A Niche Without a Statue

Rea Placed in the Niche via Photoshop

Bronze of Samuel Rea at Two Penn Plaza

I have often thought the large bronze of once Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) President Samuel Rea looked lost behind a concrete pillar at Two Penn Plaza in New York. It’s bad enough being a former president of a company that doesn’t exist anymore and having an elaborate bronze made for a monumental building that was, in a myopic moment, demolished.

Having an elaborate bronze stand day after day behind a bland concrete pillar of the uninspiring building that replaced Penn Station seems too much to bear.

There may be a solution. The other day I noticed that two statuary niches in the Farley Post Office were empty. It also seems that the bronze of Samuel Rea would fit nicely with one of them. Rea once stood in a similar niche inside Penn Station, as did a bronze of Alexander Cassatt, another president of the PRR and brother of painter Mary Cassatt. The bronze of Cassatt is now in the PRR museum in Pennsylvania, but surely it could be replicated.

How grand it would be for Cassatt and Rea to stand in the niches in front of the Farley Post Office. It would be a welcome interim step in making up for the loss of Penn Station by creating a new space for rail passenger travel in the old post office.

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Responses

Twitted by urbanantiques

July 22, 2009

[…] This post was Twitted by urbanantiques […]

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scdemark

July 22, 2009

Your idea is right on track, so to speak! Placing Rea and Cassatt in those niches of the Farley would be fitting considering their history. Rea deserves such a place, and 2 Penn Plaza doesn’t cut it.

Considering he was very instrumental in bringing the Pennsylvania RR to Manhattan, Rea deserves far better!

I would suggest communicating with the people behind the transformation of this building into Moynihan Station to make such a suggestion!

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Patton

August 6, 2009

Well that sounds just find as long as they erect a Bronze Statute of Postmaster General James A. Farley as well, the landmark Post Office is his monument, regardless of what is constructed within it. I find all this trading of the history of the Postal Service for that of Penn Station to be very un- American. Once Moynihan’s station is constructed the Farley Post Office is still the landmark, the Moynihan Station is the adaptive reuse.

Clear seperations between the historic use and the adaptive reuse are required under Federal Law. “Transforming” the Farley Post office into the Moynihan Station does not provide for these clear separations . That is why as stated on the sign in front of the Farley building Moynihan Station is being “housed” in the historic Farley Post Office.
The Farley Post Office is the home of Moynihan Station, the Farley Post office being the landmark, and Moynihan Station being the adaptive reuse Amtrak Station to be housed in the landmark. Anything else would be in violation of city, state, and federal landmark laws like NHPA of 1966.

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