Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City
United States Supreme Court case
Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision on compensation for regulatory takings. Penn Central sued the government of New York City after the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission denied its bid to build a large office building on top of Grand Central Terminal. The Supreme Court ruled in the city's favor.
Events leading up to the case
New York City Landmarks Law
The New York City Landmarks Law was signed into effect by Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., in 1965. This law was passed after New York citizens grew concerned over the loss of culturally significant structures such as Pennsylvania Station, demolished in 1963. The Landmarks Law's purpose is to protect structures that are significant to the city and still retain their ability to be properly used. This law is enforced by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Railroad decline
Use of railroad systems saw its peak in the 1920s and began to falter in the mid-to-late 1930s.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City” is united States Supreme Court case. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Penn, Central and Transportation, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “united States Supreme Court case” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16983448. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1978, 1965 and 1963.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.