The Pennsylvania Railroad's grand terminal in Manhattan, designed by McKim, Mead & White. Charles Follen McKim set out the plan, and William Symmes Richardson completed it after McKim withdrew in 1906. The station opened in 1910 in the Beaux-Arts style, its colonnades and vast waiting room drawing on the monuments of ancient Rome.
During World War II it was at its busiest: more than 100 million passengers passed through in 1945. But rail travel declined, and in 1954 the railroad optioned the site's air rights to a developer. Demolition of the station above the tracks began on October 28, 1963.
The loss shocked New York. In 1965 the city passed its landmarks preservation law, and the destruction of Penn Station is still cited as the event that launched the historic preservation movement in the United States.
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