Across the street from Penn Station between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets, Moynihan Train Hall is a glitzy $1.6 billion building with new concourses and larger waiting rooms converted from the city’s former main post office. Today, the station serves more than 650,000 daily commuters.Ī new station was inaugurated this year. Penn Station was initially built for 200,000 daily riders.
Located under Madison Square Garden from 31st to 33rd Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, New York Penn Station is the busiest rail station in the Western Hemisphere. “And even in peak rush hour, with a double-decker train, you’re not always going to get a seat.” “First of all, you don’t know if you’re getting a single-decker, or a double-decker train,” Shah says. COVID guidelines are all but forgotten as commuters inches away from each other attempt to get downstairs so they don’t have to stand all the way back home to Trenton. The hypnotized folks break from their trance and bolt toward a door whose number just flashed on the screen.Īs they rush a single-lane escalator that leads underground, a bottleneck quickly forms. Within a matter of seconds, the screens refresh. “Waiting around for the track number to be called is not friendly,” she says. She is trying to get back to Princeton Junction from her job as an analytics manager in Times Square.Īs a daily commuter, Shah is aware what happens when the track number flashes inside the scrum. “There’s only about two or three places you can stand for NJ Transit, and everyone is on top of each other,” she says. There is not speck of natural light or ventilation in the dingy pit, just the light from the fluorescent lamps hanging from rafters.Īnum Shah, a 27-year-old New Jersey Transit commuter, expresses her anger at the congestion in the concourse for NJ Transit passengers and hates being part of the scrum.
Despite wearing masks as a precaution against COVID, everyone is huddled together, standing shoulder to shoulder in what they call “the pit” – the concourse for New Jersey Transit passengers at Penn Station. Cramped for space inside the scrum during evening rush hour, scores of commuters wistfully stare at a screen, either at a television hanging on the walls or at a mobile phone in their hands.
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