Manhattan · New York County
1 Pennsylvania Plaza
POPS - Indoor Arcade
- Location
- 1 Pennsylvania Plaza, West 33rd Street between 7th & 8th Avenues, Midtown
- Size
- 0.18 acres
- Hours
- Open during business hours
- Type
- POPS - Indoor Arcade
1 Pennsylvania Plaza is a Privately Owned Public Space at the office complex above Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan. The POPS provides indoor publicly accessible space within one of the busiest transit hubs in North America.
Pennsylvania Station serves over 600,000 commuters and travelers daily, making the area around 1 Penn Plaza one of the most heavily trafficked in the city. The POPS provides a small refuge from the congestion of the station and the surrounding streets.
The original Pennsylvania Station, a magnificent Beaux-Arts masterpiece completed in 1910 and demolished in 1963, is widely considered one of the greatest architectural losses in American history. Its destruction helped spark the historic preservation movement in New York City.
The current Penn Station complex, which replaced the original above-ground structure, is utilitarian and widely criticized. Plans for a renovation and expansion of the station have been debated for decades. The POPS at 1 Penn Plaza exists within this contested urban landscape.
This space serves primarily as a pass-through and waiting area for the enormous volume of people moving through the Penn Station complex, providing a publicly accessible indoor space in a part of Midtown where the streets are perpetually crowded.