The last-minute drive to save the hotel is flagrant anti-development obstructionism, under the thinnest possible mask of preservationism. It will likely go nowhere. A community board's role is merely advisory, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission has (quite properly) shown no interest in "saving" the Pennsylvania.

Even the knee-jerk activists who ordinarily rally to preserve anything larger than a lamppost haven't gone to bat for the hotel - a 22-story mausoleum that darkens the daily arrival of Penn Station commuters across the street.