The new Moynihan Train Hall, unveiled by Governor Cuomo on Wednesday, is a landmark – a monumental waiting room for Amtrak and LIRR riders that can cut twice. Awarded a striking 92-foot skylight, it’s a vision from heaven for passengers traveling to Penn Underground Station, it’s the Western’s most hated place to catch a train.
The Hall, an airy donut hole in the James A. Farley Post Office building, is the centerpiece of a larger, $ 1.6 billion planned complex in the Farley Building between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets. It will eventually include a bunch of entrances, corridors between the avenue, subway connections, waiting areas, lounges, shops and restaurants. The Hall and Penn Station one block east, collectively called the Pennsylvania Station-Farley Complex, have 50 percent more space than the Penn section alone.
This comes after three decades of ever-changing plans since the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan first dreamed in the 1980s of a wonderful replacement for the original Penn Station, which was shamefully demolished in the 1960s. Cuomo deserves the honor of starting this year and going through the construction, despite COVID-19.
The train hall, which opens Friday, is supposed to reduce the congestion of rats at the rejected Penn station under Madison Square Garden, where 650,000 souls were crammed into a space built in the 1960s for just 250,000. LIRR riders may now board and depart at any of the facilities, while Amtrak users will only use the new train hall.
How well this works remains to be seen until the first, pandemic-ridden riders drop next week. But the Hall’s mighty roof is definitely a hit for the public.
The hall looks smaller at first glance than the versions suggested. It is also relatively commonplace, despite very expensive marble and wood – except for the large ceiling.
Three monumental steel knobs, remnants of the post office’s mailing room, divide the roof’s acorn glass into four “parabolic” safes, each containing 500 glass and steel panels with a web-like design.
It lets in more light than the skylight at the World Trade Center Oculus and the Fulton Transit Center. It is wonderful when the sun comes out and gives a golden glow to the whole hall.
But the unfinished annexes of the hall are a confusing maze of escalators, stairs, lounges and hallways. It’s hard to find the fastest way to Eighth Avenue, despite a sea of signs. If the old Penn Station kept ‘the sound of time’, as adoring writers call it, the Moynihan might like the sounds of people trying to figure out which direction there is.
Project architects SOM and politicians are doing the Moynihan a disservice by constantly comparing it to the impossible replication of the original Penn Station. Sorry, guys, it’s not even close, despite a superficial agreement. The Moynihan Hall should be enjoyed for what it is – less than a masterpiece, but an excellent example of ‘adaptive reuse’ architecture and a huge improvement over the Penn Station that we would all like to hate.