More than 60 years after the demolition of the original Pennsylvania Station in New York City, a new $8 billion project plans to revive the transportation hub. While President Donald Trump initially wanted the new building to bear his name, the first renderings of the station still mention Pennsylvania Station on its façade.
In 1910, a new and grandiose building was added to New York City’s growing skyline. Penn(sylvania) Station was designed in the then-popular Beaux Arts style by Charles McKim of McKim, Mead & White, who found inspiration in the Roman Baths of Caracalla.
Although allegedly 100,000 people came to wonder at the new landmark on its opening day, the building didn’t last as long as initially intended. In 1963, just 53 years after its inauguration, the station was demolished. The entertainment arena Madison Square Garden took its place, while the actual Penn Station went underground.
“Through Pennsylvania Station one entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat,” architectural historian Vincent Scully reportedly said about the transformation.
With 600,000 commuters passing through every single weekday, however, Penn Station remains of great importance for New York and its citizens. Therefore, plans to renovate and upgrade the transport hub have been in the making for years, but have had little to no success due to the multitude of parties and administrative hurdles involved in the process.
Fast forward to 2025, when Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy put Amtrak and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) in charge of the project, which was previously managed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Since then, the Trump administration has effectively been overseeing the plans for the future station.
On May 19 2026, Amtrak and the DOT selected Halmar and Skanska to be the lead developers of the building site, designed by architects PAU and HOK. Days later, the first renderings of the building were released, showing a station defined by grand stone columns, high ceilings, and endless window parties.
According to lead design architect and founder of PAU Vishaan Chakrabarti, the design draws inspiration from the Beaux Arts-style Grand Central Terminal as well as Art Deco buildings across New York, including the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center. The ultimate goal? Restoring the grandeur of Penn Station.
“There was this fearless embrace of ornament and decoration that in some ways we’ve lost. We want to bring some of that sense of craftsmanship back,” Chakrabarti said.
Earlier in 2026, several White House officials referred to the possibility of renaming the transportation hub ‘Trump Station’, both as a branding stunt for the president and as a potential way of raising more funds for the building. However, the first renderings still show the name ‘Pennsylvania Station’, along with the presidential seal and Trump’s name written in the southwest corner of the building’s new entrance.
As per the new plans, Madison Square Garden (MSG) will be able to remain in place. Only a theatre owned by MSG and located directly above the tracks will need to be demolished, the final terms of which are still being negotiated.
The building project is estimated to cost some $8 billion. Construction should start before the end of 2027 and should be completed in different phases over six years, with Penn Station remaining operational throughout. Several people and organisations have already raised their concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the project and the high costs, as it is yet unclear who exactly is expected to pay for the station.
