![]() ![]() Instead, they felt a growing sense that what came next would be worse. People began to assume that anything good that was lost would no longer be replaced with something better. The destruction of the old Penn Station "flipped the optimistic narrative" of the city, Kimmelman argued. In 2019, New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman likened the historic preservation movement-born from the Penn Station rubble-to collective pessimism. It is a story that doesn't end as much as it sloppily devolves. In this sense, the photos of Penn Station are a handy starting point to understanding the city's 20th Century story. The early 1900s is when modern New York became itself, the early-to-mid 1900s were arguably its peak, and the post 1960s saw its rapid decline. What shape will the new Penn Station take when it comes, if it comes? And will we love it as much as the old station, which the majority of us have never personally experienced? The results are unclear, but Al-Hadid’s new mosaics keep the dream alive.As it happens, these periods roughly coincide with three definitive eras of New York City lore. The arches of old Penn Station reference our will to recreate history by contrast, Gradiva is an expression of our collective longing for the past, which remains as elusive and ill-defined as ever. Reviewed as a diptych, each mural clarifies the other’s intention. In her subway mosaic, Al-Hadid portrays the woman as a sweeping silhouette, a ghostly penumbra that leaves a bluish cloud of smoke behind here in what appears to be a petrified forest of white trees. Here and there, Gradiva is a symbol of undefined longing, a woman trapped between the annals of time, the real and the imagined. The Roman figure was last seen as a fiberglass and steel sculpture at Al-Hadid’s 2018 exhibition inside Madison Square Park. Over the last few years, Gradiva has become a reoccurring reference in the artist’s work, which often plays with concepts of perspective, time, and space. The artist has created etch-like markings on the mosaic with thinly sliced white tiles, that reinvent the famous image of the station’s concourse as a blueprint with perspectival depth and a hint of abstraction.ĭiana Al-Hadid, “The Arc of Gradiva” (2018) (© Diana Al-Hadid, NYCT 34th Street-Penn Station, commissioned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design, photo by Peter Kaiser)Īll these details make for a surprisingly dense historical background for a public artwork plunked into the subway system, but it’s not exactly a surprise for those who know Al-Hadid’s oeuvre. It is a palimpsest upon the wall, a reminder of former glory and a bequest for a better future. The image of the bygone transit hub emerges form a hazy cloud of grey tiles like a memory fading back into view. There is an anticipation of change in Al-Hadid’s murals, particularly for the one depicting the old Penn Station. Developers have long-predicted that construction would start in 2020, and that might happen if the $2 trillion infrastructure deal spearheaded by President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) can pass the Republican-held Senate. ![]() ![]() The $1.6 billion budget for a new station was finalized in 2017, but construction plans have stalled as financing commitments for the larger $30 billion-plus Gateway Project have floundered. It’s a far cry from our current subterranean rat’s maze constructed in the 1960s. Diana Al-Hadid, “The Arches of Old Penn Station” (2018) (© Diana Al-Hadid, NYCT 34th Street-Penn Station, commissioned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design, photo by Peter Kaiser)Īs New York prepares to demolish the current Penn Station - one of the world’s most-despised transit hubs - the artist’s murals will remind straphangers of a bygone America that once engineered its infrastructure for ease, aesthetics, and scale.
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