Remnants of Penn Station Tour

Lovely! Thank you.

Dan Weinhold

Excellent, Chris. I'll be re-visiting this thread.

My memories of the Old Penn Station date back to 1955. My dad & I were returning from Jones Beach after taking the LIRR back to Penn Station. While riding up on the escalator to the main level my sneaker got caught in the escalator step as you step off. My dad & another man were trying to pull me off as the sneaker started to shred apart with my foot in it. Finally got free with my foot still in tact. The entire toe section of the sneaker got chewed off. Got a lot of strange looks from passengers on the 8th Ave subway (“A” train) on the way home to Washington Heights.

Thanks for posting the pictures Chris.

Good job, nice pictures. Thanks.

Thanks Chris.  I wonder how many people that will be using the new station will know who Moynihan was?

Very nice!  Thanks for posting!

Great pictures Chris. Just an FYI, but the motto on the Post Office building is not and never has been an official motto of the Post Office. Official Post Office policy is that Letter Carriers are told not to deliver mail in snowstorms or in darkness.

Chris,

  Very nice. Thanks for posting. Nice to see that some remnants survive. Maybe I can add my Penn Station porcelain subway sign to your post...I bought it at the White Plains Toy & Train Show several years ago. I had in in my hands, almost lost it when someone grabbed it--but he put it down. I then started breathing again and bought it at a very reasonable price. I think it was around $40-60.

Tom

What great documentation of your trip!  Super photos and nice narrative.  No doubt this will inspire others to try the tour-

@Hudson J1e posted:

Great pictures Chris. Just an FYI, but the motto on the Post Office building is not and never has been an official motto of the Post Office. Official Post Office policy is that Letter Carriers are told not to deliver mail in snowstorms or in darkness.

Well what do you know.  You're right!  Who knew?

https://about.usps.com/who-we-...ry/mission-motto.pdf

I pointed it out to the guy who ran the tour.

Thanks for the update.

@PRR8976 posted:

Chris,

  Vey nice. Thanks for posting. Nice to see that some remnants survive. Maybe I can add my Penn Station porcelain subway sign to your post...I bought it at the White Plains Toy & Train Show several years ago. I had in in my hands, almost lost it when someone grabbed it--but he put it down. I then started breathing again and bought it at a very reasonable price. I think it was around $40-60.

Tom

Very nice

@Chris Lord posted:

Well what do you know.  You're right!  Who knew?

https://about.usps.com/who-we-...ry/mission-motto.pdf

I pointed it out to the guy who ran the tour.

Thanks for the update.

You’re welcome. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

I am glad they called it "Moynihan Train Hall" and not "Moynihan Rail Passenger Hall" or one of the similar monstrosities that have infected the English language in this age of affectations and gaseous, inflated titles for everything.  What was the matter with "train station" that some gasbag(s) had to come up with "rail passenger station" (two words and four syllables to replace a one-word, one syllable descriptor that had served well for over a hundred years)?  Maybe a "rail passenger station" should be where people go to be run on a rail out of town.

It is a small consolation that a few pieces of the original Pennsylvania Station still survive.  I took the attached photos in the New York City subway when I was there in October 2016.

I wonder if they will replicate this

Chris,

Thanks for the wonderful tour!  You took some really great photos.

I suppose that Amtrak passengers will have a better experience now that the new Moynihan Train Hall is open.  The last time I took a train from Penn Station to Washington was in the 1990s.

I remember taking the train from the old Penn Station to Washington DC in about 1955 when I was 10 years old.  I remember the high glass ceiling and that the station was very, very hot.  That glass amplified the heat of a New York summer just like a green house.  Of course, it didn't help that I had a little coat and tie on.  Everyone including kids dressed to travel in those days.  Those steps down to the train were really steep.  I doubt that they would be acceptable for a passenger station today.

My grandparents put me on the train.  My parents bought me a ticket in a parlor car since I was traveling alone.  My grandparents turned me over to the parlor car attendant.  I suppose that they tipped him to look after me but I don't know.  I know that I had small suitcase but I don't remember every handling it.  My grandfather probably gave it to the car attendant and he probably gave it to my father in Washington.

The parlor car was a modern streamlined car with air conditioning.  I had a big single swivel chair that swung around 360 degrees.  Each chair had a big ash tray on a pedestal next to it.  My legs weren't long enough to reach the floor of the car when I sat in the chair.  All the other passengers that I remember were men in business suits.  The car attendant kept them supplied with drinks and most of them were smoking cigars or cigaretts.  I think that I got a coke.  Of course, the train was pulled by a mighty GG-1.  

When I got a couple of years older I took the same trip between my grandparents house and Washington except it was in coach.  Young kids got a lot of responsibility early in those days.  

Thank you for your photos and bringing back memories of a time long gone.  NH Joe

This recent post about the old Women's Waiting Rooms is also fascinating:

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordp...n-only-waiting-room/

https://tinyurl.com/ycstnhe9

@PGentieu posted:

I am glad they called it "Moynihan Train Hall" and not "Moynihan Rail Passenger Hall" or one of the similar monstrosities that have infected the English language in this age of affectations and gaseous, inflated titles for everything.  What was the matter with "train station" that some gasbag(s) had to come up with "rail passenger station" (two words and four syllables to replace a one-word, one syllable descriptor that had served well for over a hundred years)?  Maybe a "rail passenger station" should be where people go to be run on a rail out of town.

It is a small consolation that a few pieces of the original Pennsylvania Station still survive.  I took the attached photos in the New York City subway when I was there in October 2016.

Thanks for adding the subway photos.  I took some also but forgot to add them.  Glad you did.

But mine points the other way!

Thanks

Here's a picture I found of the original staircases.  You can see that they had both exit (the shorter ones) and entrance staircases.  You can also see the the sign arches and the glass brick floor. 

@coach joe posted:

Thanks Chris.  I wonder how many people that will be using the new station will know who Moynihan was?

Probably not, they should, he was one of the brightest guys ever to serve in the Senate, as someone said, he wrote more books than most Senators read in their lifetimes

I remember years ago they were doing repairs in one part of the 'new' station, and they had taken down a wall, and you could see bricks and such from the original walls that had been covered (the old walls were partially knocked down in the demo, I guess, then covered)

It is funny, when it said remnants of Penn Station tour, I kind of envisioned what you see in articles, going to places like the Meadowland swamps or where people took demolished pieces and had them at their houses

@bigkid posted:

It is funny, when it said remnants of Penn Station tour, I kind of envisioned what you see in articles, going to places like the Meadowland swamps or where people took demolished pieces and had them at their houses

I thought the same thing originally. Thanks to Chris, it was still a good post.

Tom

Compare the railings with these Chris had posted earlier:

with the railings seen in his vintage photo a few posts above.

Tom

@Chris Lord posted:

Here's a picture I found of the original staircases.  You can see that they had both exit (the shorter ones) and entrance staircases.  You can also see the the sign arches and the glass brick floor.

This view (looking to the south-west) also shows the worst effect of the 1960's Penn: to support Madison Square Garden, they had to sink HUGE supports into the middle of those mostly unobstructed platforms... creating a cramped, claustrophobic, and border-line dangerous experience for passengers.

Jon

So glad this thread was unlocked!  Lots of really cool pictures.  I spent many a day parked outside MSG doing TV and often would go into the station to grab something to eat or drink.

What was always a fun experience in NY and the "Garden" when we had CRTs in the truck was watching all the monitors go wonky when the subways traveled under the truck.  Like a giant degassing coil.  Newbies always panicked.

@MartyE posted:

So glad this thread was unlocked!  Lots of really cool pictures.  I spent many a day parked outside MSG doing TV and often would go into the station to grab something to eat or drink.

What was always a fun experience in NY and the "Garden" when we had CRTs in the truck was watching all the monitors go wonky when the subways traveled under the truck.  Like a giant degassing coil.  Newbies always panicked.

Hey Marty, thanks

  Question:  What were you referring to when you said "So glad this thread was unlocked?"  Was the thread locked for some reason?

@Chris Lord posted:

Hey Marty, thanks

  Question:  What were you referring to when you said "So glad this thread was unlocked?"  Was the thread locked for some reason?

I maybe wrong but I think it got locked yesterday at some point because Eddie G was asking about it being locked.  Maybe I got my threads mixed up.  No worries though.  It's not now if it ever was.  I love the old pictures and the knowledge!

@MartyE posted:

I maybe wrong but I think it got locked yesterday at some point because Eddie G was asking about it being locked.  Maybe I got my threads mixed up.  No worries though.  It's not now if it ever was.  I love the old pictures and the knowledge!

Marty, the thread you are thinking of is one started by Arnold. That one got closed down because it got off topic with the usual 2020 type comments that locked so many. It stinks because it was a great topic.

Question, I may be mistaken, but the airplane looks an awful lot like The Spirit of Saint Louis. Any idea if it is?

Haha, now I feel ridiculous. That is not the Spirit of Saint Louis, but a plane used as a promotion for the railroad that Amelia Earhart smashed a bottle of champagne on to usher in a partnership with the Santa Fe and an airline. Very interesting.

Chris: THANK YOU for the memories! I left Penn Station in the late Summer of 1962 after my Army basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey  to head to Ft. McClellan, Alabama to attend the US Army CBR School. When I arrived in Anniston, AL, I noticed my train had been pulled by Southern EMD F units. The changeover from the GGI occurred at Washington, DC. I travelled coach and it was a modern air conditioned car. The concourse of that station was incredible and it was only years later that I found out about the man, Alexander Cassatt, who was responsible for this amazing structure. His sister was the famous American impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt. Brother and sister obviously had strong artistic sensibilities. We shall likely never again see such a structure as grand as the original Penn Station! :-(

Thankfully, my other favorite NYC railroad station survived! Grand Central Terminal was another ediface from which I departed on a number of occasions. My last encounter was December of 1964 when I rode a single RDC from Beacon, NY to GCT. My Army buddies and myself had just caught a USAF  hop from Colorado Springs to Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh, NY, across the Hudson from Beacon. We arrived late in Newburgh and after arriving in Beacon, we slept in the station waiting room until the RDC arrived the next morning.

Beacon was a much bigger station "back in the day" until it was torn down in the 1970's.

Tom

Tom: I assume it is still a station stop? Is the incline railway still there?

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

Marty, the thread you are thinking of is one started by Arnold. That one got closed down because it got off topic with the usual 2020 type comments that locked so many. It stinks because it was a great topic.

Thanks. I remember now.

While the old brick station is long gone, Metro-North still has a station stop  there. Here is some info mostly on the nearby Beacon Line of Metro-North (used for equipment moves last that I knew but it was in a state of disrepair for several years)... Beacon station appears at the end: https://www.iridetheharlemline.com/tag/beacon-line/

Info on the inclined railway can be found here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/At...Beacon_New_York.html

Tom

I thought that I heard somewhere that they are building a very deep tunnel so that the LIRR can stop at Grand Central & Penn Station. I put this on yesterday, and didn't realize the thread had been locked.

Tom: Thanks for the info! I first visited Beacon in the 1950's with my uncle. We took the train from GCT and we rode the incline railway. Later we took the ferry across the Hudson to Newburgh where we had lunch at a restaurant. There was no bridge at that time as there was in 1964.