The governor of New York held a press conference yesterday, that included among other things, the addition of a third track to the LIRR through Woodbury, and THIS plan for Pennsylvania Station.
Jon 
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I say if they rebuild the original Penn Station, the mayor would certainly accomplish his goal! That was one of the greatest catastrophies in all of US historical preservation to have torn that down in a time when nobody thought anything old needed to be saved. The silver lining there was that the modern historical preservation mindset came from that to no small amount.
I spent a week in NYC in September with my wife and some friends, and used Penn Station several times. The tourist go to Grand Central to look around (like I did for the below photo, the last night we were there, before leaving out of Penn station the next morning), but more often use Penn to take trains from.
But there was one major problem with the original Penn Headhouse. There was no chairs for you to rest your feet and caboose.
As a train lover, it is great.
As a NY taxpayer, I cringe when these things come up...parts of this development have been up and down for many years now, back to when Sen. Moynihan was pushing for it. Here is some more info including possibly reimbursing developers in the amount of $30 million.
http://therealdeal.com/blog/20...development-for-now/
Tom
p51 posted:I say if they rebuild the original Penn Station, the mayor would certainly accomplish his goal! That was one of the greatest catastrophies in all of US historical preservation to have torn that down in a time when nobody thought anything old needed to be saved. The silver lining there was that the modern historical preservation mindset came from that to no small amount.
I spent a week in NYC in September with my wife and some friends, and used Penn Station several times. The tourist go to Grand Central to look around (like I did for the below photo, the last night we were there, before leaving out of Penn station the next morning), but more often use Penn to take trains from.
Lee;
I can assure you that most of the foot traffic in Grand Central is from people from arriving/departing trains. I passed through that beautiful station (thanks to the great foresight of the late Jackie O.) as a Metro-North Railroad commuter many times in my last 7 years in the salt mines. And it will only be getting busier if they complete the tie in to the LIRR. Tourists where the people who tended to get trampled by commuters running for trains!!! Interestingly enough, on several occasions when I took the train into the city on a Saturday, I found that the Great Hall seems to be a popular destination for wedding photos - and the happy couples didn't look much like rail fans.
I'm not old enough to remember!
Jon
Yes, GCT is a very busy terminal - most of those people in there are travelers and commuters, not tourists. It and "Penn Station" (sure...) have a different traffic mix, so far as I know.
The use of either depot of course depends on where you're going. If you're heading south to DC, you'll be going through Penn Station, which we did as we left to take the Capitol Limited to Chicago (then, the Empire Builder to Seattle, what a great trip it was, too). We only took New Jersey Transit back and forth and later the Metro to DC, so GCS wasn't an option. We did take two subways from there, though.
Would have loved to have gone through GSC on Amtrak and over the Hell Gate bridge but we simply weren't heading out that way...
"The tourist go to Grand Central to look around, ... but more often use Penn to take trains from."
In case you didn't know, GCT is strictly a COMMUTER terminal! Only Penn serves Amtrak!
Penn station serves Amtrak, LIRR, NJ Transit and A,C,E, 1,2,3 subway trains.
Grand Central serves Metro North, 4,5,6,7 and S Subway trains and will serve LIRR in the future. If you spend any time there you can hear the drilling and part of the dining room is closed for the extension down. When they are done there will be 4 levels of tracks over the current 2.
Another big part of this announcement that will affect city dwellers is that all Subway stations and lines will be wired for WiFi and Cell phone service. So everyone on the train will get to listen to everyone else's inane conversations and television shows over thier tiny phones speakers because they don't like or can't be bothered with headphones.
Getting the subway status in real-time is to expedited across all stations as well - was around in the London Tube before the turn of the millennium, sure taking its time in NYC. Wish they'd extend that across the commuter rail lines as well.
Migrating to contactless payment via NFC like smart phones instead of a MetroCard will be another long-time change catching up to the city.
GCT tends to get more tourists for the station itself than Penn at this point. The fact is that there are a lot of shopping destinations inside GCT which is something Penn can't just compete with. As mentioned before, it's now a purely commuter station - long distance trains stopped servicing it in the nineties. That's not to say there aren't tourists in Penn, just that they're actually using the station for transportation.
I'm still waiting to hear that they plan on electrifying the track with catenary up to Albany/Rensselaer so that the NY Capital can be incorporated into some of the Northeast corridor trains. I would think there's enough traffic for such...
He also noted that the project ~ all in, everyone and everything would take 20 years to complete. I live in NJ and the newer plan they speak to in the papers indicate just renovating Penn Station and Grand Central could cost more than $3B not including over runs and that the project will be managed by the biggest scammers in the country - the Port Authority of NY and NJ.
Crossing from NJ to NY is over $15.00 per car, non discounted EZPass. Can you imagine when the Tappan Zee bridge cost when it's done next year? NJT monthly pass, depending where you live is $300- 400 per month. Glad I don't need mass transit to go to work as it is a second mortgage payment for sub standard service.
If I had the same quality of service found in. Japan or European countries I might think differently but until the system is reformed its a waste of time and tax payer money.
