New York City's Much-Hated Penn Station is Getting a Makeover
And it's opening before the end of the decade.
Penn Station, the New York City building that taste forgot, is getting renovated. Long-loathed by many who’ve had to tolerate pee smells while sweating in a windowless underground maze, Penn Station could soon transform into a world-class venue.
The James A. Farley post office will be transformed into a new train hall, the Long Island Rail Road’s 33rd Street concourse will undergo a major redesign, and the subway station will receive an “extensive renovation.”
“This is not a plan — this is what’s going to happen,” Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, said in a speech on Tuesday. “People are going to walk through this station and recognize that this is New York.”
Opened in 1910, Penn Station has existed in its current, soulless iteration since the sixties. When the original building was demolished to make way for a new underground layout, locals lamented the loss of a once-grand landmark. “One entered the city like a god,” architectural historian Vincent Sculley said of the original building. “One scuttles in now like a rat.”
It’s long been the butt of many jokes on New York-focused comedies. It’s been the subject of folk songs, podcasts, and even lead to a breakup on Broad City.
Dealbreaker no more. Cuomo’s vision will create a new Moynihan train hall, covering both Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road ticketing, alongside 112,000 square feet of retail space.
A new Long Island Rail Road corridor will link the new train hall to the tracks. Look at how excited and full of life these pre-rendered people are!
The redesign ends 20 years of speculation around whether the station would ever be renovated. Cuomo has said that the train hall will be ready for passengers by December 2020. It’s a bold timetable, and these renderings will do nothing to dampen expectations. This one has people choosing to hang out in Penn Station:
Watch Cuomo announce the redesign here:
