Losing another landmark
Losing another landmark
Thoughts for the day
Demolition has begun at New York City’s Hotel Pennsylvania, the place with one of the most famous phone numbers in history.
The hotel opened in 1919 and was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad, thus its prime location across the street from Penn Station. A liquidation sale gutted the hotel’s contents beginning in September and interior demolition is now underway.
The hotel’s Cafe Rouge was home to one of the most famous bandstands of the big band era and the location of a remote with NBC Radio. It hosted a who’s who of artists, including long-term engagements for Glenn Miller. It was Miller arranger Jerry Gray who wrote “Pennsylvania 6-5000” — a play on the hotel’s phone number — the phone number in longest continuous use in New York City.
We often have little appreciation of history in this country. According to Untapped New York, the demolition is part of a plan to raze all buildings in a three-block area surrounding Penn Station and replace them with glass office towers. Critics of that plan say the hotel itself would have been easily updated, a similar renovation on another hotel having just been completed nearby.
While cities in other countries require developers to use existing architecture, here we tear things down with little thought. No one would deny as a transit hub the Penn Station neighborhood needs improvement, but it could have been done while preserving a unique historic landmark.
Instead, soulless glass buildings.
Editor’s Note
Just because I share something doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with it, but it will always be a valid point of view worth considering. The rest is 100 percent Six.
The Six
No. 1
Untapped New York’s full story: At NYC's Hotel Pennsylvania, Interior Demolition Has Begun
No. 2
The end of cable TV is nigh. Cutting the cord is one of the best decisions I ever made. What seemed a novel concept just a couple of years ago is now becoming the norm. Forbes examines how As Media Companies Focus On Streaming, The Audience Of Their Cable Networks Continue To Drop.
No. 3
A cyberattack targeting News Corp affected publications including The Wall Street Journal and its parent Dow Jones, and the New York Post (WSJ). A firm hired by News Corp blames Chinese espionage. It is believed the hacks targeted journalists and not customers.
No. 4
In an opinion in The Hill, Jeffrey Klausner, MD, MPH, a clinical professor of Medicine, Population and Public Health Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, and Noah Kojima, a senior resident in internal medicine at UCLA Health, make the case that The CDC is finally recognizing 'natural immunity' — legislators should follow suit.
No. 5
I find I have to limit my dives into the ideologically-based press to about once a week. So much of what is written from the left and right in their political magazines is knee-jerk reactionary, but if you work at it, there are some good ideas out there. And, it is an important part of understanding how people think from different points of view. That said, the opinion piece, All the Institutions Failed by Jason Garshfield for The American Conservative, highlights a point I have been making for a while. It will be a long time before governments, agencies, and officials will again be able to make the kind of declarations made when COVID hit. They only had so much credit to spend, and it’s spent. Many people were willing to sacrifice two weeks to “flatten the curve,” two years later, it's a different story. We see it with mask and vaccine mandates, but it isn’t limited to COVID. We will be feeling the repercussions of these decisions for years to come, and as this piece points out, that has the potential to be dangerous.
No. 6
Hard to believe in this day and age, we are still having this conversation — The fight for equality in women's ski jumping is about more than ski suits (NPR). Seriously, for years, female ski jumpers were required to have extra panels sewn in around their hips to make the suits “fit a woman's body better.” Jumpers say it was designed to make them look curvier. When did the International Ski Federation end this practice? 2020.
Quote of the Day
"It's not like the suit was changed and then everyone was like, 'Yeah equality in ski jumping!' It's like, okay great, we have suits that are a little more functional, but like, let's make changes in these other areas as well." — Logan Sankey, ski jumper.
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About
Christopher Six is a passionate advocate of community journalism with more than 30 years in the media, corporate communications and marketing. An award-winning designer, columnist, illustrator, photographer and newsroom leader, he is a respected voice in journalism ethics. A veteran reporter, he has created and taught news writing seminars for community colleges and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.