Can New York's Penn Station Ever Be Great Again?

Four architectural firms unveiled grand designs for a new Penn Station and Madison Square Garden at an event this week sponsored by the Municipal Art Society of New York. Whether any of the shiny dreams they floated has a chance of becoming reality is a wide-open question, but those in attendance seemed ready to push for a new vision of what is today a hideous and congested vortex at the heart of Manhattan – an opportunity that seems to be briefly opening as Madison Square Garden’s permit to operate comes up for renewal for the first time since it was built atop Penn Station's tracks nearly 50 years ago.

Two of the firms quoted in their presentations the architectural historian Vincent Scully, Jr., on the contrast between the experience of the grand old Penn Station and the grim facility that replaced it after it was demolished in 1963: "One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat."