The Grand Penn Community Alliance (GPCA) presented its proposal for renovating Penn Station at the New York Historical on Tuesday, March 11, outlining a return to the original transit hub’s pre-demolition Beaux Arts glory and a total relocation of Madison Square Garden (MSG), among other features.
Led by former New York City Chief of Urban Design Alexandros Washburn and funded by the National Civic Art Society (NCAS), a Washington, DC, nonprofit that advocates for classical architecture in federal buildings, the proposal appears to build on President Trump’s push for classical federal architecture amid Penn Station’s slow-moving expansion plans. Governor Hochul spoke with Trump about allotting federal dollars for improving the station last November after he was elected.
The board of the NCAS, formed in 2002, includes Thomas D. Klingenstein — a far-right political scientist, Trump ally, and board chair of the conservative Claremont Institute think tank who poured over $10.5 million in contributions to Republican campaigns and PACs during the 2024 election season.
The renderings released by the Grand Penn Community Alliance show a classical façade lined with Doric columns in front of Vornado Realty Trust’s PENN 2 business center at the station’s 7th Avenue entrance. GPCA’s proposal would also level the contentious Madison Square Garden’s circular modern architecture entirely to make way for a grassy public plaza that’s roughly the size of Bryant Park and accessorized by a fountain.
Despite being the most famous entertainment and sports venue in the world, MSG sparked international outrage for its role in the demolition of the original Beaux Arts-style Penn Station’s quarters in 1963. Loathed by many, the venue that opened in 1968 forced the station to rely on its underground core, prompting architecture historian Vincent Scully to comment that “One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.”
In an interview with Hyperallergic, NCAS President Justin Shubow recalled that late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called the original station’s demolition “the greatest single act of vandalism in the history of New York.”
In 2013, the Manhattan Community Board 5 voted to impose a 10-year time limit on the arena’s operating permit rather than allowing it to run in perpetuity. Multiple architecture firms proposed the relocation of the venue in bids to renovate and expand Penn Station, and in 2023, the same community board only afforded MSG a five-year operating permit, closing in on the site’s eventual relocation for the station’s benefit.
That same year, the MSG’s Executive Vice President Joel Fisher suggested that the venue would be amenable to moving across the street on 7th Avenue, where the world-famous and now-demolished Hotel Pennsylvania once stood. The plot also belongs to Vornado, which intends to develop the site, dubbed PENN15, into a skyscraping office tower when market conditions align with the plan.
Hyperallergic contacted Vornado Realty Trust and the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corporation for comment.In addition to MSG’s relocation, the Alliance’s renderings for the Commuter Hall evoke the original Penn Station concourse’s high ceilings and iron and glass entrances — complete with a replica of the original clock — that would connect to the Moynihan Train Hall within the James A. Farley Post Office through an underground tunnel. The boarding concourse would feature 18-foot high ceilings and multiple elevators and escalators as well.
Washburn, a chief architect of the Moynihan Train Hall development, estimates that the Penn Station overhaul would cost about $7.5 billion, with $3.5 billion devoted to the relocation of MSG. In the FAQ section of GPCA’s website for the project, the Alliance notes that the cost estimate is “should cost $1 billion less than the schemes proposed by New York State and Amtrak,” both of which leave MSG above the station.
“What we’re doing here is ultimately a civic move,” Washburn said in a phone call with Hyperallergic, pointing directly to the Ephebic oath for Classical Athenian youths that pledged to leave their city better than how they found it.
With regards to Penn Station’s becoming a hub for unsheltered people, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, Washburn said that public restrooms and public seating were unquestionably included in the proposal, “whereas many designers simply take out [those amenities] because they don’t want to deal with the issue.”
In response to potential apprehension toward both President Trump’s involvement as well as the controversial call back to classical architecture, both Shubow and Washburn stood by recalling the original station’s memorable appearance.
“If people object to the architecture, well, they’re welcome to do so. But if President Trump gets involved, that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to get a wonderful station,” Shubow said. “The design speaks for itself — regardless of what people might think about Trump’s politics, this is something that will make all New Yorkers proud.”
Washburn, who is half-Greek, shared that “classical architecture comes naturally” for him, and expressed that the form works as an “interaction between the natural and the classical,” citing the Corinthian column’s use of the acanthus leaf motif as one example.
In June, Trump issued a memorandum titled “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture” that called for “regional, traditional, and classical architectural” designs. The memo prompted immediate pushback from groups including the American Institute of Architects, who said the President’s preferences could stifle architectural freedom and innovation.
