The destruction of Penn Station : photographs by Peter Moore / edited and with an introd. by Barbara Moore ; essay by Eric P. Nash ; chronology and captions by Lorraine B. Diehl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moore, Peter, 1932-1993.

Contributor:

Moore, Barbara, 1948-

Nash, Eric Peter.

Diehl, Lorraine B., 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pennsylvania Station (New York, N.Y.)--Pictorial works.

Pennsylvania Station (New York, N.Y.).

Railroad stations--New York (State)--New York--Pictorial works.

Railroad stations.

New York (State)--New York.

Genre:

Pictorial works.

Illustrated works.

Physical Description:

127 pages : chiefly illustrations ; 29 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : D.A.P., 2000.

Summary:

To the casual observer in 1964 Peter Moore might have looked like just one more New Yorker moving through Penn Station on his way to or from some destination. Above his head -- and above the heads of the 200,000 commuters who transversed the station each day -- cranes were beginning to take down what had been one of the grandest public buildings of the 20th century. But a closer observer would have noted that Moore was carefully photographing both the building and the process of its destruction, visiting the Station again and again between 1962 and 1966 to document its architectural form as well as the drama of its "unbuilding." The resulting photographs combine compositionally elegant images of architectural form and details with haunting pictures of glass and masonry stripped away from steel girders as the building is progressively demolished. Opened to the public in 1910, McKim, Mead & White's Pennsylvania Station featured a dramatic vaulted glass ceiling over its expansive main concourse and was inspired in part by the Roman Baths of Caracalia, giving visitor and commuter alike an experience of grandeur in entering and leaving the city. The decision in 1962 to replace the old station and its subsequent demolition ultimately proved to be key moments in the birth of the historical preservation movement. In 1998, plans began to turn the neighboring General Post Office -- also designed by McKim, Mead & White -- into a new station reminiscent of the previous grandeur of the original Pennsylvania Station.

Notes:

Photographs were taken in the 1960s.

ISBN:

1891024051

OCLC:

46604197