Architecture
The building has 14 entrances and 44 elevators in seven banks. An underground parking garage provides 695 spaces for cars and is accessible from both 33rd and 34th Streets. Direct passageways at each end of the building provide underground connections to the Long Island Rail Road concourse of Pennsylvania Station, which is located one block to the south. The ground floor is leased to several commercial tenants, including the top floor of a 142,000 square feet (13,200 m2), three-story K-Mart store (formerly occupied by Woolworth), and a restaurant.
A public plaza and fountain are located on the west end of the building. Unlike traditional fountains, steam is dispensed in the winter and fog is dispensed in the summer to prevent water from splashing out during gusty wind conditions.
One Penn Plaza is built with structural steel and concrete, with grey solar glass and anodized aluminum on the outside walls. There are plans to install a cogeneration plant in 2009.
Read more about this topic: One Penn Plaza
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“In short, the building becomes a theatrical demonstration of its functional ideal. In this romanticism, High-Tech architecture is, of course, no different in spirit—if totally different in form—from all the romantic architecture of the past.”
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