above

certainly looks like U of R's football stadium today, but I have no idea if that is what it really is...

Indeed, it is City Stadium, now called University of Richmond Stadium. The Tobacco Bowl football game was part of the National Tobacco Festival, which was held in Richmond every fall from the 1940's to the 1980's. The football game was a pretty good one from time to time - eventually it got to be University of Richmond vs. someone else like Virginia Tech, but good regional teams played in the game from time to time and it was even host for the annual UVA-Tech game. It was not a postseason event. The Festival also had a big parade as well as a Grand Marshal for the whole festival. In the old days, that usually meant a pretty decent celebrity because of all of the cigarette advertising and sponsorship on radio and TV. For example, the 1948 Grand Marshal was Frank Sinatra. It was a very big deal back in the day.

Correction - it appears that Sinatra was the Grand Marshal for 1949. The game was played between University of Richmond and Virginia Military Institute. Richmond won 27-14.

And to think that this beautiful building was torn down and replaced by ugly Madison Square Garden. And now they want to replace MSG! Thanks so much to the LOC for sharing these great archival photos. Please add lots more.

Well said chocolatepoint!

I've seen the PBS history on this. It was the NYcity's biggest and well know tragedies in architectural history.

The only traces left of this great station are some of the stairways to the station platforms and the platforms themselves. The destruction of the old Penn Station was a civic disgrace.

It was called "progress"... at least now the Madison must be turned down and a new station built in that place, similar to the old building.

That's great!