A Conversation About the Campaign to Rebuild Penn Station

Opened in 1910, to a miraculous design by McKim, Mead & White, and torn down in 1963 for a shamefully inferior replacement, New York’s Penn Station today remains one of the city’s great lost causes. On Thursday October 4, Chartwell Booksellers will host a conversation on the campaign to rebuild the original station. The conversation will feature leaders of Rebuild Penn Station together with design collaborators Atelier & Co. and ReThinkNYC.

The event, which begins at 6:00 PM, will take place in the lobby of the Park Avenue Plaza building at 55 East 52nd St. (between Park & Madison Avenues), and will include an exhibition of never-before-seen photographs of the original Penn Station taken by the late-Bob Parent, who is most famous for his portraits of jazz musicians. The exhibition includes Parent’s resonant image (see attached) of the Penn Station track sign for the train to the  August 28, 1963 “March for Jobs and Freedom” in Washington, D.C., where Dr. Martin Luther King would deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech.

The event is free and will be followed by a reception.

RSVP at 212-308-0643 or chartwellbooksellers@gmail.com