Winning Penn Station Redesign Features Trump’s Name
Official renderings released on June 8 show that the winning redesign for New York City’s Penn Station will include President Donald Trump’s name carved into a wall near a presidential seal. The nearly $8 billion project, overseen by the Trump Administration, selected Penn Transformation Partners—whose members include Vornado and Halmar—as master developer, with the design led by the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) and founder Vishaan Chakrabarti after a competitive process that began last October. The proposed Beaux-Arts-inspired plan features large American flags, gold-colored bronze railings, a terracotta skyline, and an eagle figure, and it aims to address infrastructure issues by raising low ceilings, adding natural light, and removing the Infosys Theater at Madison Square Garden to install new elevators and escalators. Chakrabarti called the seal element “commonplace,” while questions remain about why the sitting president’s name appears on it; the developers did not respond to inquiries about the inclusion.
From This Briefing
This story was covered in Reopenings, Strikes, and Art’s Political Crossfire