Lester C. Tichy

Dubbed a "[n]oted [a]rchitect" by 1956, Tichy ultimately left his mark on homes, railroad stations, dormitories, and even the paint schemes of Long Island Rail Road trains over the course of a long and varied career.

With Tichy's status cemented, acclaim flowed. In 1956, a LIFE Magazine advertiser heralded Tichy's designs in a full-page spread. "Tichy has brought summer fun and freedom indoors," the advertiser swooned.

Though Tichy's imprint appeared on a range of modern structures, he became best identified with his 1956 "Clamshell" in Manhattan’s original Penn Station.

Tichy's new partnership with the Pennsylvania was a harbinger of things to come. In 1954, Tichy himself "prepared plans for an orderly demolition" of the beloved station, and began associating with real estate titans William Zeckendorf and Benjamin Swig.

By 1952, Tichy remained associated with the Pennsylvania Railroad, although he had left its employ. The Pennsylvania, confronting mounting passenger losses, contracted with Tichy to replace Penn Station's grand Savarin dining room with a series of two bowling alleys in an attempt to raise cash off its cavernous – but cash-bleeding – Manhattan facility. Throughout 1952, Tichy partnered with the Pennsylvania to develop revenue-generating concessions at Penn Station and air-rights sales over its adjacent rail yards.

At Aberdeen, Tichy designed a compact, streamlined station with Machine Age details. At Enola, Tichy created a dormitory that provided "neat," "quiet," and "comfortable" accommodations for Railroad men in need of a place to retire after long freight runs. Another Tichy dorm at Harrisburg offered "big, full-height, corrugated-glass" windows in keeping with the "progressive" tastes of the times. And between 1949 and 1955, Tichy designed modern paint schemes for the Long Island Rail Road, a Pennsylvania subsidiary.

Tichy's modernist sensibilities were not confined to the "standard railroad of the world." Throughout the middle of the 20th-century, Tichy designed flat-roofed structures that found critical acclaim in the publications of his time. In 1945, House & Garden recognized one of Tichy's telltale houses with a prize in its "Blueprints for Tomorrow" architectural contest. This newfound notoriety led to additional commissions, including a "streamlined metal and glass snack bar" for La Guardia Airport in 1948.

The Railroad did ultimately demolish Penn Station in an "[e]pic [a]ct of [c]ivic [v]andalism," and many now agree Tichy's "Clamshell" was "a nail in the station's coffin" and "the final insult to McKim, Mead & White’s heroic 1910 station." Tichy "brutally raped" the station, concluded architect B. Sumner Gruzen.

Lester C. Tichy (1905–1981) was a prolific 20th-century American architect and industrial designer. Tichy is perhaps best known for his association with the Pennsylvania Railroad, for which he created the infamous "Clamshell", an aluminum and steel canopy over the electronic ticketing area, in Penn Station’s Main Waiting Room in New York City. Tichy's "Clamshell" is largely seen as a harbinger of the station's ultimate demolition, and stands for the lost landmark's final decline.

Born in 1905, Tichy studied at Columbia University in Upper Manhattan. After graduation, Tichy toured Europe and began working under John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial.