Museum Quality

 

On this day in 1919, The Hotel Pennsylvania opened its 2,200 guest rooms across the street from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and operated by Ellsworth Statler, it was the largest hotel in the world for nearly a decade. William Symmes Richardson, of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, had also designed the original Pennsylvania Station. The lower Indiana limestone facade of the hotel was intentionally designed to closely mirror the architecture of the station.

In recent years the hotel deteriorated significantly. The cost of maintenance and lack of demand outweighed demolition, which was underway by 2021. Many historic elements of the hotel, including the large brass mailboxes throughout the lobby level, some guest room doors, and the original 22-foot-tall fountain in the former Cafe Rouge, will be salvaged and repurposed for a future museum.

Technology Not Quite Ready

 

On this day in 1956, the prototype Piasecki Helicopter Company YH-16A-PH Transporter twin-turboshaft, tandem-rotor helicopter was returning to Philadelphia from a test flight, when the aft rotor desynchronized and struck the forward rotor and the aircraft broke up in flight and was completely destroyed. Test pilots, Harold W. Peterson and George Callahan, were tragically killed. At the time, the YH-16 was the largest helicopter in the world. The United States Air Force intended it as a very long-range rescue helicopter, while the U.S. Army expected it to serve as a heavy lift cargo and troop transport. A second YH-16A was modified during manufacture but the program was canceled.