Quote:
Originally Posted by TREPYE
After watching this I am once again ASTOUNDED at the level imbecility, ignorance and impudence of the generation of NYC decision makers (developers and railway executive alike) of the late 50s early 60s. This station was built to last centuries, millennia, not mere decades.
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How often do you hear people say nowadays that they don't carry cash anymore? Or they don't need to. You may be one of those people. With contactless payment and phone based pay apps, let alone traditional debit and ctedit cards, it has made paying with good old fashioned greenbacks an act few and far between --- for many people other than the unbanked and niche corners of the economy at least.
It was like that with trains by the 1960s. The zeitgeist was all about believing jet travel and the superhighway was the future, especially in the USA. The old railroad was regarded as nearly obsolete, not to mention increasingly run-down and unreliable as the old fallen flag railroads cut service left and right with every passing year. With Penn specifically, by this time it was increasingly a commuter destination, not the opulant temple to travel that it was built as in a previous era.
When the decision was made to wreck Penn, the PRR was already headed for financial trouble and needed the money from the real estate deal and removing the burden of maintenance of the enormous station. Many if not most railroads were in the same situation, and PRR and later PennCentral would eventually fail in one of the most spectacular mismanagement stories in American business history and is used as a teaching tool for "no way to run a railroad".
It's a tragedy in hindsight, but when that wrecking ball started swinging into old Penn, for most people not architects or sensitive artist types, it was just "out with the old and in with the new". Progress. Apple Pay, not stinky old cash.