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Originally Posted by Cirrus
Nonsense. By virtue of being a good public space, old Penn Station encouraged increased use of the nearby sidewalk, rail facilities, and shops. New Penn Station discourages all those things. The difference is objective.
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But that's not what you were just arguing. You didn't ask why is this better from an urban design standpoint, you asked why is it aesthetically better. Besides, the arguments you just made are completely bunk anyhow since you have no objective evidence to prove that it encouraged or discouraged anything. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the New Penn station sees far higher use of rail facilities and shops than the old Penn station did in its last few years. Remember they tore it down because train ridership everywhere was waning and the Pennsylvania railroad needed $$$. I have a feeling up to twice as many people use Penn Station today as did in 1960. Isn't over crowding now one of the rants against Penn Station?
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I don't care about preservation for preservation's sake. I care about good buildings.
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Case in point. You don't give a damn whether there is inherent value in something, you only care if its "good". "good" is inherently subjective and its constantly changing definition and caused the wanton destruction of thousands of extremely valuable structures. What defines good? Is it personal aesthetic taste? Is it whatever is in style? Is it new? Is it buildings with no soot on them? Is it better urban planning? No, its any and all of these things which is why you cannot use that word. Its people like you who constantly cause architectural disasters.
Do you think that Penn Station would have been leveled if what was believed to be "good" urban planning at the time called for something on the scale of new Penn Station? Do you think they would have destroyed it if ye olde roman headhouses were the "good" style at the time instead of giant bland slabs? Do you think it would have happened if people didn't assume that new=good? Or do you think that maybe it wouldn't have been destroyed if people sat and thought "wait, what
we think is good doesn't matter, its inherent historical, economic, social, and cultural value must be preserved"?
Then again, I guess architectural, historical, and cultural significance means nothing and we should only keep "good buildings" however we chose to define that...