THE first Pennsylvania Station, which allowed passenger trains to arrive in NYC from across the Hudson and East Rivers, opened to the public in 1910. Prior to that, passengers needed to take ferries from locations such as Hoboken, Jersey City, Long Island City and other locations. The original Penn, designed by McKim, Mead and White, was a cavernous edifice, perhaps overbuilt and hard to maintain, but was nonetheless shamefully demolished in the mid-1960s to make way for #2 Penn Plaza and the current Madison Square Garden, with train service relegated to the basement.
Various plans and schemes have been put forward to make Penn Station more inviting over the years; a current plan proposed by Governor Kathy Hochul would vastly overhaul the station and would largely be paid for by real estate developers, who would erect a flock of “supertall” mixed-use residential/office buildings surrounding it. I hope this plan is either scrapped or severely modified before it’s approved. Its proponents maintain that the century-old buildings in Penn’s immediate vicinity are not equipped technologically to handle modern electronic methods of doing business. However, it would mean the demolition of some landmarked structures on West 30th Street, such as the Church of St. John the Baptist.
Update: real-estate giant Vornado, which was to develop the towers, has decided to pause the plan mentioned above for now (3/10/2023).
The station itself was mostly a blank to me until about 1992. That year I began working in Port Washington, Long Island; however, I mostly caught LIRR trains at Woodside. Occasionally I would enter Penn and its Long Island RR terminal was then largely a dingy mess, with fans blowing around hot humid air in the summer. The LIRR concourse was overhauled in subsequent years with a major change being the introduction of air conditioning. That state of affairs lasted into 2020, when the newest renovation, approved by former governor Andrew Cuomo, began.
Probably the major new addition to the Penn LIRR concourse is the addition of escalators to the corner of 7th Avenue and West 33rd Street. Passengers have a glimpse of the Empire State Building, two blocks away, while ascending. The escalators are marked by maps of the NYC region on the sides. Unfortunately #2 Penn Plaza is also being overhauled and currently, and for the foreseeable future, you’re met by a thicket of construction scaffolds when you arrive on 7th Avenue.
This is also the only bit of sunlight available at Penn Station, as the rest cannot admit sunlight as #2 Penn and Madison Square Garden still stand atop the station. MSG management is in negotiations with the city and state to possibly move, with destinations including Hudson Yards or the current location of the Pennsylvania Hotel, which is being demolished. MSG management would prefer to not move at all.
Ceilings have been raised to a full 18 feet and lighting on the concourse’s west end consists of hundreds of illuminated panels which can change color to celebrate various holidays, as many NYC buildings have lighting that can be changed: many were recently lit blue and yellow, colors of the Ukrainian flag, commemorating the one year anniversary of its resistance to Russian invasion.
One thing is certain in NYC: escalators will break and require servicing, as two of them here.
Looking west from 7th Avenue along the new corridor, which has nearly doubled in width from 30 feet to 57 feet.
Signage in the corridor appears in black, white and the NY State colors, dark blue and gold (orange is also a NY State color). This color scheme, and the new font used on the signage, has also been used in the new Moynihan Station between 8th and 9th Avenues.
The old LIRR concourse employed a “flippy board” with arriving and departing trains which was later modified with LED signs; there is no large board anymore, but plenty of smaller boards placed on pillars such as this one. Note that each Long Island Rail Road line (Babylon, Ronkonkoma, Port Washington, etc.) has its own color.
Here we have elements of the first Penn Station (the brass railings) and the 1990s renovation, in the sculpture of Mercury, the Roman god of commerce and transportation. Many staircases to the tracks still feature brass railings first installed in 1910.
While the Central Corridor allowing admittance to Tracks 13-19, mostly used for LIRR trains, stays the same, the entrance has been given gold paneling and an MTA logo (At least the NY State motto, “Excelsior” isn’t plastered everywhere as it was in Moynihan Station and the 2nd Avenue subway stations; that may have been an Andrew Cuomo-ism.)
A look at new track indicators, which also have a gold framing. These indicator boards show destinations and times of departure.
In February, most businesses had yet to open along the LIRR corridor, but old favorites such as Rose’s Pizza are slated to return. I am hoping for shoeshine place Soleman to return. My Adidas never need shining, but I got all my belts there. Long ago, there was also a shop called Penn Books where I browsed every time I waited for a train and must have purchased dozens of books.
To me, the new corridor is …OK, but in a bland 2020s way. I imagine things will liven up once the shops open along the corridor.
At 8th Avenue is the entrance to the IND subway and further in, Moynihan Train Hall. The subway entrance has been left mostly untouched and provided quite a contrast to the new, streamlined Penn Station LIRR corridor. The Moynihan connection is under-signed and poorly lit. There doesn’t seem to be a more direct method of getting to the Moynihan, which has become somewhat busier now that its food hall and some shops such as Walgreen’s have opened.
I do plan on investigating Grand Central Madison, the new “East Side Access” for the LIRR when i am able, so watch this space.
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2/25/23