Moynihan Train Hall, Pennsylvania Station, NYC, 2021.
All of the pixels, none of the delays, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51205135362
#photography
Moynihan Train Hall, Pennsylvania Station, NYC, 2021.
All of the pixels, none of the delays, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51205135362
#photography
Moynihan Hall occupies part of what had been New York’s main post office building, a block west of the original Penn Station. It was situated over the tracks, with access to platforms, to facilitate Railway Post Office mail delivery, which was common into the 1970’s. After the post office moved its sorting operations elsewhere, it was relatively straightforward to repurpose it as an extension of the adjacent railroad station, which is why it only took the better part of 50 years.
Adding the Moynihan Hall was a welcome improvement to Penn Station, but didn’t address the main problem, which is insufficient capacity for the number of trains that run through it. There aren’t enough tracks, the platforms are too narrow, and the tunnels entering and leaving the station have too limited capacity. These more fundamental constraints will be much harder to solve, because the underground area around the station is already heavily crowded.