NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday cut the ribbon to the new Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station.
The new hall is named after U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who first suggested the project in 1992 with a projected completion date in 1999.
While it never came to fruition during his lifetime, since the senator passed away in 2003, Gov. Cuomo was committed to making the project happen and first announced it in his 2016 State of the State address.
“We're tired of hearing why we can't do something. We're going to focus on how we can get it done,” Cuomo said Wednesday.
Work on the project began in 2017 to transform the Farley Post Office into the new hall across the street from the old Penn Station. The hall will now be used by Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak passengers.
The train hall is complete with a billowing 92-foot-tall skylight that will breathe life into commutes that, until now, had been suffocated across the street.
“As dark as 2020 was, to me this hall brings the light literally and figuratively,” Cuomo said.
All LIRR and Amtrak trains will be serviced by nine platforms and 17 tracks accessible from the main train hall beginning Friday. There will be a direct connection to the Eighth Avenue subway and, for the first time, direct access to the train station from Ninth Avenue.
Senator Moynihan's daughter, Maura, calls the train hall a “miracle that the city needs right now.”
“Also people will meet for a drink. When was the last time anyone ever said, ‘Let's meet for a drink in Penn Station,’” she said.
Most of the food and retail spaces are still to come over the next year.
Meanwhile, the train hall doesn't do much to alleviate Penn Station's problems with track capacity, projects addressing that issue are still in the planning stages.
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