From the ashes of New York’s legendary Hotel Pennsylvania comes a new, not-at-all-parody-worthy building named PENN15, appropriately shaped like…well, please enjoy these newly released renderings.
The 1,200 foot-tall, 56-story skyscraper developed by Vornado Realty Trust is set to be, er, erected after the demolition of the historic Hotel Pennsylvania is completed. The 2.7 million-square-foot tower will be the tallest in Vornado’s Penn District project, a $1.3 billion mega campus that has been met with fervent resistance from neighborhood preservationists but for now appears to be moving forward.
Featuring a mix of ground-floor 7th Avenue retail, office space, and residential units, PENN15 will possess floor-to-ceiling glass windows, 6 tenant amenity floors with ceilings as tall as 27 feet, and 37 landscaped terraces with views of the neighborhood’s original phallic tower, the Empire State Building.
PENN15’s open floor plans, large corporate auditoriums, and communal outdoor spaces are designed to attract tech and financial service companies (a match made in heaven for this level of BDE???). While once-rumored tenant Facebook has since leased elsewhere, maybe Elon Musk will move in.
In the spirit of fairness, we must acknowledge PENN15’s commitment to sustainability. Developers plan to install water-reducing rainwater collection and smart meter systems, use photovoltaic cells on the exterior to help power the building, integrate natural ventilation systems, and use low embodied carbon materials for its construction. They’re not total dicks!!
And as for the Hotel Pennsylvania? Despite petitions and protests at several planning meetings, the historic McKim, Mead, and White 2,200-room building completed in 1903 is currently in the process of being demolished. Also on the chopping block to make room for the futuristic Penn complex? Touro College’s Graduate School of Education (320 W31st St — corner of 8th Ave) and St John the Baptist Church (213 W30th St bw 7/8th Ave).
While a need for a new, improved Penn Station is widely agreed upon by city officials and residents alike, the sudden explosion of slick, multi-billion-dollar campuses is seen by neighborhood advocates as a manipulative play for developer cash rather than an improvement to Midtown’s largest transit hub.
Said a statement from representatives of Community Board 4: “It is time for a better Penn Station. New York City deserves a world class, intermodal transportation center. Our communities are eager to improve Penn Station and we want to do it right. Unfortunately, the plan introduced by the Empire State Development Corporation at the height of the pandemic has nothing to do with Penn Station or infrastructure. Rather, it is a real estate development packaged as a ‘transportation’ project.”
As the historic Beaux-Arts facade of the Hotel Pennsylvania crumbles, it’s clear that in this case, the developers have won out. And if your eyes need some time to adjust to seeing PENN15 plastered somewhere other than a middle school notebook, fear not — Vornado does not expect to complete the project until close to the end of the decade.
Another tall building blocking the view to the Empire State Building, “designed to attract tech and financial service companies.” Ugh.
Developers have decimated the West Side and especially Hell’s Kitchen. These un-rentable mega-monsters are not improvements–they’ve killed the beauty of NYC. How many old buildings with history and character will be razed to make way for this tasteless crap? I hope they lose billions, now that they’ve totally fucked up our city.
I’ve never heard of any zoning laws that protect views of the Empire State Building within the midtown area but if none exists I think we needed one ASAP. Might there be any organizations fighting for this? I don’t have a knee-jerk reaction against any/all development and I embrace change but the Empire State Building is an exception. It’s so important to our identity and culture. There’s a reason a lot of us sometimes get a little emotional and choked up when we looking up at this majestic building, fully lit, on a clear evening. And not to forget what it symbolizes in times of national celebration, trauma, support, etc. just as we saw it lit blue and yellow for the people of Ukraine this week. It’s a beacon to be cherished and protected.
Another piece of Beaux arts irreplaceable history Demolished for something that reminds me of those 3 drawer plastic storage units you might buy at Target only PENN15 is 3 of them piled atop oneanother with the drawers slightly pulled out! Really DISGUSTING!
Ho-Hum. Another pre-fabricated, quickly built glass tower built by and for the mega rich. To add insult to injury it will block the Empire State Building. Would France allow the Eiffel Tower to be blocked by a bunch of ugly glass towers? Of course not and the Empire State Building is our Eiffel Tower. It is an iconic symbol of our city, state and country and should be protected from encroachment. I say no new buildings until all the vacant stores and buildings closed during the pandemic are filled. Geeeeezzz! KLBazur, Manhattan Plaza
This map omits LinkedIn, the largest tenant at Empire State Building
The Tour Montparnasse blocks the Eiffel Tower, dearie.
Anyway, you obviously love bedbug-infested buildings.
Stay over on the west-side where you belong, dear 👹
Yes, the Pennsylvania Hotel was a terrible hotel. It lacked management and maintenance – cheap but horrible. However, just because a building is old it does not need to be full of rats, bed bugs and be badly maintained. Windsor Castle is old, but they maintain it – the Pennsylvania Hotel could have been wonderful again – but that would not have been as profitable for Vornado!
When will this country ever learn that once you tear down something it’s gone for good. The old Penn Station was an architectural masterpiece and was replaced by not even good modern architecture. Just think, if the Greeks would have torn down the Parthenon what would we have now? Other cultures value their heritage but not us. Look at the architectural horror the WTC area has become.
So now the Penta is turned to rubble (we don’t even need terrorists to hit us, we have Vornado Realty Trust) and next the church of St. John the Baptist a few blocks south is on the hit list and will crumble because of a legal loophole called eminent domain. Has anyone from Hochul’s group or the developers gone into that church and seen what they’d be destroying? Mosaics, artwork, stained glass windows…But they don’t care, let’s just put up another piece of modern junk like this Penn15 eyesore.
So sad that while Ukraine is wrapping their statues and protecting their artwork to save their cultural treasures for future generations, we just go in and bulldoze a neighborhood under the excuse of wanting to make things better. Wonder what Michael Angelo would write in this comments section!
Michelangelo* wouldn’t waste time posturing as someone who appreciates art in some comments section of an article whose purpose is just to covertly deliver some phallic jokes.
Penn Hotel was victim of it’s popularity with student trash, littering the reception hall with the unwashed and ineducable. Unrivaled for convenience if you were Amtraking as well as handy for the ultimate retail orgasm at Macy’s, it’s demise is a tragedy for the architectural heritage of NYC. I pine for the concierge floors but remain in awe of the majesty of the Palladian pillars.
To replace such an edifice with tacky glitz is the kind of vandalism more in keeping with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
I never stayed in the Pennsylvania, but its size and age made it a visual landmark I hate losing, especially for this new tower that looks like all the others. There are so many vacant spaces left after Covid; how can this really be justifiable?
I don’t like it. Yes it’s somewhat green, but is green what will be appreciated from future generations. Future generations wont see the history that we were allowed to appreciate.
I hate the new ugly tower (maybe they should name it that?) It’s clearly for the rich only as I don’t see any mention of the general public being allowed in. The Shard in London is also for the rich, but it does allow the general public into the observation decks. As for green, there’s nothing green about glass towers. The making of the glass panels (I’ve worked in the window industry for over 17 years) alone produces more pollution than all the conventional buildings in New York put together and glass buildings are responsible for literally millions of bird deaths every year. So disappointed with New York, a city usually with imagination and fantastic new ideas. If even one tenth of the cost of this was spent on the Pennsylvania it would have been far better than this monstrosity. What worries me is the age of the Pennsylvania isn’t that much different to either the Chrysler or the Empire State. So what will be next to go? Architects must have a bit more imagination than to just build glass featureless blocks like this surely? A 4 year old could design better.