The tall windscreen designed for Penn Station comprises sixty slabs of steel, each 10 feet high, about 12 inches wide, and ½ inch thick. The designs cut into the metal edges of each slab are unique and give a rhythmic flow across the wide-open space leading from the train station toward St. Paul Street, framing the northern perimeter of a small parking lot beside the station and acting as a barrier fence for the railroad tracks below. The slabs stand at a slight angle to the low wall to which they are attached and are silhouetted against the sky. For his sculpture, William Leizman always used Mayari-R steel, which for years was made at the nearby Bethlehem Steel Company. Like Cor-Ten, Mayari-R steel is a weathering steel that cures beautifully, forming a rich brown velvety surface that can still be detected here.
Leizman went to the steel plant and supervised workmen as they flame-cut his designs into the steel slabs. After they were cut, each 300-pound slab was then bent using a 250-pound press. The pieces were then shipped to the site, and Leizman bolted them into place himself. The project took two years to complete. Originally sited on the west side of the train station, where it could be seen from N. Charles Street and where it welcomed travelers into a side door, the piece was relocated to the east side of the station during renovations in 2004.
Source: Kelly, Cindy, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore: A Historical Guide to Public Art in the Monumental City, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.