“Congestion and aesthetic blandness define Penn Station.” Amen to the fine soul (of Michael Kimmelman) who wrote this piece proposing a new Penn Station which every New Yorker has scattered amongst the chaos, dirtiness and clutter.  He asks,

What is the value of architecture? It can be measured, culturally, humanely and historically, in the gulf between these two places.

Then proposes:

But the only way to fix Penn properly is to move Madison Square Garden.

This map (see below) allows you to reconsider the West Side:

Move Madison Square Garden to the current site of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo imagines moving to Queens, and create a new light-filled Penn Station.

Even more of a pity when you realize the original jewel, the glory of the original Pennsylvania Station, demolished 1963 (see below).

Mr. Horton found solace in the blackness of the tunnels. He made the subway the subject of his canvases, the muse for a graphic novel that he co-wrote, and the place he called home for the better part of his adult life, even when he had other places to stay.

(more excerpts from Pitch Black here)

When I was in high school I wanted to be an actress. I had no talent, was only moderately cute, and my voice went up about ten octaves when I acted. Nevertheless, I was somehow given the chance to star in a production of Crimes of the Heart. One of the girls from the play died a few years ago, and I believe the last remaining VHS copy of the tape of that performance died with her, thankfully. I eventually gave up my dreams of stardom for the less glamorous world of backstage, and fell in love with the idea of becoming a Director. I liked the idea of being the only female in a male driven world, and I was happy to hand the job of starlet over to the likes of Michelle Pukey, who had an angelic face and the personality of a soggy magazine. It has been a few decades since high school, and next week I will finally be given my shot at the spotlight as I star in an episode of reality television posing as a customer of an illicit website. Aside from the fact that my mother would disown me if she ever found out about it, I can’t see how this brief foray into playacting will harm me. It seems to actually be a natural progression of things, as I spent most of my last relationship making things up, and my younger self spent a brief time dabbling in the seedy world of sexual perversions. It feels fitting that I should wrap up my life of sin with a National television show devoted to my fabricated wonton ways. And then I shall move on, from unrequited love and life’s rotten underbelly and emerge a new person, less interesting to be sure, but wholesome and pure as I enter the next chapter of my soon-to-be boring life.

Revisit the site and read the last post here.

New York At Dusk

The New York City subway system has 842 miles of track, making it the largest in North America. And there’s even more to it than riders see: dozens of tunnels and platforms that were either abandoned or were built but never used. They form a kind of ghost system that reveals how the city’s transit ambitions have been both realized and thwarted.

WNYC complies a map of abandoned subway stations and lines ( eleven in total) that were planned but never built. (Map by Balance Media / John Keefe/WNYC)

(source: Pink Pillbox)

18 West 11th Street; the site of the Weatherman explosion. The New York Times recalls the blast:

Neither of the women had much on in the way of clothes as they ran out. One had apparently been taking a shower, and the other had been ironing. As the fire trucks pulled up, a neighbor let them in to clean up and gave them clothes. Then they left, coolly heading to the subway.

Before long, the details of the bomb-making emerged. “Shortly after that,” Mr. Lockwood recalled recently, “I started getting visits — one from the New York Fire Department and two from the F.B.I.” His friends at Princeton were nonchalant. The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents found him at his eating club. The second time they showed up, someone yelled, “Charlie, the F.B.I.’s here again.” read on