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