:INFO
Ghost City
Every city is also a map of what it tore down, and New York more than most. Beneath the glass towers are the footprints of buildings so loved that their demolition changed the law. This is a short walk through the New York that is no longer there.


:MAP
40.7506,-73.9935,Penn Station, demolished 1963
40.7079,-74.0113,Singer Building, demolished 1968
40.7644,-73.973,Savoy Plaza Hotel, demolished 1965
40.7549,-73.9759,Original Waldorf Astoria, demolished 1929

:MOMENT
1910 to 1963
Pennsylvania Station, Midtown
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:INFO
Why it still hurts
The loss of Penn Station was so total and so public that it shamed the city into action. Two years later New York passed its landmarks law, too late for the station but in time to save Grand Central.


:TIMELINE
🏛️🚧🕯️
1929-01-01 | The original Waldorf Astoria comes down to make room for the Empire State Building.
1963-10-01 | Pennsylvania Station is demolished. Architects picket the site and the public is appalled.
1965-04-01 | New York passes the Landmarks Preservation Law in direct response.
1968-01-01 | The Singer Building falls, still the tallest building ever peacefully demolished.

:MOMENT
1908 to 1968
Singer Building, Lower Manhattan

:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Ada Louise Huxtable]
We will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have allowed to be destroyed.
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:COUNTER
4 landmarks lost before the law arrived