What were they thinking? New York’s original Penn Station is – quite rightly – the inspiration for the historic preservation movement. The Beaux-Arts beauty was realized in 1910 to a design from the prominent McKim, Mead & White architectural firm. Its classical grandeur looks almost preposterous now, as if all the columns of Ancient Rome had been plundered for the project. To the dismay of many, the building met its end in 1963 when city authorities tired of its Versailles-like maintenance costs.