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Commonly referred to as "Penn Station" (and not to be confused with Newark Penn Station, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, in New Jersey), the present-day Pennsylvania Station sits beneath the location of the original building—built in 1910—that bore its name. The underground structure, completed in 1968, serves as the main New York terminal for New Jersey Transit (NJT), the Long Island Railroad (LIRR), and Amtrak. Every year, more than 25 million passengers travel through the station. Penn Station also connects to stations for the 1-2-3 and A-C-E subway lines. Plans are underway to build a new station. Images of the much grander former structure can be viewed online, here.
Completed in 1931, and located on the site of the first Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (now located at Park Avenue & 50th Street), the Empire State Building claimed initial fame as the world's tallest building. Built in the modernist Art Deco style, the building evokes an aesthetic popular during its Depression-era moment. The nearly 1,500-foot-tall skyscraper serves both as a national historical landmark and as an active office building, with approximately 2.7 million square feet of space rented for offices in its 102 stories.
The New York Public Library's (NYPL) first collection was formed in 1895 by the combination of resources from the Tilden trust and the Lenox and Astor Libraries, which had been opened by wealthy New York families in the mid-nineteenth century, as a public service. The main building in the NYPL system, the Schwarzmann Building, opened in 1911. Adjacent to Bryant Park, its Beaux-Arts design represents the height of Gilded Age opulence, and maintains iconic status as one of the city's best loved public spaces. You will likely recognize the twin lion sculptures, nicknamed Patience and Fortitude, that preside over the building's entrance.
Replacing the depot that served New York's system of steam-locomotive trains from the 1860s, Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913 and modernized rail service into Manhattan. Tunnels excavated in the island's dense bedrock brought newly electrified engines to the city's core, increasing safety and efficiency. Midtown began to thrive around the impressive station, as passengers from communities on the Hudson River had improved access to the city's core. After decades of decline in the mid-twentieth century, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority—which manages NYC's subways, buses, and trains—gained control of Grand Central and oversaw a major restoration. Read about the station's history online, here.
Since opening in 1879, St. Patrick's Cathedral has served as the episcopal seat of the New York archdiocese of the Roman Catholic church. In its early days, the cathedral embodied tensions between New York's established Catholic residents, mostly of Irish descent, and the millions of southern- and eastern-European immigrants who filled the city's turn-of-the-century parishes. Since the mid-twentieth century, St. Patrick's has overseen new changes in the archdiocese, with the increasing presence of Latina/o and Afro-Caribbean Catholics in Harlem and the outer boroughs, and the deep turmoil brought about through local instances of the worldwide scandal involving clerical abuse of children.
Rockefeller Center opened to the public in May 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression. Like the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center was designed in the Art Deco style. But Rockefeller, more than its neighbor fifteen blocks to the south, was envisioned as a public space. Decorated with exterior bas-reliefs and interior frescoes, the artwork of "the Rock" depicts high humanistic ideals, displayed for ennobling of the everyday passerby.
7. Church of Saint Mary the Virgin
Tucked away from the bustle of Times Square, Saint Mary's Church links Manhattan to the Anglo-Catholic movement of mid-nineteenth century Episcopalianism, which involved a return to the ritual focus of the Roman Catholic tradition in parts of the Anglican Communion. Completed in 1895, the current building replaced the original 1868 structure, and houses a vibrant collection of art. This small church has witnessed the growth of the modern city, as the subway opened in 1908, Broadway grew into a vibrant theatre district, and Manhattan swelled with waves of immigrants, bringing a shifting cultural tide to the parish's doorstep.
In its history, Times Square has seen fame as the heart of Manhattan's theatre and news industries (it is named for the New York Times, which once maintained headquarters there, and is surrounded by the theatre houses of Broadway), as a center of crime and homelessness in the 1970s and 1980s, and, most recently, as a gleaming example of urban renewal, with status as a world famous tourist, advertising, and theatre center.