Rendering of the new “East End Gateway” Portal into Penn Station. | Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s Office
Construction is expected to begin next month and be completed by 2020.
This morning, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the construction of a new back-end entrance to Penn Station, which inadvertently lends itself to an unfortunate architectural pun.
The $600 million A-shaped entrance, to be located at 7th Avenue will lead to a new hole-shaped portal that will provide direct access to the LIRR Main Concourse of the unlovable subterranean train station.
So, basically, the Penn Station “A-hole.”
Such gaffs are now common in New York City architecture.
After scrapping the original Norman Foster design for the South Tower’s replacement, 2 World Trade Center, the current Bjarke Ingels design of stacked boxes looks like a unbalanced Jenga tower.
Santiago Calatrava intended the Oculus at the World Trade Center to invoke the “image of a bird released from a child’s hands.” However upon opening, the bone-white $4 billion project has instead been described by critics as resembling a “rib-cage like structure” with the bird plucked clean.
This used to be the city that built gracefully designed buildings such as Shreve Lamb & Harmon’s Empire State Building, Reed and Stem’s Grand Central and Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center.
Today we get an 88-story condominium tower inspired by a $225 trash can and Penn Station’s brand new “A-hole.”
As the coming-soon banners outside the future Penn Station Moynihan Train Hall say, welcome to the “New New York.”