After decades of planning, Penn Station’s Moynihan Train Hall is open to the public in New York City.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who oversaw the project’s completion, cut a ribbon revealing the 255,000-square-foot hub to the public in a ceremony on New Year’s Day.
Penn Station and Moynihan Train Hall, which will service Amtrak and LIRR as well as some limited New Jersey Transit lines, will operate as a single complex. According to Amtrak’s website, “Amtrak customers will be directed to use Moynihan Train Hall as Amtrak’s ‘front door’ for boarding trains although access to and from Amtrak trains will always be maintained through New York Penn station.”
The $1.6 billion project was nearly 30 years in the making. The idea of converting the century-old James A. Farley Post Office into a transit hub was originally conceived by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose name the station bears. The new train hall boasts several modern features including an open, spacious concourse and a 92-foot-high skylight.
“Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a man of true vision. He saw the potential in an underutilized post office and knew that if done correctly, this facility could not only give New York the transit hub it has long deserved, but serve as a monument to the public itself,” Cuomo said in a press release. “We built this as a statement of who we are, and who we aspire to be. Is it grand? Yes. Is it bold? Yes, because that is the spirit of New York and that is the statement we want to make to our visitors, to our children and to future generations.”
The governor celebrated the opening as a triumph for transit during a year when the travel industry was ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The completion of this gorgeous new train hall would be a special accomplishment at any time, but it’s an extraordinary accomplishment today because we’re at a place where no one ever envisioned being,” he said. “This has been a traumatic year, both individually and collectively, and the question facing us has been, how do we respond?”
Several New York-area elected officials praised the unveiling. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lauded the opening, saying the new train hall will prove significant both architecturally and industrially.
“After decades of work, today we pop the New Year’s cork early to celebrate the opening of the gorgeous Moynihan Train Hall — a grand, skylit, modern transit portal for LIRR and Amtrak riders that will leave the Penn Station of the past in the dust,” he said, adding that the station represents “the mass transit infrastructure needed to supercharge New York’s growth and preeminence for another century.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler called the Moynihan Train Hall a “significant addition to our city’s infrastructure and a worthy initiative that helps preserve the legacy of the late Senator Moynihan.”
Amtrak, the passenger railroad service the commuter trains of which will now pass through the new travel hub, also praised the project’s completion. Amtrak President Stephen Gardner offered his own accolades, specifically noting the expected additions of shops and restaurants in the fall of 2021.
“This is where we want passengers to be,” he said.
