Amtrak riders get new station
Come Jan. 1, Amtrak passengers in New York City can come out from the basement that has served as Penn Station since the building was knocked down in the 1960s. A project to convert the former James A. Farley Post Office building is nearing completion, and Amtrak said it would open Jan. 1.
The Moynihan Train Hall, as the new space is being called, honors the late U.S. senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who for decades pushed for a replacement to the Penn Station building, the demolition of which is now considered a colossal mistake.
The new hall will accommodate waiting passengers under a “sky lit atrium” in Amtrak’s words.
After the original Penn Station was knocked down, Madison Square Garden was built atop the underground train concourse and platforms. When the Farley building across the street became available, passenger rail advocates and elected officials, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, agreed that it
could be the new “head house,” the structure that sits atop or adjacent to the railroad tracks, providing a place for passengers to wait.
The Farley building, like the original Penn Station across the street, was designed by architects Mckim, Mead & White, with both built in the beaux-arts style popular at the beginning of the 20th century.
Passengers on Amtrak’s Empire Corridor to Albany and beyond may appreciate the new amenities.
With Penn Station Amtrak’s busiest station and Albany its ninth-busiest, the Empire Corridor’s Hudson Valley section is one of the busiest on the Amtrak system.
A newly designed Metropolitan Lounge will accommodate first-class passengers. Wi-fi will be available throughout the station.
The expansion will make train-waiting more pleasant, but it won’t ease the crunch on the platforms below.
While the number of tracks serving the station has remained constant since its opening in 1910, traffic had grown to 1,300 trains a day before the pandemic.
Cuomo has announced plans to expand track capacity by 40 percent, although completion of that project is still some time in the future, as is the construction of new tunnels under the Hudson River to New Jersey, a key link in the busy Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, the Farley/moynihan project also includes 740,000 square feet of office space, almost all of which Facebook has leased, filling the building.