NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- The new Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station officially opened to the public on New Year’s Day — and one happy couple marked the occasion with a wedding engagement.
Anthony Molina, of Harlem, proposed to Estevao Schumaker, of Newark, in the train hall’s one-acre, skylit atrium Friday morning.
Molina told 1010 WINS he had been “waiting for a long time” to propose.
“Our first date was on the subway, the Holiday Train, so I figured this is like the perfect full-circle moment,” he said after Schumaker accepted his proposal.
The two plan to have a small wedding in Central Park's Great Hill.
The new 255,000-square-foot train hall was part of the state’s effort to transform the James A. Farley Building, which is more than 100 years old, into “a world class-transportation hub that increases the existing Penn Station rail complex’s concourse space by 50 percent,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a release earlier this week.
The train hall’s food court is set to open in the fall.
Another visitor on Friday told 1010 WINS she was impressed by the new train hall.
“My parents were so excited, because my grandparents have famous photos in the old Penn Station, and… when I first got here, I was texting them all pictures and they were freaking out,” she said.
“It’s just so beautiful because I think for native New Yorkers, no one’s ever understood why Penn Station was originally shut down,” she added.