Designed by SOM, the project completely
reimagines the travel experience at the busiest transportation hub in the
Western Hemisphere, and evokes the architectural heritage of New York’s original
Penn Station.
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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
are celebrating the completion of a long-held New York dream. The new
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Hall, named for the visionary United States
senator who proposed the project in the 1990s, has opened its doors to New
Yorkers and travelers from the Long Island Rail Road, Amtrak, the New York City
Subway, and the entire northeast region. It is one of the most monumental civic
projects undertaken in the city in a generation, and transforms the way millions
of people interact with one of the world’s largest cities.
Moynihan Train Hall expands the Pennsylvania Station complex with a
486,000-square-foot rail hub in the landmark James A. Farley Post Office
Building. Situated across Penn Station between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and West
31st and 33rd Streets, it reverses the dark, overcrowded experience that so many
commuters have endured for decades. It brings light to the concourses for the
first time in more than 50 years, increases total concourse space by 50 percent,
and restores the grandeur that was lost with the demolition of the original Penn
Station half a century ago.
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“This is an incredibly important moment in the history of New York City,”
said SOM Partner Colin Koop. “We’ve designed a place that evokes the majesty of
the original Penn Station, all while serving as a practical solution to the
issues that commuters in, to and from New York have endured for too long. By
connecting to our architectural past through the adaptive reuse of the Farley
Post office building, we are breathing new life into New York, and recreating an
experience no one has had here in decades.”
Laura Ettelman, SOM Managing Partner, continues, “SOM has been working on this
project since 1998 - for more than two decades. Our deep commitment to this
project has been fueled by the profound belief that New York City is better
because of projects like this.”
That original Pennsylvania Station was designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1910.
It was a skylit, Beaux-Arts masterpiece that celebrated travelers’ arrival to
New York City. After its demolition in 1965, only its concourses and platforms
remained, and they were all underground in a space downgraded to accommodate
only 200,000 people. Five decades later, the number of people passing through
the station every day swelled to more than 600,000, while the Farley Building –
also designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1913, with a grand staircase and
colonnade that echoed the firm’s design for Penn Station – had become 95 percent
vacant. Residing above Penn Station’s tracks, the Farley Building was the
perfect place for a new train station.
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“One of the most remarkable things about this project is the way that it
transforms an under-utilized and under-appreciated building into a new, inviting
front door for this city,” said Roger Duffy, the retired SOM Design Partner who
led the project for the firm. “The train hall is at the core of this
transformation. It is designed with lightness and warmth, which combine to
reestablish the essence of what it means to come to New York.”
The new train hall, located in the 31,000-square-foot former mail sorting room,
is designed with a dramatic skylight that traverses the entire space – much like
the original Penn Station did in 1910. The skylight is arranged in four catenary
vaults. To support the structure, SOM uncovered the building’s three massive
steel trusses, which had been invisible to postal workers a century ago, and
chose to reveal them as a major focal point of the design. With a web-like
structure, the bolted trusses add an extra sense of lightness to the train hall
– establishing a modern look and feel while displaying the workmanship of
neoclassical design.
Each of the four catenary vaults is composed of more than 500 glass and steel
panels that come together to form a moiré effect. At the edges of each vault,
the panels thicken to sustain greater structural loads, while at the apexes,
which span 92 feet above the concourse, the panels’ depth lightens to enhance
the airy ambience of the space. The trusses are each equipped with new lighting
fixtures that illuminate the train hall at night. On the middle truss, a new
clock – designed by Pennoyer Architects and inspired by the analog clocks that
were once prevalent at the original Penn Station – marks the center of the room.
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Along the eastern wall, four large LED screens feature New York State imagery
designed by Moment Factory, and help brighten the train hall at night.
Hospitality spaces – including ticketing kiosks and information kiosks designed
by SOM, Amtrak waiting rooms on the concourse level designed by Rockwell Group,
an Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge by FX Collaborative, and a food hall designed by
Elkus Manfredi – surround the space on two floors to establish an inviting
experience that provides all the amenities a commuter will need. The signage and
wayfinding identify the hospitality and platform entries by color to enable
intuitive circulation through the station – an element that has largely been
missing in the confusing corridors of Penn Station for the last 50 years.
The interior spaces of the station, including the train hall, share a unified
material aesthetic. Drawing inspiration from the existing, historic post office
at the top of the Farley Building’s staircase as well as Grand Central Terminal,
SOM designed the station’s interiors with Tennessee Quaker marble, a material
that evokes that sense of warmth, calmness, and grandeur that are central to the
design.
Moynihan Station connects to nine platforms and 17 tracks that primarily service
the Long Island Railroad and Amtrak. The station connects directly with the
Eighth Avenue Subway, and plans are in the works to connect the entire Penn
Station complex, including Moynihan Station, to MetroNorth and AirTrain JFK.
Moynihan Station is accessible through a variety of grand entrances. As part of
the first phase of its construction, two new entrances on Eighth Avenue,
designed by SOM, flank the Farley Building’s staircase, and lead directly into
the train hall and the new West End Concourse – a significant widening of an
existing concourse that serves as a connection between Penn and Moynihan
Stations. At entrances on 31st and 33rd Streets, SOM implemented new canopies to
help identify the civic presence of the station and complement the arched
windows of the Farley Building. Art installations by Elmgreen & Dragset at the
31st Street entrance and Kehinde Wiley Studio at 33rd Street, as well as a
second skylight create an inviting experience, draw passengers in.
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The entrance on Ninth Avenue reshapes the Annex – an expansion to the Farley
Building constructed in the 1930s that has served as a parking garage and office
space for most of its life – into a 21st-century, mixed-use anchor for the
neighborhood. The entrance is flanked by restaurants, and responds directly to
the massive new developments to the west of the station. It aligns directly with
the entry into Manhattan West, which was planned and largely designed by SOM, to
create one contiguous pedestrian experience. Inside, an east-west corridor is
surrounded by retail and additional dining amenities, as well as circulation
points to 730,000 square feet of offices for Facebook spread across four floors,
along with offices for Amtrak around the train hall. The retail, much like that
of Grand Central Terminal, elevates Moynihan Train Hall into a vibrant hub of
activity – and reimagines the Annex anew.
None of this would have been possible without the world-class team that has been
dedicated to guiding Moynihan Train Hall to completion – from the Office of
Governor Andrew Cuomo and Empire State Development to Vornado Realty Trust,
Related, the MTA, Amtrak, and SOM. It is the capstone project of Governor
Cuomo’s successful push to transform Penn Station, and the planning and
construction of a major public facility in December 2020, amidst the Coronavirus
pandemic, has required a significant team effort.
For the long run, Moynihan Train Hall serves as an important precedent for
redefining historic architecture. It targets LEED for Transit certification
through a variety of measures, from the natural lighting of the skylight to its
use of new mechanical systems that improve the air quality within the
century-old Farley Building. It adds much needed circulation capacity – not only
making commutes more convenient, but also safer, as it spreads the crush of
people during rush hours, and enables better social distancing. On a broader
level, it is a new symbol of hope for the future. Moynihan Train Hall
re-establishes a civic icon for New York, recaptures the original spirit of
train travel to Penn Station, creates a new gateway to the city, and celebrates
one of the greatest cities in the world.
Photo © Lucas Blair Simpson/ SOM, Release: Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill, Chicago, Illinois, United States