Great fanfare was accorded the opening, last January, of the $1.6 billion 486,000-sf Moynihan Train Hall, an adaptive reuse of the 107-year-old Farley Post Office Building and the first major step toward the reimagination of New York City’s Pennsylvania Station, the busiest train station in the Western Hemisphere. The Train Hall “gives the city the gateway it deserves,” wrote the New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed the Train Hall, also was part of that building team that included Skanska, AECOM, and Seele on the East End Gateway, a 40-ft-tall street-level glass and steel canopy that provides a new entrance to Penn Station at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue. SOM—which had been attached to the Train Hall project since the 1990s—recently released new photos of the Gateway.
The structure is positioned to give travelers a better view of the Empire State Building.
The entrance is set back 130 ft from the curb to ease pedestrian crowding and to align the structure more directly with the Empire State Building for viewing that iconic skyscraper. It is also another natural light source into the station that, previously, had been like navigating a hermetically sealed cave.
The Gateway’s pre-tensioned steel cables support its smooth, high-performance glass enclosure. Parametric analysis informed the design and engineering of the curved glass and connector elements.
East End Gateway connects directly to the Long Island Railroad Main Concourse from the street. Its three escalators double the entrance’s vertical circulation capacity. Underground, a map of New York State rings steel spandrels and helps to place travelers within the region.
The three escalators double the entrance's vertical circulation capacity.
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS IN THE WORKS
Pre-tension steel supports the Gateway's high-performance glass.
The Gateway represents the first phase in the complete revamp of the LIRR concourses. The next phase, scheduled for completion in 2023, will nearly double the concourse’s width and raise its ceiling height to 18 ft. Other improvements will include new wayfinding, a new elevator at 7th Avenue, brighter lighting, and enhanced airflow.
There has been talk about relocating Madison Square Garden—which currently sits above Penn Station—across the street in order to open the above-ground area for the train station, which also serves Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. Before the pandemic, 650,000 people per day used Penn Station.
Related Stories
| Apr 13, 2011
Duke University parking garage driven to LEED certification
People parking their cars inside the new Research Drive garage at Duke University are making history—they’re utilizing the country’s first freestanding LEED-certified parking structure.
| Mar 2, 2011
Cities of the sky
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Silk Road of the future—from Dubai to Chongqing to Honduras—is taking shape in urban developments based on airport hubs. Welcome to the world of the 'aerotropolis.'
| Feb 15, 2011
Iconic TWA terminal may reopen as a boutique hotel
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey hopes to squeeze a hotel with about 150 rooms in the space between the old TWA terminal and the new JetBlue building. The old TWA terminal would serve as an entry to the hotel and hotel lobby, which would also contain restaurants and shops.
| Dec 17, 2010
Subway entrance designed to exude Hollywood charm
The Hollywood/Vine Metro portal and public plaza in Los Angeles provides an entrance to the Red Line subway and the W Hollywood Hotel. Local architect Rios Clementi Hale Studio designed the portal and plaza to flow with the landmark theaters and plazas that surround it.
| Nov 2, 2010
Wind Power, Windy City-style
Building-integrated wind turbines lend a futuristic look to a parking structure in Chicago’s trendy River North neighborhood. Only time will tell how much power the wind devices will generate.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community college plans new campus building
Construction is moving along on Hudson County Community College’s North Hudson Campus Center in Union City, N.J. The seven-story, 92,000-sf building will be the first higher education facility in the city.
| Oct 12, 2010
Building 13 Naval Station, Great Lakes, Ill.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Gold Award. Designed by Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt and constructed in 1903, Building 13 is one of 39 structures within the Great Lakes Historic District at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill.
| Sep 13, 2010
World's busiest land port also to be its greenest
A larger, more efficient, and supergreen border crossing facility is planned for the San Ysidro (Calif.) Port of Entry to better handle the more than 100,000 people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border there each day.
| Aug 11, 2010
JE Dunn, Balfour Beatty among country's biggest institutional building contractors, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 50 Institutional Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants