SOM has had a leading role in the design of the monumental civic project to convert McKim, Mead & White’s 1913 Beaux-Arts James A.Farley Post Oice into a 21st-century train station.
Situated across Eighth Avenue from Pennsylvania Station, the new Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Hall will be a critical part of a redevelopment of the entire Penn Station complex, and it will anchor the burgeoning development of Manhattan’s Far West Side, creating a public space that ofers a tangible link to New York’s grand history while adding much-needed capacity to the region’s rail system.
This state-of-the-art transportation facility will increase the concourse space of the station complex by 50 percent, relieve platform congestion, and transform the travel experience for tens of thousands of Amtrak, Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit riders.
New York’s original Pennsylvania Station came to symbolize the lost grandeur of rail travel and public space in the United States after its demolition in 1963.
The new Moynihan Train Hall will reestablish this sense of civic monumentality with SOM’s design for a light-illed atrium that once served as the Post Oice’s mail sorting room.
Shrouded during World War II, the vast space at the center of the historic building will be restored to its original sky-lit state. An iconic new skylight will enclose the new boarding concourse, arching up from massive original steel trusses that span the internal courtyard.
Melding old and new, SOM’s design establishes a grand civic space that celebrates the unique history of the Farley Building while evoking the vaulted concourse of the original Penn Station.
At mid-block, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, another glass-vaulted atrium encloses a new central corridor extending from 31st Street to 33rd Street and ofering additional access to the Train Hall as well as retail and dining amenities.
Construction has already begun, with signiicantly expanded Long Island Rail Road access via the new West End Concourse due to open in September 2016, and the Moynihan Train Hall anticipated to open in 2018. Source by SOM.
Location: New York City, USA
Architects: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Area: 486,000 ft2
Anticipated Completion: 2018
Images: Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office, Courtesy of SOM