Passenger Trains > Penn Station New York Christmas Tree

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Always struck me as odd why just this section of Penn (which is the least used) has the high ceiling and nice open feeling. Why didn't they replicate this over the rest of the station?

Raja Wrote:
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> Always struck me as odd why just this section of
> Penn (which is the least used) has the high
> ceiling and nice open feeling. Why didn't they
> replicate this over the rest of the station?

Remember that this was originally where the ticket windows were located, along with the information booth/desk. I remember waiting on line here in the early 70's with my mother for tickets and there was quite a crowd back then.

Tim

What a beautiful station.

njmidland Wrote:

>
> Remember that this was originally where the ticket
> windows were located, along with the information
> booth/desk. I remember waiting on line here in
> the early 70's with my mother for tickets and
> there was quite a crowd back then.
>
> Tim

This is correct. For many years, the taxiway just upstairs was a bustling place of drop-offs and pick-ups. Passengers getting out of taxis would enter the sliding-glass doors, step onto a balcony, and look out into the rotunda to the glass-fronted ticket windows. Actually, it was very nice. Not "old" Penn Station majestic, but nice. After you bought your tickets, you went around either side to the waiting room and waited in the waiting room for your train to be called.

The ticket offices were moved to the 8th Avenue side of the waiting room in the late 70's or maybe early 80's. The old ticket office area between the Rotunda and the waiting room was opened up as a secured waiting area for ticketed passengers. The taxiway was closed after 9/11 as a security risk. 31st St, on the south side of the station, remains open for westbound traffic. 33rd St, on the north side of the station, is closed now as a public-access area, but the west half of the block is open for truck traffic in and out of Madison Square Garden, where they use the old taxiway on the north side of the station. You can see it all on aerial maps and street views.

reindeerflame Wrote:
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> What a beautiful station.

Please, please tell me this is sarcasm.