For over a decade, most of New York was railroad-connected, but Manhattan, the downtown district was not. Thousands of passengers making their way to the center of American culture and finance had to disembark on the Jersey shore and then wait for the ferry across the Hudson. Only one of a dozen lines – William H. Vanderbilt’s Central Railroad – went into Manhattan, dropping passengers off at Grand Central Station. Alexander Cassatt, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad came up with a way to get his line on par with Vanderbilt’s, commissioning a terminal of his own that he wanted to dwarf that of Grand Central and the others – or just about any other station in the world.

On this day, November 27, 1910, Pennsylvania Railroad Station station, which exceeded even Cassat’s grand designs, opened. Cassat spared no expense, hiring Charles McKim, master of the French Beaux-Arts school, to create it, taking influences from everything from London’s Crystal Palace to the ancient Roman baths of Caracalla.

Cassat indeed made a landmark of a structure, but as private cars and airplanes began to replace railroad travel, Pennsylvania Railroad was forced to cut its costs, selling Penn Station to a private developer that planned to raze the structure and build the Madison Square Garden on top. Howls of protests went up from the residents and lovers of the iconic structure, but there was little they of city hall could do. The aboveground portion was indeed torn down for MSG, but the underground, still magnificent, serves passengers coming and going over the tri-state area to this day.