Under a high vaulted skylight and a huge Art Deco clock, Governor Andrew Cuomo formally opened the new Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station on Wednesday with a ceremonial – and socially distant – opening ceremony.
“This is a work of art that we don’t build anymore. It is very impressive and ambitious to ask, ‘Can we really do this?’ Many who doubted said it was very bold and audacious, but we said we could, ”said Cuomo at the ceremony. “This is a great public work. A different kind of statement that says that we understand and appreciate the importance of public works. “
Train operations at Moynihan Train Hall are scheduled to begin on January 1. The $ 1.6 billion project turns the century-old James A. Farley post office building into a transit hub, increasing the size of Penn Station by 50%.
A new train lobby inside the Moynihan Train Hall.
Jake Dobkin / Gothamist
Construction began in 2017 on the 255,000-square-foot train corridor, named after New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who has defended the project for years. The expansion plan was talked about for decades and ridiculed as a “taxpayer-financed shopping mall” that did little to serve the train service. In January, Cuomo unveiled a project to add eight new tracks and increase Penn Station’s capacity by 40% by purchasing an entire block south of the Midtown transit center for a new terminal.
An acre of glass was used for the huge skylight in the new hall, which was designed to evoke the grandeur of the Beaux Arts at the old Pennsylvania Station, according to architect Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
The corridor also makes use of its origins at the Farley post office, which was designed by McKim, Mead and White after designing the original Pennsylvania Station in 1910. The impressive steel trusses that make up the four vaults are original, where the postal police used to patrol to inspect the classification floor below. Art installations by Kehinde Wiley and Elmgreen & Dragset appear throughout the hall.
Hostile architecture also appears, with blue benches in waiting rooms designed to keep people asleep.
The new train corridor is located opposite Penn Station between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and Streets 31 and 33 West and connects to Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak platforms and tracks, as well as the subway. There will be a Starbucks:
This one @Starbucks, in the new Moynihan Train Hall, has at least 10 employees – but the store is not really open today and nothing can be bought. Workers, who are on call to show what an open Starbucks would look like, are leaving shortly after the governor’s event ends. pic.twitter.com/VqPOY5dxht
– Matthew Chayes (@chayesmatthew) December 30, 2020
Check back later for more photos and full coverage of Tuesday’s opening.
With Annie Todd and Jake Dobkin