THE INTERNATIONAL DARKSKY SHRINE 
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 John Pazmino 
 NYSkies Astronomy Inc
nyskies@nyskies.org
 www.nyskies.org
 1996 October 3

    The international darksky shrine opened for business on Tuesday 1 
October 1996 in New York. On its first day it served about 18,000 
visitors. The shrine, occupying 3-1/2 metric acres of floor space, is 
housed in the Penn Plaza tower on the north side of Penn Station. The 
official inauguration ceremony was held on Wednesday 2 October 1996. 
    the shrine took six months to build, plus some preliminary work done 
in summer 1995. A second shrine, of even larger floor area, is under 
construction two kilometers to the south, in Cooper Square, to open by 
Christmas of 1996. 
    the shrine is actually a new outlet of K-Mart, the Troy, Michigan, 
discount retail chain. The Penn Plaza unit is the second largest K-
Mart in the world when it opened. However, it will fall to third 
place, eclipsed by the unit in Cooper Square, which fills four metric 
acres of floor. 
    when plans were announced in winter 1994-1995 darksky advocates 
gasped. At first they believed the territory around this new K-Mart 
would turn into  killing fields for the stars, like around K-Marts all 
across the nation. 
    stargazers regard their own K-Marts as curses against their hobby. 
These K-Marts routinely slaughter hundreds and even thousands of stars 
above them with glaring headsigns, carparks, access roads, and 
landscaping. 
    When the plans were more closely examined, stargazers fell on 
their knees and cried. This K-Mart is totally star friendly and will 
in fact cause essentially no harm to the starry skies above it. It has 
just about no exterior lights at all! It has a modest headsign but two 
meters tall, softly glowing at night. The entries are lit by embedded 
lamps fully blocked from overhead view. The forecourt is lit by broad-
capped lamppoles. 
    The new K-Mart has absolutely no carparks at all! Well, then just 
how do the thousands of daily shoppers arrive? They come on foot or by 
transit. 
    They do not throw smoke, fumes, gases, light into the sky from 
cars. They do not squander land for parking or driving. They do not 
demand trashlit roads. 
    The Penn Plaza store is plugged directly into eight lanes of 
transit flanking it on the east and west. In fact, its true main 
entrance is inside of Penn Station with Amtrak, NJTransit, and Long 
Island RR. It is a block away from an additional ten lanes of transit 
in Herald Square and several buses routes flow around ii on three 
sides. 
    If this is not enough, the new K-Mart is the first in the chain 
not to sell 'Trashco' telescopes! Thanks to extensive consultations 
with civic groups in the planning stages, including the Association, 
this department store does not carry 'department store' telescopes. 
    It from this sheer and utter paradigmatic discontinuity between 
the other K-Marts and the new one in the City that immediately earned 
the Penn Plaza unit the distinction of 'shrine' for the cause of 
darkskies