Pennsylvania Station (New York City) Totally Explained

Everything about Pennsylvania Station New York City totally explained

Pennsylvania Station (commonly known as "Penn Station") is the major intercity rail station and a major commuter rail hub in New York City. The station is located in the underground levels of Pennsylvania Plaza, an urban complex at 8th Avenue and 31st Street in Midtown Manhattan, and is owned by Amtrak. Serving 600,000 passengers a day (compared to 140,000 across town at Grand Central Terminal) at a rate of up to a thousand every 90 seconds, it's the busiest passenger transportation facility in the United States and by far the busiest train station in North America.
Penn Station is at the center of the Northeast Corridor, an electrified passenger rail line extending south to Washington, D.C. and north to Boston. Intercity trains are operated by Amtrak, while commuter rail services are operated by the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit. The station is also connected to six New York City Subway lines.
Penn Station is the busiest Amtrak station in the United States. The station saw 4.3 million Amtrak boardings in 2004, more than double the traffic at the next busiest station, Union Station in Washington, D.C. Penn Station's assigned IATA airport code is ZYP. Its Amtrak and NJ Transit station code is NYP.

Services

Amtrak

Acela Express to Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington
Adirondack to Montréal
Cardinal to Philadelphia, Washington, Cincinnati, and Chicago
Carolinian to Philadelphia, Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, and Charlotte
Crescent to Philadelphia, Washington, Greensboro, Atlanta, and New Orleans
Empire Service to Yonkers, Croton-Harmon, Poughkeepsie, Rhinecliff, Hudson, Albany, Schenectady, Amsterdam, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls
Ethan Allen Express to Albany and Rutland
Keystone Service to Philadelphia, Lancaster, and Harrisburg
Lake Shore Limited to Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago
Maple Leaf to Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Toronto
Pennsylvanian to Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh
Northeast Regional to Boston, Providence, New Haven, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, and Newport News
Palmetto, Silver Meteor and Silver Star to Philadelphia, Washington, Savannah, Jacksonville, and Miami
Vermonter to New Haven, Springfield, and St. Albans

MTA

Long Island Rail Road (to Woodside Station and points east)

New York City Subway

From Penn Station:
- at 34th Street–Penn Station (IND Eighth Avenue Line)
- at 34th Street–Penn Station (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line)
From Herald Square, one block east at Sixth Avenue:
- at 34th Street–Herald Square (BMT Broadway Line)
- at 34th Street–Herald Square (IND Sixth Avenue Line)

New York City Transit buses:

M10: To West 159th Street/Harlem River Drive, Harlem via Central Park West
M16: To Port Authority Bus Terminal, Hell's Kitchen via Eighth Avenue or Waterside Plaza, Kips Bay via 34th Street
M20: To Lincoln Center via Eighth Avenue or Battery Park City via Seventh Avenue
M34: To Jacob K. Javits Convention Center or FDR Drive via 34th Street
Q32: To Jackson Heights, Queens via Madison Avenue, Queensboro Bridge and Roosevelt Avenue

New Jersey Transit

Montclair-Boonton Line to Secaucus Junction, Newark (Broad Street) and Montclair State University, with connecting service to Boonton, Dover and Hackettstown

Morris and Essex Lines to Secaucus Junction, Newark (Broad Street), Summit, Morristown/Dover and Gladstone

Northeast Corridor Line to Secaucus Junction, Newark (Penn Station), Newark Airport, New Brunswick, Princeton Junction, and Trenton (connects to SEPTA trains bound for Philadelphia, and Trenton is across the street from River Line light rail that goes to Camden, New Jersey)

North Jersey Coast Line to Secaucus Junction, Newark (Penn Station), Newark Airport, Perth Amboy, and Long Branch, with connecting service to Point Pleasant Beach and Bay Head Passengers can transfer at Secaucus Junction to Main Line, Bergen County Line, and Pascack Valley Line trains.
Passengers can transfer at Newark (Penn Station) to Raritan Valley Line trains.

PATH

Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) service to Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey doesn't technically serve Penn Station, but is located only a block away, at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue. It was once accessible via underground passageway, but this has been closed to the public for security reasons, and now the only access is via the surface streets.

History

Pennsylvania Station is named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original tenant, and shares its name with several stations in other cities. The current facility is the substantially remodeled underground remnant of a much grander structure designed by McKim, Mead, and White and completed in 1910. The original Pennsylvania Station was an outstanding masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the architectural jewels of New York City. The above-ground portion of the original structure was demolished in 1964 and replaced by the present Pennsylvania Plaza complex, including the fourth and current Madison Square Garden.

Planning and construction

Until the early 20th century, PRR's rail network terminated on the western side of the Hudson River at Exchange Place in Jersey City, New Jersey. Manhattan-bound passengers boarded ferries to cross the Hudson River for the final stretch of their journey. The rival New York Central Railroad's line ran down Manhattan from the north under Park Avenue and terminated at Grand Central Terminal in the heart of Manhattan's business district.
   To address its competitive disadvantage, the Pennsylvania Railroad considered building a rail bridge across the Hudson. This option was rejected when the other railroads using ferries across the Hudson River from New Jersey declined to participate jointly in a bridge project, which was required to obtain state approval. The alternative was to tunnel under the river, but a tunnel's length would be difficult to ventilate and too long to be compatible with steam locomotives. Moreover, the New York state legislature had adopted legislation prohibiting operation of steam locomotives in Manhattan after July 1, 1908. The development of the electric locomotive at the turn of the 20th century, however, made feasible the construction of a tunnel for an electrified railroad. On December 12, 1901, PRR president Alexander Cassatt announced the railroad's plan to enter New York City by tunneling under the Hudson and building a grand station on the West Side of Manhattan, south of 34th Street.
   Beginning in June, 1903 the North River Tunnels, two single-track tunnels, were bored from the west under the Hudson River and four single-track tunnels were bored from the east under the East River. This second set of tunnels linked the new station to Queens and the Long Island Rail Road, which came under PRR control (see East River Tunnels), and Sunnyside Yard in Queens, where trains would be maintained and assembled. Electrification was initially 600 volts DC–third rail, later changed to 11,000 volts AC–overhead catenary, when electrification of PRR's mainline was eventually extended to Washington, D. C. in the early 1930s.
   The railroad paid tribute to Cassatt, who didn't live to see the completion of his great edifice: —Inscription on statue of Alexander Cassatt in Pennsylvania Station (1910) In her 2007 book, Conquering Gotham: a Gilded Age Epic – The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels, historian Jill Jonnes called the original edifice a "great Doric temple to transportation".
   During the more than half-century timespan of the original station under owner Pennsylvania Railroad (1910-1964), hundreds of intercity passenger trains arrived and departed daily, serving distant places such as Chicago and St. Louis on "Pennsy" rails, and beyond on connecting railroads to Miami, Florida, and the west. In addition to the Long Island Rail Road, other lines using Pennsylvania Station during that era were the New Haven and the Lehigh Valley Railroads. For a few years during World War I and the early 1920s, arch rival Baltimore and Ohio Railroad passenger trains to Washington, Chicago, and St. Louis also used Pennsylvania Station, initially by order of the USRA, until the Pennsylvania Railroad terminated the B&O's access in 1926. The station saw its heaviest usage during World War II, but by the late-1950s intercity rail passenger volumes declined dramatically with the coming of the Jet Age and the Interstate Highway System.
   The demolition of the original structure — although considered by some to be justified as progressive at a time of declining rail passenger service — created international outrage. Its destruction left a deep and lasting wound in the architectural consciousness of the city. A famous photograph of a smashed caryatid in the landfill of the New Jersey Meadowlands struck a guilty chord. Pennsylvania Station's demolition is considered to have been the catalyst for the enactment of the city's first architectural preservation statutes. The sculpture on the building, including the angel in the landfill, was created by Adolph Alexander Weinman. One of the sculpted clock surrounds, whose figures were modeled using model Audrey Munson, still survives as the Eagle Scout Memorial Fountain in Kansas City, Missouri. There is also a caryatid at the sculpture garden at the Brooklyn Museum, and all of the Penn Station eagles still exist.
   Charles McKim may have doomed his own structure by not allowing Alexander Cassatt to include multi-story office buildings as part of the Penn Station complex. By the 1960s, the air rights of Penn Station were too valuable to be left idle. If there had been office space, the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was losing money at the time, would have had one less incentive to tear down the beautiful building. McKim opposed high rises because he considered them anti-urban.
   Ottawa's Union Station, built a year after Penn Station (in 1912), is another replica of the Baths of Caracalla. This train station's departures hall now provides a good idea of what the interior of Penn Station looked like (at half the scale). Chicago's Union Station is similar as well. Image:Penn_Station2.jpg|The concourse and steps down to the tracks Image:NYP_LOC1.jpg|The Corinthian columns of the Main Waiting Room Image:NYP_LOC2.jpg|The concourse in 1962 Image:NYP_LOC3.jpg|The East (7th Ave.) exterior facade

Demolition

After a renovation covered some of the grand columns with plastic and blocked off the spacious central hallway with a new ticket office, Lewis Mumford wrote critically in The New Yorker in 1958 that "nothing further that could be done to the station could damage it". History was to prove him wrong. Under the presidency of Pennsylvania Railroad's Stuart T. Saunders (who later headed ill-fated Penn Central Transportation), the above-ground components of this structure (the platforms are below street level) were demolished in 1964. Although the demolition didn't disrupt the essential day-to-day operations, it made way for present-day Madison Square Garden, along with two office towers. A 1968 advertisement depicted the architect's model of the final plan for the Madison Square Garden Center complex, which would replace the original Pennsylvania Station. A point made in the defense of the demolition of the old Penn Station at the time was that the cost of maintaining the old structure had become prohibitively expensive. The citizens of New York City were unwilling to shoulder the costs of maintaining and cleaning their beloved station. The question of whether it made sense to preserve a building, intended to be a cost-effective and functional piece of the city's infrastructure, simply as a "monument" to the past was raised in defense of the plans to demolish it. As a New York Times editorial critical of the demolition noted at the time, a "civilization gets what it wants, is willing to pay for, and ultimately deserves". Modern architects rushed to save the ornate building, although it was contrary to their own styles. They called the station a treasure and chanted "Don't Amputate - Renovate" at rallies.
   Only three eagles salvaged from the station are known to remain in New York City: two in front of the Penn Plaza / Madison Square Garden complex, and one in the courtyard of the School of Engineering at The Cooper Union. Three are on Long Island: two at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point and one at the Long Island Rail Road station in Hicksville, New York. Four reside on the Market Street Bridge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, across from that city's 30th Street Station. One is positioned near the end zone at the football field of Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville, Virginia. Yet another is located on the grounds of the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
   The furor over the demolition of such a well-known landmark, and its replacement by what continues to be widely deplored as a mediocre slab, are often cited as catalysts for the architectural preservation movement in the United States. New laws were passed to restrict such demolition. Within the decade, Grand Central Terminal was protected under the city's new landmarks preservation act — a protection which was upheld by the courts in 1978, after a challenge by Grand Central's owner, Penn Central.
   The outcry over the loss of Penn Station prompted activists to question the "development scheme" mentality cultivated by New York's "master builder", Robert Moses. Public protests and a rejection of his plan by the city government meant an end to Moses' plans for a Lower Manhattan Expressway.
   In the longer run, the sense that something irreplaceable had been lost contributed to the erosion of confidence in Modernism itself and its sweeping forms of urban renewal. Interest in historic preservation was strengthened. Comparing the new and the old Penn Station, renowned Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully once wrote, "One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat." This feeling, shared by many New Yorkers, has led to movements for a new Penn Station that could somehow atone for the loss of an architectural treasure.

Future

In the 1990s, the current Pennsylvania Station was renovated by Amtrak, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and New Jersey Transit, to improve the appearance of the waiting and concession areas, sharpen the station information systems (audio and visual) and remove much of the grime. Recalling the erstwhile grandeur of the bygone Penn Station, an old four-sided clock from the original depot was installed at the 34th Street Long Island Rail Road entrance. The walkway from that entrance's escalator also has a mural depicting elements of the old Penn Station's architecture.
   Despite the improvements, Penn Station continues to be criticized as a low-ceilinged "catacomb" lacking charm, especially when compared to New York's much larger and ornate Grand Central Terminal. The New York Times, in a November 2007, editorial supporting development of an enlarged railroad terminal, said, "Amtrak's beleaguered customers...now scurry through underground rooms bereft of light or character". Hope for a grander railroad station lies one block west. Across Eighth Avenue from Penn Station sits New York's General Post Office, the James Farley Post Office. Under pressure from veteran U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, plans were publicized in 1999 to move entrances and concourses of Penn Station under this building, which fills an entire city block. When completed, the station inside the historic James A. Farley Building, a NY State and National Landmark, would be named Moynihan Station West, in honor of the late Senator..
   Initial design proposals were laid out by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. In a protracted series of events typical of many large, complicated projects, plans to redevelop Penn Station have stretched further and further into the future. In July 2005, announcements were made that Childs' plan had been scrapped and a new one was unveiled. This second plan was similar to but much more modest than the original. It is the result of a collaboration between the architectural firms of James Carpenter and Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK). Later in 2005, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill reacquired the project and released a third design, which is a compromise. As of June 2006, the design resembles the interior of BCE Place and doesn't require the demolition of part of the facade of the Farley Building.
   Amtrak was to be the major tenant of the new building, leaving the old station for use by the local commuter passengers. Signs of construction appeared in November 2005, with plywood barriers installed on the sidewalks and orange nets covering main facade on 8th Avenue.Amtrak, however, subsequently decided not to move from its present location, leaving New Jersey Transit as the Moynihan Station's anchor tenant. NJ Transit has been negotiating a 99-year lease on the Farley Post Office . In the meantime, Cablevision, owner of Madison Square Garden, considered relocation of the Garden to the west flank of the Farley Building. Such a project would lead to Vornado Realty Trust building an office complex on the current Garden site. .
   Redevelopment of Penn Station thus continues to languish as various design concepts are debated and altered. A revised version proposed in 2007 would reportedly add one million square feet of retail space to the new Moynihan train station and office complex, prompting the New York Times to complain that this latest plan "could easily shortchange the public's interests in favor of the private developers...The last thing New York needs is another dreadful Pennsylvania Station that only serves developers and Madison Square Garden".
   A FAQ for New Jersey Transit's "THE tunnel/ Access to the Region's Core" suggests that Pennsylvania Station, Moynihan Station, and a proposed rail station under 34th street will be considered to be separate entities (External Link

). The proximity and connection of those entities would make the Moynihan and 34th St. Stations de facto expansions of Penn Station. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's daughter, Maura Moynihan, has stated that she considers the Farley Building and current Madison Square Garden to be potential sites for two Moynihan Stations: a Moynihan-East and a Moynihan-West. (External Link

).
On April 3, 2008 Madison Square Garden executives announced plans to renovate and modernize the current arena in time for the Knicks and Rangers 2011-12 seasons. This announcement came a week after they declared that they've abandoned plans to move the Garden to the Farley Post Office site. Hank J. Ratner, the vice chairman of Madison Square Garden said, “We’re all for the development of Moynihan Station at the Farley building, as the project was originally conceived. We’re not going to be moving.” Image:Penn Station LIRR concourse.jpg|Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) underground concourse Image:Penn Station.jpg|A normal rush hour crowd heading to an LIRR train Image:NY Penn Station platform.jpg|New Jersey Transit platform Image:073.JPG|Rush hour at the New Jersey Transit terminal Image:Penn Station entrance.jpg|8th Avenue entrance Further Information

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