In today’s Impromptus, a Paris Journal, I have a note about train stations. The Gare du Nord and the Gare de l’Est, I say, are “beautiful structures.” And this
makes me think of the train stations back home in New York. . . . Grand Central is just what it should be — glorious. But Penn Station? Quite possibly the ugliest train station in all the world. And many people’s introduction to New York — a shame.
A reader sends in a classic comment by Vincent Scully, the architectural historian, not to be confused with Vin Scully, the sports announcer. Arriving at the old Penn Station was very different from arriving at the new, Scully said. “One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.”