The McKim, Mead and White architectural firm designed the enormous James Farley post office, which opened in 1913, as a companion to Pennsylvania Station, just across 8th Avenue-which it has also designed. Though Penn Station existed just 54 years (1910-1964) its complimentary building across 8th Avenue, the United States General Post Office, known as the James Farley Building since 1982, has had rather more staying power. Overnights from 1 to 5 AM, Night Owl Northeast Corridor Amtrak trains serving points between Washington, DC and Boston will also board from here, as the new Moynihan will shutter during those hours. Until Januthe boarding and ticketing area for Amtrak, its space will be given over to New Jersey Transit, which already had a fairly large space further south-meaning that NJT will have the most real estate within Penn. To get to the Moynihan I walked through the heart of Penn Station, actually the basement level at #2 Penn Plaza, through the “big board” area. This is the LIRR corridor in early 2021, with construction support girders making it ever more nightmarish for claustrophobes. The Moynihan gives Amtrak a shiny new renovated building New Jersey Transit gets Amtrak’s space under the big board at Penn but here, the LIRR will stay. All this, as a noted philosopher might put it, is so much maquillage on a suine. I don’t know what will happen to such corridor favorites as Rose Pizza and Soleman, but hopefully they will be allowed to return they’re being forced out while construction is under way. Ultimately that corridor will be widened from 30 to 57 feet and the ceiling raised to 18 feet. Note that the King of All Buildings can be seen up the tubular escalator shaft. Untapped Cities has renderings of what this project will look like when it is completed in 2022. This is part of a greater project that will transform the Penn Station entrances on 7th and revamp the corridor beneath 33rd Street that primarily serves Long Island Rail Road trains, which most often use Tracks 16-21. The Moynihan was carved out of the former General Post Office, which takes up two city blocks between 8th and 9th Avenues and West 31st and 33rd Streets.įirst, I was surprised to see that the MTA has already cut the ribbon on its new East End Gateway Penn Station entrance at 7th Avenue and West 33rd. (The Oculus was borne from several grand transit ideas that would have extended LIRR trains to the WTC by extending the Brooklyn branch west across the East River, but those have not been realized.) Moynihan Train Hall, discussed on this page. The next big ticket items, on line sometime this decade, will be East Side Access admitting LIRR trains into Grand Central Terminal as well as a complementary project in which Metro North trains will enter tracks under Penn Station and the new Daniel P. Oculusīoth the MTA and Port Authority have been busy lately with new stationhouses and even the occasional subway extension, building the 2nd Avenue line extending the #7 Flushing Line west and south to 11th Avenue and West 34th rebuilding several stations along the 4th Avenue and Astoria Lines constructing the Fulton Transit Hub and the massive new Santiago Calatrava-designed Oculus at the World Trade Center serving PATH trains. I wanted to check out a brand new MTA facility. I then rode the new subway, which actually until further notice is a northern extension of the Broadway Line (Q train) up 2nd Avenue to 96th Street. On JanuI resolved to do exactly what I had done 4 years earlier in 2017, when I visited the four new Second Avenue Subway stations, walking between each.
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