Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, and Back Again
There was a time when great architectural landmarks were torn down without regard. Some
still suffer the same fate, but not without a fight. Occasionally, a demolished treasure makes its way back into the architectural fabric of its former site for nostalgic reasons, or in an attempt to rectify past mistakes. Britain's Telegraph, recently reported on one such attempt at reviving a demolition tragedy that occurred in London, the Euston Arch.
"The Euston Arch used to stand a few hundred yards to
the west of St Pancras: huge, austere, and magnificent.
It was 70 feet high by 44 feet deep. 'Between the fluted
columns, each eight and a half feet in diameter, which
formed the main carriage entrance,' wrote John Betjeman,
'might be glimpsed the green hills of Hampstead beyond.'
For over a century this was the first sight of London for
travelers from the North West. When it was new, crowds
flocked by omnibus to see this wonder of the age."
The Arch, designed by architect Philip Hardwick, was built in 1837, "as the grand entrance to
the first railway terminus ever built in a capital city." In 1961, after standing for 124 years, British Railways decided to tear down the portico as part of the rehabilitation of Euston. It was the preservation battle of the era, and although the edifice could have been dismantled and reassembled, BR decided it was too costly. Many of the stone blocks ended up being used to plug a large hole in a channel waterway. Now, there is going to be another redevelopment of Euston in 2012, and there are hopes that the Arch may be rebuilt, possibly retrieving some of the blocks still laying in the water, and reusing them in the newly reconstructed structure.
In 1964, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company decided to demolish their glorious temple of
train travel on Manhattan's 34th Street. An outstanding example of Beaux-arts architecture, the 1910 building was designed by the premiere firm of McKim, Mead and White. By the late 1950's however, the train company had decided that the old antiquated building needed replacing, and though a grand structure, it made no sense to preserve a building simply as a "monument" to the past. It used the tired old argument that it was just too costly to justify its existence. As was the case with Euston Arch, the demolition of Penn Station galvanized a nascent preservation community in New York and is credited with being the catalyst for the start of the national preservation movement in the United States. And, a new/old station is in the works.
Ironically, in 1999, then New York senator Daniel Moynihan, got Congress to approve funding
for a new Penn Station to be built in the old Farley Post Office Building which is across 8th Avenue from the old terminal. The post office was also designed by McKim and company in 1912, and its imposing colonnade was meant to mimic the train station's columned facade across the avenue. The new concept, known as Moynihan/Farley Station, has been through several design firms and revisions, but the objective has remained the same; to take the transportation hub out of the basement under Madison Square Garden and the Pennsylvania Plaza, and return it to its rightful place as a majestic transportation hub as grand as the old Pennsylvania depot.
Two train station stories, separated by a very large body of water, but closely related in their
story of 1960's narrow mindedness, and the revolutionary change in attitudes about the viability of preserving a building as a monument to the heritage of our architectural past.
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