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travel news
Amtrak New York City (finally) gets a new home
The Moynihan Train Hall opened January 1
Put this on your travel radar for when
it’s safe to travel again. There’s a new,
modern experience for the busiest train
station in the western hemisphere,
Penn Station. And if you still have
trauma from past experiences there,
this may help you feel better.
First, some background. If you ever
needed to take a train into or out of
New York City via Amtrak, you remember
the cramped, low-ceilinged cluster
mess that was the train station there. It
wreaked of out of date design and was
generally miserable to use.
If you did use it and your train was
announced, you joined a massive crush
of humanity to a solo escalator down
to the track and the train, swearing
Avenue in the historic James A. Farley
Post Office Building. Amtrak partnered
with Empire State Development (State
of New York), to expand its services
into the new Moynihan Train Hall to
improve passenger comfort and security.
Amenities have greatly improved
on the prior space’s shortcomings and
include a spacious train hall featuring a
sky lit atrium. There are also dedicated
customer waiting areas, a combined
ticketing and baggage area, better security,
accessibility for customers with
disabilities and complimentary WiFi in
all customer spaces.
The Moynihan Train Hall has a Metropolitan
Lounge (formerly ClubAcela),
a premium lounge space providing
you’d never go through this harrowing
and miserable experience again. And
forget about using the bathrooms. I’ll
just leave that there, not wanting to
stir up any more bad experiences.
First, here’s a short summary for
those maybe not that familiar with
why a city like New York has a train
station that looks like a bus station
designed by the folks who created the
ugly scene of Times Square in the seventies
(think “Midnight Cowboy”).
The current facility is the remodeled
underground remnant of the original
Pennsylvania Station, also known
as New York Penn Station or simply
Penn Station, is the main intercity
railroad station in New York
City and the busiest in the Western
Hemisphere, serving more than 600,000
passengers per weekday as of 2019.
It’s located in Midtown Manhattan,
beneath Madison Square Garden in the
block bounded by Seventh and Eighth avenues,
and 31st and 33rd streets, with
additional exits to nearby streets. It’s
near Herald Square, the Empire State
Building and Macy’s Herald Square.
Penn Station has 21 tracks fed by
seven tunnels (the two North River Tunnels,
the four East River Tunnels, and
the single Empire Connection tunnel).
It is at the center of the Northeast Corridor,
a passenger rail line that connects
Pennsylvania Station, an ornate building
designed by McKim, Mead, and
White and considered a masterpiece of
the Beaux-Arts style
Completed in 1910, it enabled direct
rail access to New York City from the
south for the first time. The above
ground station was torn down in 1963,
something preservationists still lament.
The rest of the station was rebuilt in
the following six years, while retaining
most of the rail infrastructure from the
original station.
Not to be confused with the much
larger and more ornate Grand Central
Terminal, The New York Times, in a
November 2007 editorial supporting
development of an enlarged terminal,
said that “Amtrak’s beleaguered customers...scurry
through underground
rooms bereft of light or character,”
and Times transit reporter Michael
M. Grynbaum called Penn Station “the
ugly stepchild of the city’s two great
rail terminals.”
The new and now open Moynihan
Train Hall is located directly across
from New York Penn Station at 8th
About Penn Station
New York City with Boston, Philadelphia,
Washington, D.C., and intermediate
points. Intercity trains are operated
by Amtrak, which owns the station,
while commuter rail services are operated
by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)
travelers with perks including: priority
boarding, expanded food and beverage
offerings, family waiting area,
dedicated customer service agents and
private restrooms.
Moynihan Train Hall is open to the
public daily from 5 a.m. through 1 a.m.
Between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., all Amtrak
operations will be handled at New York
Penn Station, including baggage, Red
Cap services, access and egress to platform
in case you’re wandering about
at that hour. Find out more at https://
www.amtrak.com/home.
and NJ Transit (NJT). Connections
are available within the complex to
the New York City Subway, and buses.
Penn Station is named for the Pennsylvania
Railroad (PRR), its builder and
original owner, and shares its name with
several stations in other cities. A new direct
entrance from 33rd Street to the LIRR
concourse opened in December 2020,
and Moynihan Train Hall, an expansion
of Penn Station into a mixed-use redevelopment
of the adjacent Farley Post Office
building, opened in January 2021.
Future plans for Penn Station include
the construction of additional railway
platforms in a new southern annex to
accommodate two proposed Gateway
Program tunnels across the Hudson
River, as well as further expansion of
the LIRR concourse.
20 WEST COAST WOMAN FEBRUARY 2021