Midtown Manhattan Bus Terminal Demolished And Forgotten

[M II A II R II K]

A Bus Terminal, Overshadowed and Unmourned


November 3, 2011

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/re...ourned.html?hp

THE demolition of Pennsylvania Station in 1963 is still an open sore. People who weren’t even alive then burn with indignation; it’s a kind of permanent ache. But is there no one to mourn the sleek little Greyhound bus station of 1935? On 33rd Street just north of Penn Station, the bus depot might seem to have sheltered competition for the Pennsylvania Railroad, but it was the railroad that built it. Railroads had been buying or establishing bus companies for years, both to offer transfer points for their passengers, and to stave off start-ups looking for new markets.

- Bus stations in the 1920s and 1930s posed new problems for architects. In 1920s New York, a common solution was to fit them into a new building — like the Baltimore & Ohio’s bus station, on the ground floor of the 1930 Chanin Building, on Lexington and 42nd. The B & O was, as bus stations go, palatial. With a great double-height space, a forest of bronze torchiers and marble counters, it might have been a hotel lobby except that it had no rugs. John C. Fistere, writing in 1930 in The Architectural Record, spelled out the requirements of the new building type. Internal windows overlooking the vehicle area were important, since most passengers still found bus transportation “somewhat of a mystery,” and were concerned with missing their trip.

- The art moderne terminal, designed by the theater architect Thomas Lamb, was a swing-era reproach to the fusty grandeur of Penn Station across the street. The 33rd Street facade was plain, but Lamb put a showy rounded corner on the busy 34th Street side and faced the entire front with enameled steel panels in glossy blue, the company’s trademark color since the 1920s. There was no baggage room, but apparently the riding public bore up under the hardship. At that time there were half a dozen small bus stations sprinkled over Manhattan. The company advertised 40 round trips a day to Philadelphia at $3 each, and 18 departures to Los Angeles, for $76.05 round trip. In 1943 Greyhound began planning a replacement 14-story terminal, and acquired most of the city block from Eighth Avenue over to just short of Seventh.

- By this time the modernistic Greyhound terminal was not just a stop for travelers, but the haunt of vagrants, delinquents and petty criminals. In 1947 a police inspector called it the worst spot in Midtown. Five years later two escapees from the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane waiting for a bus to Baltimore were caught by police officers with drawn guns. Nonetheless, Greyhound resisted the Port Authority plan. It liked its central location just fine, and had no need to help small operators gain the advantage of a union terminal. The city retaliated by prohibiting any bus terminal expansion in Midtown. The Port Authority completed its big, bland terminal in 1950, counting on Greyhound’s eventual capitulation — it was the biggest dog by far among the carriers.

.....

The Greyhound Bus Terminal, with Pennsylvania Station in back, in 1936. The art moderne terminal, designed by Thomas Lamb, allowed easy train-to-bus transfer. It was torn down soon after Penn Station's 1963 demise. Today One Penn Plaza, an office building, stands in its place.

[Rico Rommheim]

I love it! Shame for the loss!