JANUARY 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 7
IN THE NEWS
MOYNIHAN TRAIN HALL THE NEW PENN
Morning commuters pass by the entrance to The Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station in New York City, U.S., August 17, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
BY BRIANA BONFIGLIO
Moynihan Train Hall, a 50 percent expansion on
Penn Station that increases its capacity for Long
Island Rail Road commuters, opened on New Year’s
Day, after the project’s completion on Dec. 31.
The train hall project transformed the James A.
Farley Post Office Building into a 255,000-squarefoot
addition along Eighth Avenue to the concourse
at Penn Station, which typically sees hundreds of
thousands of commuters and travelers from Long
Island and beyond each day.
“New Yorkers have known for decades that Penn
Station needed to be reimagined,” Gov. Andrew
Cuomo said. “This monumental accomplishment is
a shot of hope as we come out of one of the darkest
periods in our history and sends a clear message to
the world that while we suffered greatly as a result
of this once-in-a-century health crisis, the pandemic
did not stop us from dreaming big and building for
the future. The new Moynihan Train Hall is the
embodiment of New York Tough.”
Moynihan will give LIRR and Amtrak customers
17 new tracks accessible from nine platforms and
relieve congestion in Penn Station after what the
governor called the “summer of hell” when service
was cut to make long-overdue repairs to the old
station.
In a Facebook post on Monday, Nassau County Executive
Laura Curran called Moynihan Train Hall “a
game changer for Nassau County residents.”
The new transportation facility has a modern design
with atrium-like, 92-foot-high skylights. For
easy way-finding, it has dozens of LED and LCD
displays for train information and messaging. It
also has designated customer service locations for
each railroad, and a dedicated lounge for nursing
mothers, as well as a free, public, high-performing
Wi-Fi network.
The $1.6 billion project to upgrade North America’s
largest commuter hub by transforming the post
office, which is more than 100 years old, had been
discussed for decades but not seen through until now.
Cuomo first announced the infrastructure project at
his 2016 State of the State. Construction then began in
2017. Moynihan Train Hall is named for the late U.S.
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Navy veteran and
senator representing New York for 24 years, who
strongly supported the project. He died in 2003.
The governor’s office envisioned the Moynihan Train
Hall in 2017 as a revival of what was lost in the 1970s as
the Pennsylvania Railroad pulled out of Penn Station,
dismantling the grandeur of the station itself on the
way out and essentially leading to the creation of the
Landmark Preservation Commission. The former post
office building that houses Moynihan Train Hall will
also be used for commercial purposes.
-With Mark Hallum
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
