this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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Captured with the Rodenstock 23mm/5.6 HR-Digaron lens and the Phase One IQ4-150 XT camera. The 23mm Digaron is a sharp wide lens, but doesn't really have a large enough image circle to support extensive movements (which weren't required here). Taken from a balcony on the south side of the station.
The Moynihan Train Hall is a recently-opened annex (repurposed from the Post Office) to the otherwise dungeon-like remnants of the old Penn Station, buried under Madison Square Garden since 1963.
Many of the design elements of the new hall pay deliberate homage to the original, befittingly grand, Penn Station, including especially the prominently exposed steel beams.
There are no seats in the main hall, though there are smaller ticketed waiting areas to the side, as well as a substantial food court. The lack of a "big board" is deliberate, to discourage crowding in any particular area (there is instead a collection of smaller train status monitors spread throughout the hall).
The 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 will be much harder to solve, because the underground area around the station is already heavily crowded.