Walking through Pennsylvania Station can be disorienting. Between the people, food area, escalators, Amtrak stations and subway entrances it’s easy to get lost wandering around.
However, it wasn’t always this way. On October 28, 1963 the original Penn Station was demolished, creating space for the station we have today along with Madison Square Garden. These old images of the building will make you long for the simpler days when Penn Station looked more like the beautiful Grand Central Station than an overcrowded airport.
Here are some photos of the station only a year before it was completely destroyed:
Seventh Avenue Facade
Concourse from the south end
Concourse from southeast
Concourse from southwest
Waiting room from southwest
Waiting room from northwest
Stairway from waiting room
Story images: courtesy of Library of Congress; featured image source: Flickr/m01229/CC by 2.0