What would it cost to rebuild Penn Station?

It’s been over 50 years since the destruction of Charles Follen McKim’s original Pennsylvania Station. And the loss still hurts. But a plan from Richard W. Cameron, the principal designer at Atelier & Co., shows that resurrecting the historic building is completely possible.

According to Curbed and Traditional Building, Cameron’s plan has three main goals: “to rebuild and replicate the grandeur of the original Penn Station; to create a modern and efficient transit hub; and to redevelop the area around Penn Station to create a world-class urban destination—like Rockefeller Center.”

The plan estimates that a replica of the original Penn Station, with modern convinences, would cost only $2.5 billion — about half of the cost of Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center transit hub.

A rebuilt Penn Station would also, Cameron argues, be a radical act of “civic redemption” in a Manhattan that’s “jammed with Modernist glass-and-steel abstractions.” [Curbed] – Christopher Cameron