1930’s Greyhound Lines sign. Image from ClassicCars.com
The 1930’s was an era of glamorous travel. Great Art Deco ocean liners such as the Normandie and Queen Mary criss crossed the Atlantic every other week. Trains like the New York Central’s Twentieth Century Limited and the Santa Fe’s Super Chief sped across the United States. But nobody, then or now, could honestly tell you bus travel even comes close to the glamour of other forms of transportation. Greyhound, in an effort to step up their image, went on a building spree in the 1930’s. Across the United States new modern bus stations sprang up. And in Manhattan, Greyhound built two streamline moderne terminals in the heart of mid-town.
Mid-Town Manhattan Bus Terminals
By the early 1930’s eight small bus terminals dotted mid-town Manhattan. In addition to these terminals the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad offered motor coach service from four terminals in mid-town. With B&O trains terminating in Jersey City (at the Central Railroad of New Jersey terminal), the railroad provided shuttle bus service included with their train fare. From the various Manhattan terminals passengers boarded buses that took them to Jersey City via ferry. Once in the terminal the bus drove onto the departing train’s platform. Of the four Manhattan B&O motor coach stations the most elaborate was located in the Chanin Building at Lexington Avenue & 42nd Street.
Interior of the Baltimore & Ohio Bus Terminal in the Chanin Building, circa 1929. Image from MCNY.org
Another major bus terminal in mid-town, the Dixie Terminal, had a convenient location near Times Square. This terminal received its name from the fact that is was in the basement of the Hotel Dixie. Buses from this terminal were both interurban (long distance) and suburban (servicing NYC bedroom communities.) Check out this scoutingny.com post for more information about the Dixie Bus Terminal.
Postcard view of bus entering the 43rd Street ramp into the Dixie Bus Terminal. Image from scoutingny.com.
Greyhound in Manhattan
The largest motor bus company in the United States, Greyhound, combined many franchises under its corporate umbrella. In New York City there were three franchises each with its own terminal. The smallest of the three terminals, the Midtown on West 43rd Street, had streamline moderne elements. Such as the curved window overlooking the bus platforms. But the Midtown was small compared to Greyhound’s two major terminals.
The Midtown Bus Terminal at 143 West 43rd Street, circa, 1941. Image from NYPL Digital Collections.
The Pennsylvania and the Capitol, Greyhound’s two largest Manhattan franchises, would construct large and comfortable terminals for their passengers in the mid and late 1930’s. Greyhound continued to use these terminals long after the Port Authority constructed a central terminal to house all the major long distance and suburban bus lines under one roof.
Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal
Just across the street from the massive Pennsylvania Station stood the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal. This subsidiary bus line was jointly owned by the Greyhound Corporation and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Opening around 1929 the Pennsylvania Motor Coach Terminal, built a plain, light-colored brick building directly across 33rd Street from the north exit of Pennsylvania Station’s main waiting room. This allowed for easy transfer from trains to buses and vice versa.
The first Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal (circa, 1929), looking south towards 33rd Street and Pennsylvania Station. Image from Don’s Greyhound Bus Memories.
By the mid-1930’s Greyhound decided to spruce up their image and replace their terminal with a very modern one. Greyhound hired noted theatre architect Thomas Lamb (1871-1942) to design their new showcase terminal. Lamb’s design incorporated signature Greyhound style elements into the new building, including the trademark dark blue exterior tiles, chromium banding and curved walls. The new terminal was an excellent example of streamline moderne design.
Penn Greyhound Terminal opening day advertisement, New York Daily News, May 23, 1935. Image from Newspapers.com.
Upon it’s opening, the new terminal became a model of modern bus terminal design. 275 buses arrived and departed with approximately 5,000 passengers handled daily. By staggering the loading platforms seven buses could be accommodated at one time. Inside the terminal the 200 seat main waiting room provided many conveniences for passengers. These included public telephones, a telegraph office, a magazine stand, baggage room and a large restaurant. And for the first time in the history of bus terminals a dormitory for the drivers. Also equipped in the terminal a special loud-speaker system announced arriving and departing buses. Decorating the main waiting room were several colorful murals. Above the bus platforms the heavy concrete canopy served a dual purpose. First it protected passengers from rain and snow and second it was used for loading baggage onto the buses. At the time the buses Greyhound carried the luggage on roof racks. One baggage handler would stand on the canopy and hand the luggage down to a handler on the roof of the bus. The canopy is very visible in the photograph below.
Famed photographer Bernice Abbott’s 1936 photograph of the Penn Greyhound Terminal. Image from MCNY.org.
With its convenient location between express subway stations at both 7th and 8th Avenues, the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal soon became the busiest bus station in New York City and perhaps the country.
The east facade of the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal looking north towards 34th Street, 1935. Image from MCNY.org
And despite the advertisement claims of colorful murals and a large restaurant, the interior design was just slightly more than utilitarian. The ten window ticket counter took up a great deal of the eastern side of the waiting room and a streamline moderne style news stand stood on the wall next to the entrance for the bus platforms.
Crowds jam the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal on May 24, 1946 during a railroad strike. Interior view looking south toward the 33rd Street entrance. (Photo by Victor Twyman/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Looking north toward 34th Street and the restaurant inside the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal. May 25, 1946. (Photo by Seymour Wally/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal platforms. Nice ceiling lights and wall sconces in an otherwise utilitarian space, September, 1942. Photo from photogrammer.yale.edu.
Boarding a bus at the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal on 34th Street, September, 1942. Photo from photogrammer.yale.edu.
With the great success of the new Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal, Greyhound decided their Capitol Greyhound Terminal needed a new home as well.
A Greyhound advertisement, circa 1936 featuring a color depiction of the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal. Image from Pinterest.
Capitol Greyhound Terminal
In mid-November, 1930 the Pennsylvania and Eastern Greyhound Lines took over the lease on the Capitol Theatre Bus Terminal. The original terminal was sandwiched between the Capitol Theatre on the east and the Knights of Columbus Hotel at 8th Avenue to the west. And like the Pennsylvania bus terminal, the terminal ran through the block from 50th Street to 51st Street. This new Greyhound subsidiary was named the Capitol Greyhound Bus Terminal. The company also leased the basement, ground, second and third floors of the auditorium in the Knights of Columbus Hotel. The entrance for the Greyhound terminal was on 8th Avenue mid-block between 50th and 51st Streets.
The entrance to the Greyhound Terminal is on the left in the view looking south on 8th from 51st. The third Madison Square Garden is on the right in the background, 1936. Image from the NYPL Digital Collections.
The loading and discharging area of the original Capitol Greyhound Terminal. Looking north toward 51st Street, 1933. Image from NYPL Digital Collections.
With the success of the new terminal on 34th Street, Greyhound now wanted a modern bus station for the Capitol Terminal. Once again they reached out to Thomas Lamb and his company to design the new terminal. It would occupy the area where the buses would pick up and discharge passengers and the site of the building directly east of that location. Construction began in mid-1936.
Capitol Greyhound Cross Section of the interior. The Architectural Record, January, 1937. usmodernist.org
The first floor plan. The Architectural Record, January, 1937. usmodernist.org
The second floor plan. The Architectural Record, January, 1937. usmodernist.org
The January, 1937 issue of The Architectural Record featured the new Capitol Greyhound Terminal as a model example of bus terminal design. The 88 foot wide building extended through the block from 50th to 51st street. Bus platforms were placed on the east and west sides of the terminal and the concrete platforms were laid out in a saw tooth pattern. Starting in 1937 Greyhound used a bus with an interior luggage compartment, located underneath the passengers and between the wheels. The days of the rooftop luggage rack was over. As a result the platform canopies of the new terminal could be constructed out of relatively thin corrugated metal. Unlike the thick concrete canopy of the 34th Greyhound Terminal.
The newly remodeled Greyhound Bus Terminal at 50th Street and 8th Avenue, New York, New York, May 12, 1938. The west side platforms. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
Most of the exterior of the building consisted of buff colored bricks on a concrete foundation.
Greyhound bus turning east off 8th Avenue onto 50th street in 1938. The new Capitol Terminal is mid-block directly in front of the bus. Image from thegeorgemanarchive.com
New York Times advertisement featuring the new Capitol Greyhound Terminal, May 19, 1937.
The 50th Street facade of the Capitol Greyhound Terminal, February 26, 1949. The terminal is only 12 years old and is already becoming shabby. Image from flickr.
Looking north towards 51st Street at the westside platforms of the Capitol Greyhound Terminal. This rare color photo shows the blue and buff color brick of the building, circa 1963. Photo from Al Ponte’s Time Machine – New York Facebook page.
The new $300,000 Capitol Greyhound Terminal opened to the public on February 6, 1937. The main waiting room featured a 24 foot ceiling. The side walls were plaster above a terrazzo base and had space for murals. The terrazzo floor featured racing greyhounds out lined by 1/8 inch white metal dividing strips. The ticket, tours and information booths featured burl walnut panels inlaid with strips of ebony separated by ebonized hardwood moldings. The linoleum countertops were edged with an aluminum nosing.
Architectural rending of the main waiting room of the Capitol Greyhound Terminal. January, 1937 The Architectural Record. usmodernist.org
Second floor mezzanines were at each end of the waiting room. On the second floor were the executive and employee offices on the south side and a balcony lounge on the north side for passengers. The restrooms, baggage storage and air conditioning equipment were located in the basement.
With the completion of the Capitol Greyhound Terminal, bus station construction in mid-Manhattan ended until after the Second World War. Numerous bus terminals in a very densely populated area soon became a major problem.
Interior of the Capitol Greyhound Terminal, November 1, 1945. The place is empty due to a strike of the Pennsylvania and Central Greyhound Lines. Image from Historic Images via ebay.
The 1940’s
With streets already busy with city buses, street cars, taxi cabs and private cars, the addition of hundreds of long distance buses were completely clogging mid-town. After a particular horrendous traffic situation over the Memorial Day weekend, 1940, city government jumped into action. The city eventually passed an ordinance banning all new bus terminal construction in the area bounded by 22nd and 59th Streets, 8th and Lexington Avenues. In 1940 the city started to propose the construction of a union bus terminal at 9th Avenue and 42nd Street. All the interurban bus companies would use the new terminal with easy access to the Lincoln Tunnel.
The proposed bus terminal for 9th Avenue and 42nd Street, New York Herald-Tribune, December 8, 1940.
Hugh Ferriss rending of the proposed Union Bus Terminal at 42nd Street and 9th Avenue. Image from flickr.com.
The city did not get around to building their new terminal until 1949. The following year the Port Authority Bus Terminal opened at 8th Avenue and 40th Street. Shortly there after all the interurban bus companies started to use the new terminal.
A post card of the Port Authority Bus Terminal shortly after it opened in 1950. Image from Alamy.com
All that is, except Greyhound, which was in need of a larger and safer terminal. By the late 1940’s their 34th Street terminal had become one of the most crime infested places in mid-town Manhattan. Greyhound wanted to expand their 34th Street terminal and to consolidate the Capitol Greyhound lines into it. With the ban against new bus terminal construction east of 8th Avenue, they could never implement their expansion plans.
Finally, on May 17, 1962 Greyhound and the Port Authority reached a deal. Greyhound would move into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in April of 1963 and pay $1,200,000 in annual rent for twenty years. This would give Greyhound 15 berths on the lower level and offices and ticket counters in the upper floors of the terminal.
Greyhound advertisement from The New York Times, May 1, 1963.
With the move into the Port Authority, Greyhound closed the Capitol Bus Terminal. In the summer of 1963 Kinney Systems, a parking lot chain, acquired the former Capitol Greyhound Terminal. The terminal, razed in October 1963, became a parking lot. The following month, Loew’s Inc. took over the site from Kinney with plans to erect an office building on the site. The office building was never built but in 1972 the Uris Theatre (renamed the Gershwin Theatre in 1983) opened on the former bus terminal plot.
The Gershwin Theatre on 51st Street, standing on the site once occupied by the Capitol Greyhound Terminal. Image from Wikipedia.
Daabros, a chain of discount department stores, leased the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal in June, 1963. Their plans to convert the former terminal into a store never came to fruition. Exactly when the terminal came down has been lost to time. An aerial photograph taken on July 28, 1965 documenting Pennsylvania Station’s demolition shows the site of the bus terminal as a parking lot. It seems probable that the 34th street Greyhound Terminal did not survive past the end of 1963.
*UPDATED: APRIL 23, 2023
Since this article was published in 2019, I have found evidence that the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal survived past the end of 1963. After Greyhound moved their operations to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in the spring of 1963, the former terminal was converted into a bargain retail store.
Arthur von Schwertführer photograph of West 34th Street, looking east from 8th Avenue, 1963. The former Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal can be seen on the right after being converted into a retail store. Image from Facebook.
And photos documenting the demolition of Pennsylvania Station show that the former bus terminal did not come down until sometime in 1964, and may have still been standing until early 1965. It was definitely gone by the summer of ’65.
April, 1964: West 33rd Street looking east from 8th Avenue, during the demolition of Pennsylvania Station. The Greyhound Terminal can be seen still standing in the left center of the photo. Photo from Facebook.
1964 Aaron Rose photograph looking out at West 33rd Street during the demolition of Pennsylvania Station. Greyhound Terminal can be seen across the street. Photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.
July 28, 1965, overhead shot showing the former site of the 34th Street Greyhound Terminal as a parking lot. Image from Newsday / Tom Maguire.
Today, the 57 story One Penn Plaza stands on the site of the Pennsylvania Greyhound Terminal. Its construction in the early 1970’s erased all traces of the wonderful streamline moderne terminal that once stood there.
One Penn Plaza, standing on the former Greyhound Terminal Sight. Image from Wikipedia.
Gone in less than thirty years, not only have Greyhound’s streamline moderne terminals disappeared from New York City, they have disappeared from most people’s memories, too.
