The following from the Building Stone Industry Stone Industry News Update,
which is not a copyrighted newsletter.

CALLING SCATTERED REMAINS HOME

A 35-foot-high Doric column rises proudly --if oddly-- among a stand of birch
trees on a hilltop in upstate New York. A delicate maiden known as "Day" sits
in a concrete recycling plant. Great chunks of pink granite litter the New
Jersey Meadowlands, hidden by reeds, guarded by snapping turtles.

These are the remains of New York's old Pennsylvania Station. And 35 years
after their dispersal, many of the fragments may be coming back to the City.

The Pennsylvania Redevelopment Corporation, a state agency, hopes to use
architectural remains from the long-lost building as decorative elements in a
new passenger concourse and ticketing hall it is planning in the General Post
Office, directly across from the station.

Alexandros E. Washburn, the president of the corporation, and his project
associate Marijke Smit, have tracked fragments as far as Kansas City.

Their most poignant discovery, however, has not been granite and marble but
flesh and blood: the legion of preservationists --some known, many anonymous--
who struggled in the early 1960's, before the New York City landmarks law was
enacted, to save what they could of McKim, Mead & White's architectural
masterpiece.

The new Pennsylvania Station concourse is to be built within the General Post
Office, an 84-year old landmark that was also designed by McKim, Mead & White.
Formally known as the James A. Farley Building, it sits directly over the
Amtrak train platforms.

"By incorporating fragments from the old station into the new station, we are
going to honor the past and hopefully set a standard for the future," said
Charles A. Gargano, Chairman of the Empire State Development Corp.

Exactly how the fragments will fit into the structure is not yet clear.
Architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates
are working on preliminary designs for the $315 million project.