler”. Posted November 19, 2014. https://www.hotelnewsresource.com/article80868.html.

● Kennedy, Shawn G. 1983. “Real Estate; New Phase Beginning For Statler”. The New ​ York Times, August 17, 1983. ​ http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~statler/genealogy/statler/docs/statlerhotels/statlernyt.html. ​

● Sigman, Michael. 2011. “A Hotel, A Phone Number, and a Song”. Posted June 17, 2011. https://www.laprogressive.com/pennsylvania-6-5000/.

● 1948. “Hotel Group Buys The Pennsylvania; Statler Organization, Which Operates 2,200-Room Unit, Takes Over From Railroad”. The New York Times, July 01, 1948. ​ ​ http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~statler/genealogy/statler/docs/statlerhotels/statlernyt.html.

● 1978. “Hilton Hotels Corporation: Annual Report, 1978”. https://ir.hilton.com/~/media/Files/H/Hilton-Worldwide-IR-V3/annual-report/1978-Annu al-Report.pdf.

● Oser, Alan S. 1995. “Perspectives; Its Name Restored, a Hotel Rides the Tourism Wave”. The New York Times, December 03, 1995. ​ http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~statler/genealogy/statler/docs/statlerhotels/nytimes/NYT_ 1995DEC03_ItsNameRestored.doc.

● 1998. “Vornado Realty Trust History”. International Directory of Company Histories 20. ​ ​ www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/vornado-realty-trust-history/. St. James Press.

● Cuozzo, Steve. 2019. “Gloomy Hotel Pennsylvania isn’t getting replaced anytime soon”. New York Post. November 11, 2019. ​ https://nypost.com/2019/11/11/gloomy-hotel-pennsylvania-isnt-getting-replaced-any-time-soon/. ​

● Gottfried, Richard N. 2009. “Hotel Pennsylvania/15 Penn Plaza: Testimony before New York City Department of City Planning Scoping”. Posted January 27, 2009. https://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=075&sh=story&story=29966.

● 2007. “Hotel Penn Threatened With Demolition-HOPE Conferences In Jeopardy”. Posted January 17, 2007. http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/4947.

● 2014. “Hotel Pennsylvania designation: October 2, 2007”. November Resolutions. Posted June 27, 2014. http://www.cb5.org/cb5/resolutions/o_min_23/.

● Schott, Chris. 2008. “Landmarks Commission Snubs Hotel Pennsylvania Again”. Posted February 22, 2008. http://www.observer.com/2008/landmarks-commissions-snubs-hotel-pennsylvania-again.

Chapter III

● 1998. “Vornado Realty Trust History”. International Directory of Company Histories 20. ​ ​ St. James Press. www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/vornado-realty-trust-history/.

● Diehl, Lorraine B. 1985. The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station, 142. New York: Four ​ ​ Walls Eight Windows.

● Bockmann, Rich. 2018. “City and MSG look like they're headed toward showdown over stadium relocation”. Posted September 06, 2018. https://therealdeal.com/2018/09/06/city-and-madison-square-garden-look-headed-toward- showdown-over-stadium-relocation/.

● Wong, Natalie. 2020. “Penn Station Stinks, but the Neighborhood is Looking Up”. Posted February 07, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-07/penn-station-stinks-but-the-neigh borhood-is-looking-up.

● n.d. “PENN 2”. Retail: Vornado Realty Trust. https://www.vno.com/street-retail/property/penn-2/3311676/landing.

● n.d. “PENN 1”. Retail: Vornado Realty Trust. https://www.vno.com/street-retail/property/penn-1/3311659/landing.

● Bockmann, Rich. 2019. “Vornado wants to clean up ‘crack alley’ around One Penn Plaza”. Posted February 12, 2019. https://therealdeal.com/2019/02/12/vornado-wants-to-clean-up-crack-alley-around-one-p enn-plaza/.

● Gannon, Devin. 2017. “Vornado pitches new Moynihan Train Hall for Amazon’s second headquarters”. Posted October 31, 2017. https://www.6sqft.com/vornado-pitches-new-moynihan-train-hall-for-amazons-second-he adquarters/.

● 2019. “Governor Cuomo Unveils Final Design For New Main Entrance To Penn Station”. Governor’s Press Office. Posted May 16, 2019. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-unveils-final-design-new-main-entr ance-penn-station.

● Yasuda, Gene. 1997. “Hotel Is New Venture For Planet Hollywood”. Posted September 26, 1997. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1997-09-26-9709251101-story.html.

● Colfort, Paul D. 2007. “Office tower dooms Hotel Pennsylvania”. Posted January 05, 2007. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/485953p-408941c.html.

● n.d. Proposed design for renovated Hotel Pennsylvania. atelierandcompany.com/hotel-pennsylvania.

● Fidak, Nikolai. 2019. “Facebook’s Possible 1,400-Foot ‘Penn15’ Supertall Revealed As Vornado Appears To Change Plans For 401 Seventh Avenue, In Midtown Manhattan”. Posted June 05, 2019. https://newyorkyimby.com/2019/06/facebooks-possible-1400-foot-penn15-supertall-revealed-as- vornado-appears-to-change-plans-for-401-seventh-avenue-in-midtown-manhattan.html. ​

● n.d. “JORDAN Brand, Terminal 23, New York”. Denton-Cardew Design LLC. http://www.denton-cardewdesign.com/jordan-terminal-23.

● 1919. “The World’s Newest and Largest Hotels: The Hotel Pennsylvania and the Hotel Commodore”. The Architectural Review 8, no. 3 (March): 55-75. ​ ​

● 2010. “Recommendation on 15 Penn Plaza”. The City of New York Office of the President: Borough of Manhattan. May 19, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20110820204956/http://mbpo.org/uploads/15pennFINALpdf.pdf. ​

● Colvin, Jill. 2010. “Hotel Pennsylvania is One Giant Step Closer to Demolition”. Posted July 14, 2010. https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20100714/manhattan/hotel-pennsylvania-is-one-gian t-step-closer-demolition/.

● 2011. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Response Letters for evaluation of the Cafe Rouge dated October 22, 2010. Posted July 12, 2011. https://savethehotelpenn.blogspot.com/. ​

● 2011. “Vornado considers renovating Hotel Pennsylvania instead of erecting massive skyscraper”. Posted December 14, 2011. https://therealdeal.com/2011/12/14/vornado-realty-trust-puts-off-construction-of-15-penn -plaza-could-renovate-hotel-pennsylvania-instead/.

● 2013. “Long Live the Hotel Pennsylvania”. The Wall Street Journal, March 05, 2013. ​ ​ https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324539404578342754211087498.

● Baird-Remba, Rebecca. 2018. “Vornado Plans to Sell 666 Fifth Stake to Kushner, Maybe Build Big Penn Plaza Towers”. Posted April 06, 2018. https://commercialobserver.com/2018/04/vornado-plans-to-sell-666-fifth-stake-to-kushne r-maybe-build-big-penn-plaza-towers/.

Chapter IV

● n.d. “State Historic Preservation Office”. State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. https://parks.ny.gov/shpo/.

● n.d. “National and State Registers Criteria for Evaluation”. New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. https://parks.ny.gov/shpo/national-register/documents/NRStateRegisterCriteriaforEvaluat ion.pdf.

● n.d. “Tax Credit Programs”. New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. https://parks.ny.gov/shpo/tax-credit-programs/. ​ ​

● n.d. “Standards for Rehabilitation”. Technical Preservation Services. https://www.nps.gov/tps/standards/four-treatments/treatment-rehabilitation.htm.

● Barbanel, Josh. 2019. “New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel to Be Torn Down”, The Wall ​ Street Journal, February 07, 2019. ​ https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-grand-hyatt-hotel-to-be-torn-down-11549567095.

● 1919. “The World’s Newest and Largest Hotels: The Hotel Pennsylvania and the Hotel Commodore”. The Architectural Review 8, no. 3 (March): 70. ​ ​ ​ ​

● Rosenthall, Max J. 2016. “The Trump Files: How Donald Trump Tricked New York Into Giving Him His First Huge Deal”. Posted July 11, 2016. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/trump-files-how-donald-tricked-new-york -huge-deal/. ​

● Morrone, Francis. 2002. “Grand Hyatt”. In The Architectural Guidebook to New York ​ City, 153-4. Layton: Gibbs Smith Publishers. ​ https://books.google.com/books?id=EnM7nPb43DoC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg =PA154&dq=grand%20hyatt%20outrage&pg=PA154#v=onepage&q=grand%20hyatt%2 0outrage&f=false.

● Bagli, Charles V. 1996. “Trump Sells Hyatt Share to Pritzkers”. The New York Times, ​ October 08, 1996. https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/08/business/trump-sells-hyatt-share-to-pritzkers.html.

● Bernstein, Fred A. 2011. “Makeover at Grand Hyatt Sheds the Trump Glitter”. The New ​ York Times, January 11, 2011. ​ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/business/12hyatt.html.

● Plitt, Amy. 2019. “Midtown’s Grand Hyatt Hotel to be replaced by huge mixed-use tower”. Posted February 07, 2019. https://ny.curbed.com/2019/2/7/18215906/new-york-midtown-east-rezoning-skyscraper-g rand-hyatt.

● n.d. “History Lives at the Roosevelt Hotel”. https://www.theroosevelthotel.com/about/our-history/.

● Bagli, Charles V. 2000. “Judge Rules Against Milsteins in Roosevelt Hotel Dispute”. The ​ New York Times, June 01, 2000. ​ https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/01/nyregion/judge-rules-against-milsteins-in-roosevelt -hotel-dispute.html.

● Kennedy, Shawn G. 1983. “New Phase Beginning for Statler”. The New York Times, ​ ​ August 17, 1983. http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~statler/genealogy/statler/docs/statlerhotels/statlernyt.html. ​ ​

● Gaiter, Dorothy J. 1981. “Blaze at the Statler Hotel Called ‘Definitely Arson’”. The New ​ York Times, April 19, 1981. ​ http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~statler/genealogy/statler/docs/statlerhotels/statlernyt.html. ​ ​

● Little, Corris. 2019. “NYC’s Hotel Pennsylvania Emerges from the Past Into a New Era”. Posted June 10, 2019. https://www.hotelbusiness.com/nycs-hotel-pennsylvania-emerges-from-the-past-into-a-new-era/. ​

● Vornado Realty Trust Supplemental Operating and Financial Data for the Quarter and the Year Ended December 31, 2019. 24-26.

Aerial map (c.2018) of Vornado Realty Trust’s Penn District showing its real estate holdings in the buildings around Madison Square Garden and Penn Station. NOTE: Hotel Pennsylvania is also labeled on this map as 15 Penn Plaza. Source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4143997-vornado-realty-trust-high-quality-undervalued-new-york-city-reit.

McKim, Mead, & White: Pennsylvania Station (1910-demolished 1964) looking Southwest. This is the current location of Madison Square Garden and the office tower 2 Penn Plaza. Picture taken sometime between 1910 and 1920. NOTE: Hotel Pennsylvania has yet to be built on the recently cleared lot in the lower left hand corner. Source: https://www.peek.com/new-york/r043/tour-of-the-remnants-of-penn-station/a0k67y.

McKim, Mead, & White: James A. Farley Post Office building (b.1912), across 8th Avenue from Pennsylvania Station looking Southeast. The New Moynihan Train Hall resides in the building’s core. Picture taken after the building was enlarged in 1934. Source: https://collections.mcny.org/Collection/%5BAerial-view-of-the-James-Farley-Post-Office.%5D-2F3XC5I 6UUYY.html

McKim, Mead, & White: Hotel Pennsylvania (b.1919) across 7th Avenue from Pennsylvania Station looking Northeast. Picture taken shortly after the hotel’s completion. NOTE: The height of the adjacent buildings and distance to the next highrise making Hotel Pennsylvania one of the first tall buildings to come to Midtown, Manhattan. Source: https://www.nyhistory.org/node/62913.

1919 floor plan of the ground floor of Hotel Pennsylvania dedicated to public service and entertainment. Stores are relegated to the North side along West 33rd Street. A bar and cafe are seen in the Northwest and Southwest corners on 7th Avenue. The Palm Room is centrally located beyond the lobby. The main dining room or Cafe Rouge is the largest room, located in the Southeast corner of the building along West 32nd Street. Circulation to these rear spaces is made easier by a large corridor attached to the lobby running around the Palm Room. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hotel_Pennsylvania_main_floor_plan.jpg.

1919 plan of Hotel Pennsylvania’s first basement floor (of which there are three) beneath the ground floor. This is the lowest level containing public facilities. Here is located the hotel’s grill, called the Manhattan Grill. Also located on this level is a barber shop and lunch counter and coffee shop, both of which are directly accessible from the subway platforms as well. Source: https://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID168.htm.

1919 Ballroom floor plan: Hotel Pennsylvania consisting of the Grand Ballroom situated directly above the Cafe Rouge. This entire floor was designated as rentable space for large-scale entertaining. The ballroom was surrounded on two sides by auxiliary banquet rooms and parlors. The west half of the floor was open space intended for various kinds of events. There was a separate entrance from West 33rd Street into a “Ballroom Foyer” equipped with elevators that allowed easy access to this level. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10155089376417238&set=a.10155089376212238.

1919 Rooftop Garden floor plan: Hotel Pennsylvania. The Rooftop Garden was a restaurant, accessible to the public, that made up the 22nd floor of the hotel as a pavilion type room surrounded on three sides by a roof terrace. A bridge led from the Roof Garden on the frontmost tower to the second tower upon which was eventually built a solarium. The room is today used as a rentable event space. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10155089376527238&set=a.10155089376212238.

Overview of West Midtown c.1895. The landscape seen here is clearly industrial. It consists mainly of factories, lumberyards, warehouses, and storerooms. NOTE: The elevated tracks of Vanderbilt’s freight line. This structure is part of the Highline today. Also note the piers on the Hudson River in the background. The closeness of these piers and the passenger ocean liners that used them made this part of Manhattan an ideal location for Pennsylvania Station. Source: https://ny.curbed.com/2013/6/12/10233702/31-historic-photos-of-midtown-west-before-the-building-boom. ​ ​

Typical street scene in Hell’s Kitchen c.1905 depicting life in West Midtown at ground level before the first wave of redevelopment. Source: Diehl, Lorraine B. 1985. “The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station”. New York: Four Walls Eight ​ ​ Windows Publishers: p.70.

Main dining room, later the Cafe Rouge, Hotel Pennsylvania c.1919. This is where many famous bands broadcast their music while performing in front of a live audience. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Main_restaurant_(Hotel_Pennsylvania,_NY_circa_1919).jpg.

Glenn Miller (center) and his orchestra perform on the added bandstand against the South wall in the main dining room during its years as the Cafe Rouge. This performance was likely one of many that were recorded live via NBC. Picture taken c.1940. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n9H1VQeV-o (2:57 min.).

The main dining room and Cafe Rouge as it appears today. The room is well-preserved, retaining most of its original stylistic details. The raised platforms have been modified, four of the decorative columns have been removed, the South-facing windows have been sealed, and the whole room has been whitewashed. Today the room is used as rented event space. Source: https://www.thekagency.com/venue/station-32/.

The main dining room and Cafe Rouge during its tenure as Terminal 23 basketball court by Jordan Brand. Source: https://hypebeast.com/2014/1/a-close-up-look-at-terminal-23-by-jordan-brand.

Lobby, Hotel Pennsylvania c. 1919. The space was fitted with a surrounding mezzanine and brightened by a wrought iron and glass skylight (backlit indirectly with incandescent lighting). Source: https://www.hotelpenn.com/.

Lobby, Hotel Pennsylvania c.2019. The impression of the room is much more subdued from heavy alteration. The skylight and mezzanine have been removed and the ceiling lowered. The style has been modernized, though the basic footprint remains the same. Only the terrazzo marble floor has been preserved. NOTE: The built out wall on the left hand side to accommodate the information desk. Source: https://www.booking.com/hotel/us/pennsylvania-new-york.en-gb.html.

The Mezzanine level of the lobby in Hotel Pennsylvania no longer opens onto the ground floor. The space has been entirely stripped of all decoration. Original auxiliary rooms located on the mezzanine level have been completely removed. The floor was converted into a large rentable event space called the “Penn Plaza Pavilion”. Source: https://www.thekagency.com/venue/penn-plaza-pavilion/.

The entrance to the Penn Plaza Pavilion is through the former bar room on the ground floor off the main entrance on 7th Avenue. An escalator installed in the middle of the room leads directly into the space above the lobby. (Insert) The bar room as it originally looked in 1919. Source: https://pennpavilion.com/. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10155089377797238&set=a.10155089376212238.

The elimination of certain original rooms like the library on the lower floors is imposing multiple uses on other spaces. Per example, the elevator lobbies are now being converted into workspaces and guest lounges. High-traffic in this area makes it unideal for such adaptive reuse. Source: https://jimbyerstravel.com/2019/06/15/new-york-citys-penn-hotel-a-manhattan-classic-gets-a-modern-rem ake/. ​

Library/reading and writing room on the mezzanine level of Hotel Pennsylvania c.1919. This room was eliminated for the Penn Plaza Pavilion. Reconstruction of areas like these will ease the pressure on surviving areas to cater to additional uses for which they were not intended. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10150247260677238&set=a.450660207237.

Rooftop Garden: Hotel Pennsylvania was a popular restaurant in its heyday and was decorated in an almost exotic Moorish and Beaux-Arts hybrid motif. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10153216052277238&set=a.167895597237.

The Rooftop Garden as it looks today, is divided into three rentable ballrooms which can also be conjoined for large affairs. The room’s original decor has been removed and the present scheme of the room is simplified. Again, the general footprint of the room is retained. Source: https://www.bizbash.com/venue-directory/conference-centers-convention-centers-auditoriums/conference -meeting-spaces/venue/13388666/hotel-pennsylvania.

Grand Ballroom: Hotel Pennsylvania as it appeared c.1919. The room was renovated and modernized sometime before the mid-1980s. The space was ultimately leased to the NEP Group and dismantled in the 1990s to become “PENN Studio”. The basic structural elements are present, but the room is otherwise changed beyond any recognition. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10150247260787238&set=a.450660207237.

The Grand Ballroom today is being used as a soundstage called “PENN Studio” and leased by the NEP broadcasting group. Shows filmed here include Maury, Sally Jessy Raphael, 2 Minute Drill, The People’s ​ Court, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, and Sherri. Before the Ballroom was converted, it was ​ featured in the 1986 film The Manhattan Project, and in 1991, episodes of UWF Fury Hour were filmed ​ ​ ​ ​ here. If the other large spaces are rehabilitated as shops and restaurants, the ballroom can be reverted to its authentic role as the hotel’s primary rentable entertainment venue. Source: Steven Lepore.