Pennsylvania Station, also known as New York Penn Station or simply Penn Station, is the main

intercity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...

railroad station in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and the busiest transportation facility in the Western Hemisphere, serving more than 600,000 passengers per weekday . It is located in Midtown Manhattan, beneath Madison Square Garden in the block bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets, and in the James A. Farley Building, with additional exits to nearby streets. It is close to Herald Square, the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and

Macy's Herald Square Macy's Herald Square (originally named the R. H. Macy and Company Store) is the flagship of Macy's department store, as well as the Macy's, Inc. corporate headquarters, on Herald Square in Manhattan, New York City. The building's , which incl ...

. Penn Station has 21 tracks fed by seven tunnels (the two North River Tunnels, the four East River Tunnels, and the single Empire Connection tunnel). It is at the center of the Northeast Corridor, a passenger rail line that connects New York City to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, Washington, D.C., and intermediate points. Intercity trains are operated by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

, which owns the station, while

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

services are operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and NJ Transit (NJT). Connections are available within the complex to the New York City Subway and buses. Penn Station is named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original owner, and shares its name with several stations in other cities. The current facility is the remodeled underground remnant of the original Pennsylvania Station, a more ornate station building designed by McKim, Mead, and White and considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style. Completed in 1910, it enabled direct rail access to New York City from the south for the first time. Its head house was torn down in 1963, galvanizing the modern

historic preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK), is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...

movement. The rest of the station was rebuilt in the following six years, while retaining most of the rail infrastructure from the original station. A new direct entrance from 33rd Street to the LIRR concourse opened in December 2020. Moynihan Train Hall, an expansion of Penn Station into a mixed-use redevelopment of the adjacent Farley Post Office building, opened in January 2021. Plans call for further expanding the LIRR concourse, adding railway platforms in a new southern annex to accommodate two proposed Gateway Program tunnels under the Hudson River, adding underground connections to the Herald Square station and with the PATH to the 33rd Street station, and renovating the core Penn Station under Madison Square Garden.

History

Planning and construction

Brooklyn Museum - Pennsylvania Station Excavation - George Wesley Bellows - overall

Until the early 20th century, the PRR's rail network terminated on the western side of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

(once known locally as the North 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 The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mi ...

's line ran down Manhattan from the north under Park Avenue and terminated at Grand Central Depot (later replaced by Grand Central Terminal) at 42nd Street. Many proposals for a cross-Hudson connection were advanced in the late 19th century, but financial panics in the 1870s and 1890s scared off potential investors. In any event, none of the proposals advanced during this time were considered feasible. An early proposal for a bridge was considered but rejected. The alternative was to tunnel under the river, but this was infeasible for

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

use. The development of the electric locomotive at the turn of the 20th century made a tunnel feasible. In 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. The station would sit in Manhattan's Tenderloin district, a historical red-light district known for its corruption and prostitution. Beginning in June 1903, the two single-track North River Tunnels were bored from the west under the Hudson River. A second set of four single-track tunnels, the East River Tunnels, were bored from the east under the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...

, linking the new station to

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, the PRR-owned Long Island Rail Road, and Sunnyside Yard in Queens, where trains would be maintained and assembled. Construction was completed on the Hudson River tunnels on October 9, 1906, and on the East River tunnels on March 18, 1908.

Original structure

Penn Station, Interior, Manhattan (NYPL b13668355-482562)

A small portion of Penn Station opened on September 8, 1910, in conjunction with the opening of the East River Tunnels, and LIRR riders gained direct railroad service to Manhattan. On November 27, 1910, Penn Station was fully opened to the public. With the station's full opening, the PRR became the only railroad to enter New York City from the south. During half a century of operation by the Pennsylvania Railroad (1910–1963), scores of intercity passenger trains arrived and departed daily to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and St. Louis on "Pennsy" rails and beyond on connecting railroads to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

and the west. Along with Long Island Rail Road trains, Penn Station saw trains of the

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

and the Lehigh Valley railroads. A side effect of the tunneling project was to open the city up to the suburbs, and within 10 years of opening, two-thirds of the daily passengers coming through Penn Station were commuters. The station put the Pennsylvania Railroad at comparative advantage to its competitors offering direct service from Manhattan to the west and south. Other railroads began their routes at terminals in

Weehawken Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located largely on the Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 17,197.

, Hoboken, Pavonia and Communipaw which required passengers from New York City to take the interstate Hudson Tubes (now PATH) or ferries across the Hudson River before boarding their trains. By 1945, at its peak, more than 100 million passengers a year traveled through Penn Station. By the late 1950s, intercity rail passenger volumes had declined dramatically with the coming of the Jet Age and the

Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. T ...

. The station's exterior had become somewhat grimy, and due to its vast scale, the station was expensive to maintain. A renovation covered some of the grand columns with plastic and blocked off the spacious central hallway with a new ticket office. The Pennsylvania Railroad optioned the air rights, which called for the demolition of the head house and train shed, to be replaced by an office complex and a new sports complex, while the tracks of the station would remain untouched. Plans for the new Penn Plaza and Madison Square Garden were announced in 1962. In exchange for the air rights to Penn Station, the PRR would receive a smaller underground station at no cost and a 25 percent stake in the new Madison Square Garden Complex. Modern architects rushed to save the ornate building, but to no avail; demolition of the above-ground head house began in October 1963. A giant steel deck was placed over the tracks and platforms to allow rail service to continue during construction. Photographs of the day showed passengers waiting for trains even as the head house was demolished around them. This was possible because most of the rail infrastructure (including the waiting room, concourses, and boarding platforms) was below street level."New York – Penn Station, NY (NYP)"
''Great American Stations Project''. 2013 Amtrak. Retrieved October 5, 2013 The demolition of the Penn Station head house was controversial and caused outrage internationally. "One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat," the architectural historian

Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (August 21, 1920 – November 30, 2017) was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Phi ...

famously wrote of the original station. The controversy over the demolition of such a well-known landmark, and its deplored replacement, is often cited as a catalyst 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 upheld by the courts in 1978 after a challenge by Grand Central's owner,

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and th ...

Under Madison Square Garden

Post-1968, the core Penn Station has been underground, sitting below Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street, and Two Penn Plaza. The core has three levels: concourses on the upper two levels and train platforms on the lowest. The two levels of concourses, while renovated and expanded during the construction of Madison Square Garden, are original to the 1910 station, as are the tracks and platforms. Over the following decades, renovation attempted to add service and some concourse space. The West End Concourse under Eighth Avenue opened in 1986. In 1987, a rail connection to the West Side Rail Yard opened, and in 1991, the opening of the Empire Connection allowed Amtrak to consolidate all of its New York City trains at Penn Station. Previously, all trains running along the Empire Corridor terminated at nearby Grand Central Terminal. This was a legacy of the two stations' roots in separate railroads–the PRR and New York Central, respectively. The consolidation saved Amtrak the expense of having to maintain two stations in New York City, including having to pay the MTA $600,000 in fees a year. In 1994, the station was renovated to add the 34th Street LIRR entrance and central corridor, along with artwork and improved waiting and concession areas. The new entrance consisted of a structure with a glass and brick facade, a clock salvaged from the original station, and air-conditioning units for the terminal. In 2002, the NJ Transit concourse was created in space previously occupied by retail and Amtrak office space, although the concourse could only be accessed from the Amtrak entrance on 32nd Street. Plans for a new entrance from 31st Street to the NJ Transit concourse were announced in 2006, and the entrance opened in 2009. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, security was increased and passenger flow curtailed. In 2002, $100 million of work added security features such as lighting, cameras, and barricades. The taxiway under Madison Square Garden, which ran from 31st Street to 33rd Street at mid-block, was permanently closed off with concrete Jersey barriers. Escalators providing direct access to the lobby of Madison Square Garden were closed and later removed. The underground

Gimbels Passageway Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the com ...

connecting pedestrians to 34th Street–Herald Square has been sealed off since 1986, after decades of safety concerns and sexual assaults. Despite the modest renovations, the underground Penn Station continued to be criticized as "reviled," "dysfunctional," and a low-ceilinged " catacomb" lacking charm, especially when compared to the much larger and more ornate Grand Central Terminal. The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', in a November 2007 editorial supporting development of an enlarged terminal, said that "Amtrak's beleaguered customers...scurry through underground rooms bereft of light or character," and ''Times'' transit reporter Michael M. Grynbaum called Penn Station "the ugly stepchild of the city’s two great rail terminals." After its nadir in the 1960s, ridership exploded in subsequent decades, a situation never contemplated by the structure's designers. By the 2010s, the station operated at almost three times its intended capacity; over 600,000 passengers used the station daily in 2019.

Expansion

In the early 1990s, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed building a new station in the James A. Farley Building, the city's former main post office across the street. Moynihan had shined shoes in the original station as a boy. Many redevelopment or expansion concepts were unveiled over the 1990s and 2000s, but none reached fruition until funding from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enabled the expansion of the West End Concourse of the LIRR under the Farley Building in 2016. Building on it, New York Governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

in 2016 announced plans for renovation of Penn Station and mixed-use redevelopment of the Farley Building, including development of a new train hall, which he called the Empire Station Complex. The new expansion, Moynihan Train Hall, opened in January 2021, named for the man who had conceived it. The $1.6 billion, renovation retained the original, landmarked Beaux Arts Farley Building, added a central atrium with a glass roof, and provided access to Amtrak and LIRR trains. A new 33rd Street entrance to the LIRR concourse opened at the same time. The station received a place in the world selection for the 2021 Prix Versailles in the passenger stations category.

Services

The station is served by 1,300 arrivals and departures per day, twice the number during the 1970s. There are more than 600,000 subway, commuter rail and Amtrak passengers who use the station on an average weekday, or up to 1,000 every ninety seconds. It is the busiest passenger transportation facility in the United States and in North America.

Intercity rail

Amtrak

Amtrak owns the station and uses it for the following services: * '' Acela'' to Boston (northern terminus) and Washington D.C. (southern terminus) * '' Adirondack'' to

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

* ''

Berkshire Flyer The ''Berkshire Flyer'' is a seasonal Amtrak passenger train service between New York City and the Berkshire Mountains in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, via the Hudson Valley. The weekly train departs Penn Station on Friday afternoons during the su ...

'' to Pittsfield * ''

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **'' Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **'' Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, t ...

'' to Chicago * '' Carolinian'' to

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

* '' Crescent'' to New Orleans * '' Empire Service'' to Albany and Niagara Falls, NY * ''

Ethan Allen Express The ''Ethan Allen Express'' is a daily passenger train operated by Amtrak in the United States between New York City and Burlington, Vermont, via Albany, New York. One daily round trip is operated on a north-south route with a 7 hour 35 minu ...

'' to Burlington * '' Keystone Service'' to Harrisburg * '' Lake Shore Limited'' to Chicago * '' Maple Leaf'' to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

* '' Pennsylvanian'' to Pittsburgh * ''

Northeast Regional The ''Northeast Regional'' is an intercity rail service operated by Amtrak in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States. In the past it has been known as the ''NortheastDirect'', ''Acela Regional'', or ''Regional''. It is Amtrak's busi ...

'' to Boston or Springfield (northern termini) and Roanoke, Newport News, or Norfolk (southern termini) * '' Palmetto'' to Savannah * '' Silver Meteor'' to Miami * '' Silver Star'' to Miami * '' Vermonter'' to Washington D.C. (southern terminus) and St. Albans (northern terminus) All except the ''Acela Express,'' ''Northeast Regional'' and ''Vermonter'' originate and terminate at Penn Station. Despite its status as Amtrak's busiest station, Amtrak's Superliner railcars cannot use Penn Station due to incompatible platform heights and inadequate clearances in the North River and East River Tunnels. Amtrak normally uses tracks 5–12 alongside New Jersey Transit and shares tracks 13–16 with the LIRR and NJ Transit.

Commuter rail

Long Island Rail Road

The following Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) services originate and terminate at Penn Station: *

Babylon Branch The Babylon Branch is a rail service operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The term refers to the trains serving Montauk Branch stations from Valley Stream east to Babylon; in other words, the Babylon Branch is a ...

to Babylon * Belmont Park Branch seasonal service to Belmont Park *

Far Rockaway Branch The Far Rockaway Branch is an electrified rail line and service owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch begins at Valley Interlocking, just east of Valley Stream station. From Valley Stream, the ...

to Far Rockaway, Queens in New York City * Hempstead Branch to Hempstead * Long Beach Branch to

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporat ...

* Montauk Branch to Babylon and Montauk *

Oyster Bay Branch The Oyster Bay Branch is a rail line and service owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch splits from the Main Line just east of Mineola station, and runs north and east to Oyster Bay. The branc ...

to Oyster Bay * Port Jefferson Branch to Huntington and Port Jefferson * Port Washington Branch to Port Washington * Ronkonkoma Branch to Ronkonkoma with connecting service to Greenport *

West Hempstead Branch The West Hempstead Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in the U.S. state of New York. It runs between Valley Stream, New York, and West Hempstead, New York. Route description The branch sep ...

to Hempstead All branches connect at Jamaica station except the Port Washington Branch. Jamaica station also connects to Airtrain JFK for service to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Normally, the LIRR uses tracks 17 to 21 exclusively and shares tracks 13 to 16 with Amtrak and NJT. The LIRR uses tracks 11 and 12 on rare occasions.

NJ Transit

The following NJ Transit Rail Operations (NJT) branches originate and terminate at Penn Station: * Montclair-Boonton Line to Montclair State University station, with connecting service west to Hackettstown. * Morris and Essex Lines, consisting of the Morristown Line to Dover via Morristown and the

Gladstone Branch The Gladstone Branch (also known as the Gladstone Line) is a commuter rail line operated by NJ Transit from Gladstone station, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, to either Hoboken Terminal or New York Penn Station. It is one of two branches of t ...

Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-cons ...

. * Northeast Corridor Line to Trenton * North Jersey Coast Line to Long Branch and

Bay Head Bay Head is a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 968,Raritan Valley Line to Raritan and High Bridge NJT normally uses tracks 1 to 4 exclusively, as these four tracks end at bumper blocks to their east. NJT shares tracks 5 through 12 with Amtrak, and occasionally uses tracks 13 to 16, which are shared with Amtrak and the LIRR.

Rapid transit

New York City Subway

Connections are available to the following New York City Subway stations: * From Penn Station: ** at 34th Street–Penn Station, under Eighth Avenue ** at 34th Street–Penn Station, under Seventh Avenue * From Herald Square, one block east at Sixth Avenue: ** at

34th Street–Herald Square station The 34th Street–Herald Square station (also signed as 34th Street) is an underground station complex on the BMT Broadway Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan wher ...

, under Broadway & Sixth Avenue

PATH

Connections are also available to the PATH system at 33rd Street station, under Sixth Avenue on Herald Square. The JSQ-33 and HOB-33 services terminate at 33rd Street on weekdays, and are combined into the JSQ-33 (via HOB) service on late nights, weekends and holidays.

Bus and coach

NYC Airporter provides bus transportation to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, and is authorized by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the New York City Department of Transportation.

New York City Bus

The following MTA Regional Bus Operations buses stop near Penn Station: * M7 (Lenox, Columbus, Amsterdam, Sixth and Seventh Avenues): southbound to

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, via Seventh Avenue; or northbound to

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

via Sixth, Amsterdam, and Lenox Avenues * M20 (Seventh and Eighth Avenues/Varick and Hudson Streets): northbound to

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

via Eighth Avenue; or southbound to South Ferry via Seventh Avenue * M34 Select Bus Service (34th Street Crosstown): westbound to Javits Center; or eastbound to FDR Drive * M34A Select Bus Service (34th Street Crosstown): westbound to

Port Authority Bus Terminal The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is a bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal in the world by volume of traffic, serving about 8,000 bus ...

; or eastbound to

Waterside Plaza Waterside Plaza is a residential and business complex located on the East River in the Kips Bay section of Manhattan, New York City. It was formerly a Mitchell-Lama Housing Program-funded rental project. History Waterside Plaza was built on l ...

and Kips Bay * Q32 (Fifth and Madison Avenues): northbound only, to Jackson Heights, Queens

Intercity coaches

Intercity bus service to and from Penn Station is provided by Vamoose Bus, Tripper Bus, and

Go Buses Academy Bus Lines is a bus company in New Jersey providing local bus services in northern New Jersey, line-run services to/from New York City from points in southern and central New Jersey, and contract and charter service in the eastern United ...

. Vamoose Bus runs buses from a stop near Penn Station to Bethesda, Maryland; Arlington, Virginia; and Lorton, Virginia. Tripper Bus runs buses from a stop near Penn Station to Bethesda, Maryland and Arlington, Virginia.

runs buses from a stop near Penn Station to Newton, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most intercity and commuter bus services to and from midtown Manhattan use the

, located approximately 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) to the north of Penn Station.

Airline ticketing

Penn Station includes a United Airlines ticketing office, located at the ticket lobby. This was previously a Continental Airlines ticketing office.

Proposed Metro-North service

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to bring Metro-North Railroad commuter trains to Penn Station as part of its Penn Station Access project. The

East Side Access East Side Access (ESA) is a public works project in New York City that extended the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) from its Main Line in Queens into a new station under Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan's East Side. A project of the Metropo ...

project, expected to open in 2022, will free up track and platform space at Penn Station by redirecting some LIRR trains from Penn Station to Grand Central Terminal. This new capacity, as well as track connections resulting from the East Side Access project, would allow Metro-North trains on the New Haven Line to run to Penn Station via Amtrak's Hell Gate Bridge. Four new local Metro-North stations in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

are planned as part of this project, at Co-op City, Morris Park, Parkchester/ VanNest, and Hunts Point. The MTA also proposes a second connection from the Metro-North's Hudson Line to Penn Station using Amtrak's

West Side Line The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is used by Amtrak passenger service heading north vi ...

in Manhattan. The Penn Station Access project would provide direct rides from

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

, Westchester County, the

Lower Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to Y ...

, and the Bronx to West Midtown; ease reverse-commuting from Manhattan and the Bronx to Westchester County, the Lower Hudson Valley, and Connecticut; and provide transportation service to areas of the Bronx without direct subway service.

Station layout

Penn Station does not have a unified design or floor plan but rather is divided into separate Amtrak, LIRR and NJ Transit concourses with each concourse maintained and styled differently by its respective operator. The Amtrak and NJ Transit concourses are located on the first level below the street level while the Long Island Rail Road concourse is two levels below street level. The main concourse, which was principally used by Amtrak until the opening of the Moynihan Train Hall, is at the west end of the station directly beneath Madison Square Garden. It was created out of the original station's waiting rooms and main concourse, though few remnants of the original still exist in the space. It was renovated in the early 2000s in anticipation of '' Acela'' service and includes an enclosed waiting area for ticketed passengers with seats, outlets and WiFi. The LIRR's connecting concourse runs below West 33rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, as it has since the original station opened in 1910. Significant renovations were made to the LIRR areas over a three-year period ending in 1994, including the opening of the Central Corridor passageway and the addition of a new entry pavilion on 34th Street. The West End Concourse, west of Eighth Avenue, opened in 1986, and was widened and lengthened to cover tracks 5 through 21 in 2017. The NJ Transit concourse near Seventh Avenue opened in 2002 out of existing retail and Amtrak office space. A new street-level entrance to this concourse at the corner of 31st Street and Seventh Avenue opened in September 2009. Previously, NJ Transit used space in the Amtrak concourse. The station is so complex that in December 2017, Amtrak and Zyter released a mobile app called FindYourWay to help commuters navigate around Penn Station, though Zyter also plans to roll out the app at other large Amtrak stations. The station's three providers use different official addresses for the station. * Amtrak: 351 West 31st Street * LIRR: 34th Street at 7th and 8th Avenues * NJ Transit: 390 7th Avenue

Tracks and surrounding infrastructure

In normal operations, Amtrak and NJ Transit share tracks 5–12, while the LIRR has the exclusive use of tracks 17–21 on the north side of the station. All three railroads share tracks 13–16. Tracks 1–4 end at bumper blocks at the eastern end of the platform and have no access to the East River Tunnels and are used exclusively by NJ Transit since there's no access to Amtrak's Sunnyside Yard in Queens, NY. From the east, the East River Tunnels' lines 1 and 2 (the more southerly tubes) can only access tracks 5–17 and are used by most Amtrak and NJ Transit trains, while the East River Tunnels' lines 3 and 4 (the more northerly tubes) can only access tracks 14–21 and are mostly used by LIRR. From the west, the North River Tunnels can access tracks 1–19, while the Empire Connection can only access tracks 1–9 and the LIRR's

West Side Yard The West Side Yard (officially the John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard) is a rail yard of 30 tracks owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. Used to store commuter rail trains operated by ...

can only access tracks 10–21. All station tracks are powered by 12 kV overhead wire. Tracks 5–21 also have 750 V DC third rail. Due to the lack of proper ventilation in the tunnels and station, only electric locomotives and

dual-mode locomotive An electro-diesel locomotive (also referred to as a dual-mode or bi-mode locomotive) is a type of locomotive that can be powered either from an electricity supply (like an electric locomotive) or by using the onboard diesel engine (like a di ...

s are scheduled to enter Penn Station. Diesel-only NJT trains terminate at Hoboken Terminal or Newark Penn Station, and diesel-only LIRR trains terminate at or prior to Long Island City. Trains on track 18 open their doors only on the north side (platform 10).

2017–2018 service disruptions and track improvements

Since the early 2010s, Amtrak had planned to fix the deteriorating rails and infrastructure around Penn Station, but due to the prioritization of other projects, applied only minimal fixes. In early 2017, this culminated in numerous power outages, derailments, and delays due to track maintenance delays. There were frequent service disruptions to train schedules caused by the deterioration of its tracks and their supporting infrastructure, as well as in those of the East River and North River tunnels that respectively connect the station to Long Island and New Jersey. A string of early 2017 service disruptions started on March 23, 2017, when an ''Acela'' train derailed, causing delays for the day. On April 3, a NJ Transit train derailed at a known problem site, where repairs had been deferred. This caused four days of reduced service along the Northeast Corridor for both Amtrak and NJ Transit, because the incident damaged the switch that connects Tracks 1–8 to the North River tunnels. This closure caused a cascading failure, delaying Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road trains on the unaffected tracks. On April 14, a New Jersey Transit train became stuck in the North River tunnels, causing the station to grow crowded with waiting passengers. After an Amtrak police officer used a Taser on a man who was acting disruptively, rumors of gunshots sparked a stampede that injured 16 people. Following the stampede, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer called on Amtrak to centralize law enforcement response. As a result of these incidents, the Long Island Rail Road had proposed taking over Penn Station from Amtrak to improve maintenance, and New Jersey has suggested withholding state payments to Amtrak. Amtrak has discussed accelerating major maintenance work, even at the cost of further disruptions, to more quickly stabilize infrastructure and decrease more future incidents that could potentially cause even greater disruption. On April 28, 2017, Amtrak announced that it would perform some track maintenance during the summer over a period of one and a half months. Five tracks were closed for repairs as part of the reconstruction work, severely reducing track capacity in a situation media outlets deemed "the summer of hell". Many affected NJ Transit passengers were diverted to take the PATH instead. Some Amtrak trains from the Empire Corridor were routed to Grand Central instead of Penn Station. Regular service resumed on September 5, 2017. Amtrak made further improvements to Penn Station's trackage in summer 2018. As a result, some Empire Corridor trains were rerouted again to Grand Central. The '' Lake Shore Limited'' and ''

'' to Chicago were truncated or rerouted because of this work.

Planning and redevelopment

Resurgence of train ridership in the 21st century has pushed the current Pennsylvania Station structure to capacity, leading to several proposals to renovate or rebuild the station. In 2013, the Regional Plan Association and the

Municipal Art Society The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) is a non-profit membership organization for preservation in New York City, which aims to encourage thoughtful planning and urban design and inclusive neighborhoods across the city. The organization was ...

formed the Alliance for a New Penn Station. Citing overcrowding and the limited capacity of the current station under Madison Square Garden, the Alliance began to advocate for limiting the extension of Madison Square Garden's operating permit to ten years. On July 24, 2013, the New York City Council voted 47–1 to give the Garden a ten-year operating permit, after which the owners will have to move or seek permission anew. In May 2013, four architecture firms— SHoP Architects, SOM, H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro—submitted proposals for a new Penn Station. Proposals included moving Madison Square Garden to the Morgan Postal Facility a few blocks southwest and an extension of the High Line to Penn Station, moving Madison Square Garden to the area south of the James Farley Post Office, and moving the arena to a new pier west of

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, commonly known as the Javits Center, is a large convention center on Eleventh Avenue between 34th Street and 38th Street in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City. It was designed by architect James I ...

, all with the intention of redeveloping Penn Station as a mixed-use development. Madison Square Garden officials rejected the idea of moving the facility, calling the plans "pie-in-the-sky." In January 2016, New York governor

announced that requests for proposals would be solicited for the redevelopment of the station, which would be a public-private partnership called the Empire Station Complex. Investors would be granted commercial rights to the station in exchange for paying building costs.

Empire Station Complex

In January 2020, Governor Cuomo unveiled a proposed southern annex to Penn Station, part of his vision for the Empire Station Complex. The annex would include eight additional tracks with four platforms and would involve demolishing the entire block bounded by 30th and 31st streets between Seventh and Eighth avenues, directly south of the existing station. In another component of the Empire Station plan, the LIRR concourse in Penn Station is being doubled in width, from , and the ceilings raised to a minimum height of . the stores in the LIRR's East End Concourse closed in 2019 in preparation for an expansion of the concourse. The first piece of this expansion, a new direct entrance from 33rd Street to the LIRR concourse, opened on December 31, 2020. 33rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues will be permanently closed to vehicular traffic and converted into a pedestrian plaza. As part of the project, workers removed seven "head knockers", which were part of the old Penn Station and were only above the concourse's floor. Governor Kathy Hochul and MTA officials dedicated the rebuilt concourse on September 6, 2022, even though the project was still incomplete at the time. In April 2021, MTA officials proposed two options to reconstruct the Penn Station building under Madison Square Garden, following a year of consultations with NJ Transit, Amtrak,

FXCollaborative FXCollaborative is an American architecture, planning, and interior design firm founded in 1978 by Robert F. Fox Jr. and Bruce S. Fowle as Fox & Fowle Architects. The firm merged with Jambhekar Strauss in 2000 and was renamed to FXFOWLE Architec ...

architects, and

WSP USA WSP USA, formerly WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Parsons Brinckerhoff, is a multinational engineering and design firm with approximately 14,000 employees. WSP stands for Williams Sale Partnership. The firm operates in the fields of strategic con ...

engineers. One alternative would retain the existing two-level passenger concourse, but remove a portion of the upper concourse to create more open space and a balcony; the other alternative envisions a taller single-level concourse with a multi-story glass atrium in the former taxiway, connecting two new entrances on 31st and 33rd streets. Both plans would improve passenger circulation and access to the platform level, and could demolish the Hulu Theater for a new Eighth Avenue entrance. In November 2021, after Cuomo resigned, governor Kathy Hochul announced plans to hasten the reconstruction element to take place before construction of the southern annex, and to slightly reduce the size of the development above Penn Station. Hochul's plan selected the one-level concourse alternative and a direct passageway to the Herald Square Station and with the PATH to the 33rd Station. In June 2022, Hochul and New Jersey governor Phil Murphy requested that architects and engineers submit preliminary designs for the station's renovation by the end of the following month. Some of the project's opponents alleged that the plans would disproportionately benefit real-estate firm Vornado Realty Trust, which would redevelop several buildings in the surrounding neighborhood without paying property taxes. John McAslan was hired to design the renovated station that September.

Gateway Program

The Gateway Program is a proposed expansion and renovation of the Northeast Corridor between

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

, and New York City to alleviate the

bottleneck Bottleneck literally refers to the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle near its opening, which limit the rate of outflow, and may describe any object of a similar shape. The literal neck of a bottle was originally used to play what is now known as ...

under the Hudson River and allow for refurbishment of the existing North River Tunnels. If constructed, two new tunnels would add 25 cross-Hudson train slots during rush hours and connect to a 7-track, 4-platform

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devi ...

annex to Penn Station to its south. Some previously planned improvements already underway have also been incorporated into the Gateway plan. The Gateway Program was unveiled in 2011, one year after the cancellation of the somewhat-similar

Access to the Region's Core Access to the Region's Core (ARC) was a proposed commuter-rail project to increase passenger service capacity on New Jersey Transit (NJT) between Secaucus Junction in New Jersey and Manhattan in New York City. New infrastructure would have i ...

(ARC) project, and was originally projected to cost $14.5 billion and take 14 years to build. Construction of a "tunnel box" that would preserve the right-of-way on Manhattan's West Side began in September 2013, using $185 million in recovery and resilience funding awarded after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In 2015, Amtrak said that damage done to the existing trans-Hudson tunnels by Hurricane Sandy had made their replacement urgent. That year, Amtrak reported that environmental and design work was underway, estimated the project's total cost at $20 billion, and said construction would last four to five years. A draft environmental impact statement was released in July 2017, but the

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...

delayed consideration of it. Unblocking the project was a stated priority of the Biden administration which took office in January 2021, and the project was approved in May 2021. Federal funding is anticipated to be provided by the Biden administration's Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which was passed into law in November 2021, and the states of New York and New Jersey announced a deal in July 2022 to split the other half of costs, with construction on the tunnels to begin sometime in 2023.

Gallery

File:NYC Penn Station 7th Avenue Entrance 2013.jpg, 7th Avenue entrance File:Penn Station entrance.jpg, 8th Avenue entrance File:LIRR East End Gateway 20210204 224316486.jpg, East End Gateway 7th Ave entrance File:Blizzard of 2015- Empty Penn Station (16192638879).jpg, LIRR concourse File:New LIRR PO entrance 2017-06 jeh.jpg, LIRR track entrance in Farley Post Office Building File:NEW CAR DISPLAY AND AMTRAK PASSENGER TRAIN TICKET COUNTERS IN THE BACKGROUND AT NEW YORK CITY'S PENNSYLVANIA STATION... - NARA - 556703.jpg, Amtrak concourse in 1974 File:Penn Station departure board.jpg, Amtrak departure board, removed in 2017 File:PennsylvaniaStationNYStairs 02.JPG, One of the last remnants of the original Penn Station, a staircase between tracks 3 and 4 File:NY Penn Station platform.jpg, LIRR/Amtrak platform level File:LIRR at NY Penn station.jpg, Dual-mode LIRR train arriving File:NJ Transit Ticket Counter Penn Station NY.jpg, NJ Transit ticket counter File:ALP-45DP 4509 In New York Penn Station.jpg, New Jersey Transit ALP-45DP locomotive at the platform File:Two trains at NY Penn Station.jpg, Two New Jersey Transit trains on tracks 3 and 4

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * Includes track diagram.

External links

Penn Station – LIRR

Penn Station – NJ Transit
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