Why New York Destroyed 3 Iconic Landmarks _ Architectural Digest
### The Demise of Iconic New York City Buildings: A Tribute to Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, and the New York Herald Building
#### Introduction
New York City has a rich architectural history, but unfortunately, many of its most iconic structures have been lost over time. Among these are three remarkable buildings that were torn down, leaving behind stories of engineering prowess, artistic vision, and the consequences of progress: the original Penn Station, the second Madison Square Garden, and the New York Herald Building. These structures were not only architectural marvels but also testaments to a bygone era when grandeur and innovation were at the forefront of design.
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#### **The Original Penn Station (1910–1963)**
Penn Station, designed by the renowned firm McKim, Mead & White, was an exemplar of Beaux-Arts architecture. Its main facade on 7th Avenue featured pedimented entrances for cars and a central pedestrian entrance flanked by six Doric columns supporting a flattened tablature with a Medallion at its peak. The design drew inspiration from classical Greek and Roman architecture, as well as Bernini's Piazza Navona in Rome, showcasing the firm’s commitment to historical precedence.
The station was completed in 1910 and was not just a triumph of architecture but also engineering. It housed tunnels under the Hudson River, which were unprecedented at the time. The grand waiting room, inspired by the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, featured a coffered ceiling made of travertine quarried from Tivoli, Italy—the same stone used to build the Colosseum. This space was one of the greatest architectural achievements in New York City and the world.
However, Penn Station’s glory was short-lived. The decline of railroads left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company on the brink of bankruptcy, leading them to sell the building to a developer, who demolished it in 1963. Its demolition marked the beginning of the landmarks preservation movement, which later saved Grand Central Station from a similar fate.
Today, where Penn Station once stood is now the modern-day Madison Square Garden, but the loss of this architectural gem remains a poignant reminder of what was sacrificed for progress.
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#### **The Second Madison Square Garden (1890–1926)**
Designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, the second Madison Square Garden was another masterpiece of Beaux-Arts architecture. Built in 1890, this Renaissance Revival building was constructed from buff brick and featured an arcade for sheltering pedestrians from the weather. Its loggia, or open gallery, with arches and a balustrade, was inspired by Spanish architecture, reflecting White’s love for the style.
The Garden hosted a variety of events, including presidential conventions, circus acts, boxing matches, and even a velodrome for bicycle racing. One of its most notable features was a sliding skylight in the main arena, an innovative amenity for the 1890s. The building also boasted a tower inspired by the Giralda Tower at Seville Cathedral, complete with a statue of the huntress Diana on top.
Tragically, financial difficulties led to its demolition in 1926. Its remnants are still visible today in the New York Life Insurance Building and Herald Square. Stanford White, who lived and died in this building, was murdered on its roof in 1906 by the husband of a woman he was having an affair with.
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#### **The New York Herald Building (1897–1930)**
Designed by Stanford White for James Gordon Bennett Jr., the New York Herald Building was another testament to his architectural genius. The building, constructed in 1897, featured a recessed entrance under an arcade and dual arched windows above it. Its hip roof with a flat zone in the middle reflected the trapezoidal shape of its site. The facade was adorned with terracotta ornamentation and statues, including Minerva and bell ringers.
The Herald Building was inspired by the Loggia del Concilio in Verona, Italy, which itself was based on Brunelleschi’s Foundling Hospital in Florence. White added a Plaza out front, known as Herald Square, and placed owls on the roofline to symbolize wisdom—a nod to Bennett’s request for designs that reflected his newspaper’s mission.
Despite its grandeur, the building was demolished by 1930 and replaced by an ordinary office building. Some remnants, like the statue of Minerva and a few of the owls, remain in Herald Square today.
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#### **The Legacy of Demolished Icons**
These three buildings—Penn Station, the second Madison Square Garden, and the New York Herald Building—were not just architectural achievements but also reflections of a time when progress often meant destruction. The demolition of these landmarks highlights the tension between modernization and preservation in urban development.
Penn Station’s loss, in particular, catalyzed the landmarks preservation movement, leading to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. This body has since saved many other historic structures, including Grand Central Station, which stands as a testament to the importance of preserving our architectural heritage.
As Michael Weitzner, the architect featured in the video, notes: “Ultimately, we are judged not by the monuments we create but by those we have destroyed.” The story of these lost buildings serves as a reminder to value and protect the architectural treasures that define our cities.
Let me know what other iconic demolished buildings you’d like to explore!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi I'm Michael weitzner and I've been an architect in New York City for over 35 years and today we're going to look at three outstanding New York buildings that were torn down and see what replaced them let's start with the iconic original Penn Station so right away I noticed the main facade along 7th Avenue these pedimented entrances North and South which allow cars to enter in and the central entrance for pedestrians which is six Dora columns supporting a flattened tablature with this Medallion on top in fact all the columns at Doric which is the simplest of the Greek orders and the column spacing is based on bernini's Piazza in Rome so it's built in the Bozart style which refers to the occulta Bozart in Paris which was the most famous and most influential School of Architecture at the time and what Bozart style generally means is that it just refers to Historic precedence mainly classical style Greek and Roman and along those lines you can see that this great waiting room that pops up above the rest of the building is actually based on the baths of caracala from ancient Rome the building was completed in 1910 by the great architectural firm of McKim meat and white McKim meat and white were sort of The go-to Architects of the Gilded age they designed many outstanding buildings some of which still exist including the Washington Square Arch the library at Columbia University and the library at NYU in the Bronx which is now Bronx Community College Penn Station was not only a great architectural Triumph but it was also an amazing engineering Triumph because they had to build tunnels under the Hudson River before Penn Station was built there were no tunnels under the Hudson River yet you had to stop in Jersey City and then take a ferry across the Hudson River to get into Manhattan but with the building of Pennsylvania station now you're entering into this unbelievably ornate and soaring space let's take a look at the Interiors so here we're looking at two different parts of the station on the left we're looking at the waiting room and on the right we're looking at the train Shed from which people descended down to the platforms so what jumps out at me right away is the vaulted coffered ceiling in the waiting room and the similar forms in steel on the right hand side at the train shed this one done in steel this one done in stone and instead of the coffers which you see here in the stone here it's these small panes of glass to let light in for the skylights but you could see the same groin vaults being formed in both spaces and then if we look directly into the waiting room you see this huge entrances that come in and out from 7th and 8th Avenues and you can also see the stairs that lead to 33rd and 31st Street at the ends with these huge Clara story windows that let the light pour in this coffered ceiling all built out of travertine quarried in Tivoli outside of Rome which is also by the way the same Stone they used to build the Coliseum in Rome thousands of years before but the other thing that stands out is the incredible scale of this room I mean just look at the size of a pedestrian here it's a great soaring space and one of the greatest spaces not only in New York but probably in the world when it was built so as one ascended from the train up into the station your first point was this amazing skylit train shed which was very reminiscent and influenced by the great train sheds of Europe however the shapes are still still reminiscent of what we see in the stone encased Central waiting room and so what's really interesting about all this steel is that this was the most advanced technical building that was done in this era of 1910 when it was completed all the columns and all the beams and all the Arches that you see are all built up out of these much smaller pieces that all get riveted together and they form this beautiful Lacy framework and what's significant about this is that these two pieces of the building are actually more similar than what you can see because in fact this beautiful stone room is actually a forgery the stone is not holding up the room it's actually being held up by Steel in fact the same steel that holds up this great train shed at the rear along 8th Avenue and what's also remarkable about this building is it was not built by the government it was not built by the city it was not built by the state it was built by a private company they own the land they own the building which is significant in in terms of its demise so unfortunately this building only lived for 50 years the decline of the railroads left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company on the brink of bankruptcy and to survive they actually had to sell the building to a developer and thus the building was knocked down and it's really tragic because this fantastic building had fallen on hard times and the maintenance of it had declined but nonetheless it was still one of the greatest buildings in New York City and it's unfortunate that this had to be the sacrificial lamb but because this building was demolished the landmarks movement began and the landmark's preservation commission was created and today this building would never have been permitted to be knocked down and in fact that's what saved Grand Central Station just a few blocks north there were organized movements to save this example of what Architects call Great American design the underground tracks will remain but the station with its famous clock will be replaced by a modern sports Palace the end of a landmark so this building was demolished in 1963. what stands where this train said and this waiting room used to stand is the modern day Madison Square Garden which is actually the fourth version of Madison Square Garden but let's take a look at the most iconic Madison Square Garden which is actually the second iteration at its original site so the first version of Madison Square Garden was actually built in the 1870s the version we're going to look at now was actually built in the 1890s also by McKim meat and white but this was built by Charles mckim's partner Stanford white who not only designed it but he also lived there and died there and we'll talk about that later so in this image on the right we're looking at the building from Madison Square looking to the Northeast this image on the left it's actually Park Avenue right in front and Madison Avenue is in the distance along 26th Street so here's everything that jumps out at me it's a Renaissance Revival building it's built out of this buff brick that Stanford white was very fond of and you could see this beautiful arcade that he included so people could stand out from under or the weather when buying their tickets and then you could see this logia which is another version of an arcade but where the arcade at the bottom has these beautiful Renaissance arches at the top it's just columns supporting a flattened tablature and then there's a balustrade above it and then he has these turrets these domed pieces at the corner and mid block he has them as well flanking the main entrance if you look at the image on the left you can see he also included a lot of terracotta ornament that he outlines the blind windows on the corner turrets with so this image on the left gives you a really good idea of the scale because the building runs from Park Avenue which you could see in front with the trolley tracks all the way to Madison Avenue which is in the distance so it's a really big building that encompasses an entire New York City Block so the main Arena hosted a variety of events including presidential convention circus acts boxing as well as a velodrome for bicycle racing and what was notable about the main Arena as well is that it actually had a sliding Skylight which was really an amazing sort of amenity for the 1890s one of the most Salient features of this Madison Square Garden was this great tower which is actually based on the Heraldo Campanile at the Cathedral in Seville in Spain in fact the whole building is based on Stanford White's love for Spanish architecture and he wanted this Tower as a sort of signpost for the building so that people would see it along the skyline and he also wanted to compete with Joseph Pulitzer and his New York World newspaper building which was down at Park Row for the tallest building in New York City and to do that he included a statue of the huntress Diana and what I love about that is he based this on a tower that is at a cathedral in Spain so where the cathedral is a tribute to God and religion he puts a nude statue on top of his Tower as a symbol of pleasure and entertainment the investors did not want him to build this Tower and he really had to fight to get it built and after they built it they didn't know what to do with it so to make money they actually rented it out as apartments and Stanford white rented one of those apartments and he stayed there when his family was away and Stanford white not only lived here but he was actually murdered here and on the roof which you could see contained behind this arcade was where the actual Garden was which was an outdoor sort of restaurant and Cafe that also had shows and that's where he was killed by the husband of the woman he was having an affair with in 1906. this Madison Square Garden also had trouble making ends meet and eventually was torn down in the 1920s and was replaced by the New York Life Insurance building which is still there to this day so let's take a look at another building that also wanted to compete with Joseph Pulitzer and his New York World building also designed by Stanford white and that's the New York Herald building so right away I noticed a few things let's just put the building in context you could see the elevated train line along 6th Avenue here on the right which is the east side of the building you can see Broadway here on the left with the trolley cars so on the main entrance facade he creates this recessed entrance under the arcade which is actually somewhat semi-circular in plan and then above it there's this dual arched window and above that are the Bell ringers which are actually printing press workers and the statue of Minerva the other thing that jumps out at me is all this wonderful terracotta decoration that sits between the windows and the other thing the building has is this hip roof with a flat zone in the middle because the site is actually trapezoidal and the arcade itself sits on this little platform which is called a Styler Bay which was used in many Greek temples and the other thing that white did was he included this Plaza out front which still exists known as Herald Square so the New York Herald was started by James Gordon Bennett and then was inherited by his son James Gordon Bennett Jr and James Gordon Bennett Jr saw the future of New York was moving northward before this all the newspapers were at what's called Park row and all their buildings were there just next to City Hall Downtown so he decided to move northward to the intersection of Broadway and 6th Avenue where they crossed 36th Street on this wedge-shaped site of what is now the eponymous Herald Square James Gordon Bennett Jr knew Stanford white from Newport where all the rich people hung out at the turn of the century in Rhode Island and in fact White had designed the Interiors for his yacht and Bennett liked those designs and so he asked him to design his new headquarters for his newspaper and this building is actually not only inspired by by pretty much a direct replica of the logia Del concilio in Verona so the logia Del concilio is a Venetian Renaissance Palazzo which was built in 1476 and that in fact is based on the foundling hospital by Brunelleschi which was built in the 1420s in Florence so at the logia Del concilio where the architect there put statues along the edges above each pilaster Stanford white put owls which Bennett had asked him to do because he felt those sort of symbolize the wisdom of his newspaper and those owls actually he placed electric green light bulbs in so that night the eyes glowed so the building was completely demolished by 1930 but some of its remnants you can still see today in Herald Square including the statue of Minerva the Bell ringers and some of the owls so unlike the previous buildings we looked at which were replaced by somewhat iconic buildings this one was replaced by a very ordinary pedestrian office building which at its base currently leases to a bank and a drugstore so we've just looked at three great McKim meat and white buildings that no longer exist and that was sort of the mindset in New York City at the turn of the century that progress was King and that things were torn down and new things were rebuilt in their place but if New York had been more historically minded especially in the 1960s when Penn Station was brought down some of these buildings might still be there and as the New York Times stated after the demise of Penn Station ultimately we are judged not by The Monuments we create but by those we have destroyed let me know what other iconic demolished buildings you'd like to see discussed in the comments below foreignhi I'm Michael weitzner and I've been an architect in New York City for over 35 years and today we're going to look at three outstanding New York buildings that were torn down and see what replaced them let's start with the iconic original Penn Station so right away I noticed the main facade along 7th Avenue these pedimented entrances North and South which allow cars to enter in and the central entrance for pedestrians which is six Dora columns supporting a flattened tablature with this Medallion on top in fact all the columns at Doric which is the simplest of the Greek orders and the column spacing is based on bernini's Piazza in Rome so it's built in the Bozart style which refers to the occulta Bozart in Paris which was the most famous and most influential School of Architecture at the time and what Bozart style generally means is that it just refers to Historic precedence mainly classical style Greek and Roman and along those lines you can see that this great waiting room that pops up above the rest of the building is actually based on the baths of caracala from ancient Rome the building was completed in 1910 by the great architectural firm of McKim meat and white McKim meat and white were sort of The go-to Architects of the Gilded age they designed many outstanding buildings some of which still exist including the Washington Square Arch the library at Columbia University and the library at NYU in the Bronx which is now Bronx Community College Penn Station was not only a great architectural Triumph but it was also an amazing engineering Triumph because they had to build tunnels under the Hudson River before Penn Station was built there were no tunnels under the Hudson River yet you had to stop in Jersey City and then take a ferry across the Hudson River to get into Manhattan but with the building of Pennsylvania station now you're entering into this unbelievably ornate and soaring space let's take a look at the Interiors so here we're looking at two different parts of the station on the left we're looking at the waiting room and on the right we're looking at the train Shed from which people descended down to the platforms so what jumps out at me right away is the vaulted coffered ceiling in the waiting room and the similar forms in steel on the right hand side at the train shed this one done in steel this one done in stone and instead of the coffers which you see here in the stone here it's these small panes of glass to let light in for the skylights but you could see the same groin vaults being formed in both spaces and then if we look directly into the waiting room you see this huge entrances that come in and out from 7th and 8th Avenues and you can also see the stairs that lead to 33rd and 31st Street at the ends with these huge Clara story windows that let the light pour in this coffered ceiling all built out of travertine quarried in Tivoli outside of Rome which is also by the way the same Stone they used to build the Coliseum in Rome thousands of years before but the other thing that stands out is the incredible scale of this room I mean just look at the size of a pedestrian here it's a great soaring space and one of the greatest spaces not only in New York but probably in the world when it was built so as one ascended from the train up into the station your first point was this amazing skylit train shed which was very reminiscent and influenced by the great train sheds of Europe however the shapes are still still reminiscent of what we see in the stone encased Central waiting room and so what's really interesting about all this steel is that this was the most advanced technical building that was done in this era of 1910 when it was completed all the columns and all the beams and all the Arches that you see are all built up out of these much smaller pieces that all get riveted together and they form this beautiful Lacy framework and what's significant about this is that these two pieces of the building are actually more similar than what you can see because in fact this beautiful stone room is actually a forgery the stone is not holding up the room it's actually being held up by Steel in fact the same steel that holds up this great train shed at the rear along 8th Avenue and what's also remarkable about this building is it was not built by the government it was not built by the city it was not built by the state it was built by a private company they own the land they own the building which is significant in in terms of its demise so unfortunately this building only lived for 50 years the decline of the railroads left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company on the brink of bankruptcy and to survive they actually had to sell the building to a developer and thus the building was knocked down and it's really tragic because this fantastic building had fallen on hard times and the maintenance of it had declined but nonetheless it was still one of the greatest buildings in New York City and it's unfortunate that this had to be the sacrificial lamb but because this building was demolished the landmarks movement began and the landmark's preservation commission was created and today this building would never have been permitted to be knocked down and in fact that's what saved Grand Central Station just a few blocks north there were organized movements to save this example of what Architects call Great American design the underground tracks will remain but the station with its famous clock will be replaced by a modern sports Palace the end of a landmark so this building was demolished in 1963. what stands where this train said and this waiting room used to stand is the modern day Madison Square Garden which is actually the fourth version of Madison Square Garden but let's take a look at the most iconic Madison Square Garden which is actually the second iteration at its original site so the first version of Madison Square Garden was actually built in the 1870s the version we're going to look at now was actually built in the 1890s also by McKim meat and white but this was built by Charles mckim's partner Stanford white who not only designed it but he also lived there and died there and we'll talk about that later so in this image on the right we're looking at the building from Madison Square looking to the Northeast this image on the left it's actually Park Avenue right in front and Madison Avenue is in the distance along 26th Street so here's everything that jumps out at me it's a Renaissance Revival building it's built out of this buff brick that Stanford white was very fond of and you could see this beautiful arcade that he included so people could stand out from under or the weather when buying their tickets and then you could see this logia which is another version of an arcade but where the arcade at the bottom has these beautiful Renaissance arches at the top it's just columns supporting a flattened tablature and then there's a balustrade above it and then he has these turrets these domed pieces at the corner and mid block he has them as well flanking the main entrance if you look at the image on the left you can see he also included a lot of terracotta ornament that he outlines the blind windows on the corner turrets with so this image on the left gives you a really good idea of the scale because the building runs from Park Avenue which you could see in front with the trolley tracks all the way to Madison Avenue which is in the distance so it's a really big building that encompasses an entire New York City Block so the main Arena hosted a variety of events including presidential convention circus acts boxing as well as a velodrome for bicycle racing and what was notable about the main Arena as well is that it actually had a sliding Skylight which was really an amazing sort of amenity for the 1890s one of the most Salient features of this Madison Square Garden was this great tower which is actually based on the Heraldo Campanile at the Cathedral in Seville in Spain in fact the whole building is based on Stanford White's love for Spanish architecture and he wanted this Tower as a sort of signpost for the building so that people would see it along the skyline and he also wanted to compete with Joseph Pulitzer and his New York World newspaper building which was down at Park Row for the tallest building in New York City and to do that he included a statue of the huntress Diana and what I love about that is he based this on a tower that is at a cathedral in Spain so where the cathedral is a tribute to God and religion he puts a nude statue on top of his Tower as a symbol of pleasure and entertainment the investors did not want him to build this Tower and he really had to fight to get it built and after they built it they didn't know what to do with it so to make money they actually rented it out as apartments and Stanford white rented one of those apartments and he stayed there when his family was away and Stanford white not only lived here but he was actually murdered here and on the roof which you could see contained behind this arcade was where the actual Garden was which was an outdoor sort of restaurant and Cafe that also had shows and that's where he was killed by the husband of the woman he was having an affair with in 1906. this Madison Square Garden also had trouble making ends meet and eventually was torn down in the 1920s and was replaced by the New York Life Insurance building which is still there to this day so let's take a look at another building that also wanted to compete with Joseph Pulitzer and his New York World building also designed by Stanford white and that's the New York Herald building so right away I noticed a few things let's just put the building in context you could see the elevated train line along 6th Avenue here on the right which is the east side of the building you can see Broadway here on the left with the trolley cars so on the main entrance facade he creates this recessed entrance under the arcade which is actually somewhat semi-circular in plan and then above it there's this dual arched window and above that are the Bell ringers which are actually printing press workers and the statue of Minerva the other thing that jumps out at me is all this wonderful terracotta decoration that sits between the windows and the other thing the building has is this hip roof with a flat zone in the middle because the site is actually trapezoidal and the arcade itself sits on this little platform which is called a Styler Bay which was used in many Greek temples and the other thing that white did was he included this Plaza out front which still exists known as Herald Square so the New York Herald was started by James Gordon Bennett and then was inherited by his son James Gordon Bennett Jr and James Gordon Bennett Jr saw the future of New York was moving northward before this all the newspapers were at what's called Park row and all their buildings were there just next to City Hall Downtown so he decided to move northward to the intersection of Broadway and 6th Avenue where they crossed 36th Street on this wedge-shaped site of what is now the eponymous Herald Square James Gordon Bennett Jr knew Stanford white from Newport where all the rich people hung out at the turn of the century in Rhode Island and in fact White had designed the Interiors for his yacht and Bennett liked those designs and so he asked him to design his new headquarters for his newspaper and this building is actually not only inspired by by pretty much a direct replica of the logia Del concilio in Verona so the logia Del concilio is a Venetian Renaissance Palazzo which was built in 1476 and that in fact is based on the foundling hospital by Brunelleschi which was built in the 1420s in Florence so at the logia Del concilio where the architect there put statues along the edges above each pilaster Stanford white put owls which Bennett had asked him to do because he felt those sort of symbolize the wisdom of his newspaper and those owls actually he placed electric green light bulbs in so that night the eyes glowed so the building was completely demolished by 1930 but some of its remnants you can still see today in Herald Square including the statue of Minerva the Bell ringers and some of the owls so unlike the previous buildings we looked at which were replaced by somewhat iconic buildings this one was replaced by a very ordinary pedestrian office building which at its base currently leases to a bank and a drugstore so we've just looked at three great McKim meat and white buildings that no longer exist and that was sort of the mindset in New York City at the turn of the century that progress was King and that things were torn down and new things were rebuilt in their place but if New York had been more historically minded especially in the 1960s when Penn Station was brought down some of these buildings might still be there and as the New York Times stated after the demise of Penn Station ultimately we are judged not by The Monuments we create but by those we have destroyed let me know what other iconic demolished buildings you'd like to see discussed in the comments below foreign\n"