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New York City's City Hall station saw its first subway train in 1904.
The station was a masterpiece of tile, glass, metal and light, with sculpted arches below the streets. It was part of a $34 million subway project.
It's hard to pin down a specific number for the station, but if you divide the total cost between the 28 stops, it tops $1.2 million as a rock-bottom figure. That would exceed $45 million today.
The station lasted 41 years before being decommissioned in 1945, a casualty of progress that could no longer accommodate newer trains.
Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity is just 19 years younger than that old subway station. It was born in 1924 as Longview Flying Field and underwent a series of name changes and upgrades before being named for Latrobe's golfing legend in 1999.
That was 27 years ago. While the airport is still open, it doesn't operate the way it once did. Spirit Airlines, the only passenger carrier that used Arnold Palmer Regional, abruptly closed nationwide in May. The move turned the airport into something close to a ghost town.
It didn't have to happen that way. Diversification and additional carriers could have kept passengers and other clients.
But even as Spirit operations were disappearing, construction continued. The airport was in the midst of a $22 million renovation project. Now it is all dressed up with no place to go.
Is the solution more money? How about $850,000?
Westmoreland County Airport Authority has obtained a Small Community Air Service Development grant to try lure another airline. Potential targets could be affordable carriers like Allegiant Air, Breeze Airways and Frontier Air -- similar to Spirit's operations.
All three are based in the western part of the country. All have a presence in Pennsylvania. The grant application identifies routes to Orlando, Fla., and Myrtle Beach, S.C. -- the same routes provided by Spirit and popular destinations for Westmoreland-area travelers.
Replacing Spirit is needed to revive the airport. To keep it off life support, more than one carrier (or other flight-related business) is necessary.
Aviation industry expert Michael Boyd thinks the grant will work as bait. But will it be enough?
"Wave $850,000 in front of them, and they'll try to make it work," Boyd said.
Does that mean another worm would be needed to hook a second carrier and prevent the same ghost-town situation from happening? Would the federal government provide more money, or would the authority have to find funds on its own?
In New York, the City Hall station remains frozen in time, allowing visitors to periodically tour the Romanesque Revival architecture and imagine the way people traveled a century ago.
Without a new carrier, how long will it be before Arnold Palmer Regional Airport is a $22 million renovated relic?