50 Years Later, Peter Samton Recalls Penn Station Protest

Photo courtesy Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NY, 31-NEYO, 78-8

Architectural Record's office at 2 Penn Plaza sits on top of Penn Station. Every Monday through Friday, as we trudge through its dismal guts, we mourn the McKim, Mead & White beauty that once was stood in its place – even if some of us are too young to have experienced it in person. We've seen the black and white photos. We can imagine how our workdays might have begun with the kind of buoying that only majestic architecture can inspire. Instead, we arrive at our office and breathe a sigh of relief that we haven't been trampled in a low-ceilinged maze of linoleum and stained acoustical tile.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of protests by an impressive roster of architects, including Peter Samton, Philip Johnson, and Norval White, who knew the original 1910 structure would be demolished but refused to go down without a well-dressed fight. David Dunlap interviewed Peter Samton in the New York Times about the architect's memory of August 2, 1962.