PAU | New New York Penn

New New York Penn

New York, NY

Program

Train Station

Client

ASTM North America

Collaborators

Collaborating Architect:
HOK

Structural Engineering:
Severud Associates

Rail & Transportation Engineering:
HNTB

Mechanical Engineering:
ME Engineers

Cost Estimating & Construction Phasing:
Lendlease, HALMAR International

Size

~835,000 GSF

Status

Ongoing

In April of 2023, PAU was asked to join an effort led by ASTM North America to develop one of the largest and highest profile Public Private Partnerships (P3) in this country’s history: reimagining Penn Station for the 21^st century. This new vision for Penn Station will provide travelers and New York City residents alike with a greatly enhanced commuter experience in our post-pandemic world. Our proposal returns a sense of civic grandeur to the station by circumscribing Madison Square Garden in a new podium that fills out the street walls of the block. The plan envisions two main train halls—a soaring Eighth Avenue entrance and a light-filled Midblock hall—that together will restore the civic gravitas that has been absent since the 1963 demolition of McKim, Mead & White’s original edifice.

Our new stone façade mirrors and reinterprets McKim’s masonry colonnade across Eighth Avenue at the Farley Building, now known as Moynihan Station, creating a great public outdoor room that puts the historical in conversation with the contemporary, all while prioritizing light and air, an improved public realm, a varied mix of civic uses, and compatibility with planned rail and neighborhood growth. On the corners at Eighth Avenue, new entries provide direct access to the hall for commuters, while above, new open-air porches provide the public with unique views, paying homage to the depth and porosity of neoclassical façades such as the Altes Museum, a precursor to McKim’s colonnade across the avenue. Below grade, the cramped and disjointed, split-level concourses will be completely reimagined as a seamless, single-level station with 24’ ceilings throughout the majority of the station. New entrances and the reorganization of the concourses provide a means of elevating the experience of entering and using Penn Station, so that it is inviting, fluid, intuitive, and efficient. Most crucially, our plan accomplishes all of this with a phasing plan that allows the station to remain fully operational, and without impacting ongoing Madison Square Garden (MSG) programing and events, throughout the duration of construction.

The linchpin of our plan is the removal of the Hulu Theater along Eighth Avenue, which creates space for the new Eight Avenue train hall while simultaneously improving the operation of Penn Station and MSG. Currently, large trailers must stage on City streets around 130 days a year for access to MSG and the Theater. By eliminating the Theater and its events, we can reduce this activity by 40 days annually. The internal loading area, shared by Penn Station and MSG, will expand from 29,700 to 55,400 square feet, accommodating seven large tractor trailers, five large box trucks, and 21 forklifts. With level loading bays and a more efficient layout, unloading and loading times per tractor trailer will be reduced by 30 to 50 percent. The enhanced loading plan will decrease external loading and unloading from the street network by at least 45 percent. Additionally, the new loading area will provide parking for Amtrak, NYPD, FDNY, and MSG vehicles, as well as Zamboni ice cleaning machines. These renovations and modifications streamline truck access, reduce loading durations, improve pedestrian safety and circulation.

The decreased traffic on the remaining portion of 33rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, along with eliminating the need for idling area for truck staging, allows the roadway width to be decreased 24’ resulting in a 32’ wide sidewalk along the northern edge of the station. This widened sidewalk, combined with the opportunity to repave 33rd street with granite pavers or similar, pedestrian-focused materials, brings 33rd street closer to the vision of a major E/W public connector that many plans including the recent GPP have contemplated. Lined with new shops along the northern edge of the station, the previously dead street frontage will be activated tying 7th and 8th avenues together. Public realm benefits are further extended with the elimination of the taxiway, allowing Plaza 33 to be expanded to the west, providing a direct relationship between the new Mid-block Train Hall and existing open space. This expansion will be anchored by the new Mid-Block Train hall’s soaring glass vaults, which work in concert with the recently completed and planned upgrades to the station’s 7th Avenue entrances to announce the station’s presence in a legible and celebratory way to passengers arriving from the east. The new Mid-block at-grade passage connecting the two sides of the vault further increases public access in and around the eastern end of the block.

Sidewalks along 8th Avenue will also be widened to 29’, amplifying improvements NYCDOT is currently implementing on the 8th Avenue corridor, including improved bike lanes, sidewalk widening on the west side of the street and an expanded Citi Bike valet station. The new main station façade on 8th Avenue, rendered in stone, puts Penn Station back amongst its peer stations on the North East Corridor. This new expression is in direct dialogue with the Neoclassical, pink granite façade of the Moynihan Train Hall across the street, creating an over 400’ long “civic room” along 8th avenue that is an explicit allusion to the original Penn Station’s relationship to what was then the Farle Post office.

In the center of this new façade is the quadruple height entrance to the new Eight Avenue train hall, boldly presenting a new front door that belongs solely to the station. This triumphal entrance is both a clear signifier of the station—especially important to out of town travelers unfamiliar with the station—but also provides an opportunity to bring ample natural light deep into the station, beyond the new train hall space itself. A new water feature, displaying a map of the national rail network in abstracted bas-relief, will be Penn Station’s answer to Grand Central’s clock, an easily recognizable internal landmark that can serve as a de facto meeting spot within the station. A new belvedere overlooking the train hall from street level will provide new dining opportunities for travelers, with a clear view of the theater of the station below, and the grand neoclassical façade of the Moynihan train hall across the street.

The corners of the eighth avenue train hall are anchored by new, more utilitarian entries, mirroring the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey transit entries on 7th avenue, which provide passengers from points North, South and West with direct access to the new hall. These corners complete the eight entries from the four corners of the block and the four mid-block faces. Above these corner entries are two new outdoor terraces, adjacent to two new, 2nd level food and beverage spaces with views both out, across 8th avenue and westward long 31st and 33rd respectively, and in to the 8th avenue train all. With triple height ceilings set within openings in the stone façade, these new porches will be unique public spaces in the city perched above the street and station, equal parts highline and Campbell Apartment. The porches will be sought after destinations for coffee or a drink while waiting for a train, or a meet up spot for event-goers at MSG before the doors open.

The new Mid-Block Train Hall, with twin glass vaults that rise over 100’ above the concourse level below, will be signature spaces that like their counterpart on 8th Avenue, bring badly needed light into the station below. Rendered in bright, stainless steel, the vaults serve as a counterpoint to the stone and bronze of the new station edifice, a lightweight zipper that ties the station to the new and improved Two Penn Plaza on the other side of the block. Clearly visible from 7th avenue, and illuminated at night, the Midblock train halls complement existing and planned improvements to the 7th Avenue entrances in providing access from passengers headed from the east. An additional entrance from the center of the block provides access into the station from the plinth level of Two Penn Plaza, further increasing the blocks porosity and accessibility, providing a shortcut for office workers and MSF patrons. On either side of the new Mid-block Train Hall will be two new indoor POPS, providing weather-mitigated community gathering spots providing all-season alternatives to Plaza 33.

The two new train halls work in concert with improvements to the station concourse, reorganized as a single level station, with generous 18-24’ ceiling heights throughout. On the ceilings throughout the station, a map of New York rendered as a coffered ceiling, will emphasize this unity, as well as a clear sense of place. Oriented true north and rendered at roughly 1:50 scale, this motif will be extended throughout the station, tying together all its concourses and entrances, providing a subtle wayfinding cue for those in the know. A traveler emerging from the platforms among a sea of other passengers could see a glimpse on the ceiling of the East River or Roosevelt island, for example, and know that they are in roughly the center of the station—inferring that they need to head west toward the Hudson if they want to exit out 8th avenue, or east toward Greenpoint if they want to exit on 7th. Rivers in this ceiling design will be detailed with brightly-lit, shimmering blue mosaic tile.

Recognizing that Penn Station is a key regional hub at the intersection of multiple transit modes, the plan will seamlessly resolve the intersections and interconnections of these modes. By removing columns and adding 31 new sets of stairs and 5 new elevators, platform access is greatly improved, and every platform will finally be completely ADA accessible. Taken together, these interventions mean that travelers will be easily able to enter the station from any of the four corners of the super block, from midblock on both streets, and from midblock on either avenue, and be able to seamlessly circulate to any platform (and thereby any rail service) from any entrance. Conversely passengers arriving on any platform will be able to easily understand where they are in the station and navigate to any of the eight exits, as well as subway connections. This unified station strategy means any passenger, of any rail service on any platform can easily use either train hall or any of the eight entrances.