Pennsylvania Station Excavation

A vast construction pit stretches across the foreground, its icy surface and rising steam creating an eerie contrast with the glowing sky above. Dark building silhouettes loom at the edge of the site, while small workers gather near the machinery, dwarfed by the scale of the project. Bellows paints the scene with dramatic shifts of light, showing how a moment of progress can feel both hopeful and unsettling.

The excavation for Pennsylvania Station was one of the largest urban undertakings of its time, cutting deep into the fabric of New York. Bellows captures the magnitude of this transformation, focusing not on the future building but on the raw, exposed earth that came before it. The painting reflects the tension between ambition and disruption, and how the drive to modernize often leaves behind landscapes that feel temporarily wild. Even in the middle of the city, the ground seems ancient again, waiting for its next shape.