More than two decades in the making, SOM's new Moynihan Train Hall opens in NYC

With the beginning of the new year, New York City also celebrated the opening of a major infrastructure project: the

Moynihan Train Hall

, situated between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and West 31st and 33rd Streets, expands the notoriously crowded

Pennsylvania Station

complex with a 225,000-square-foot rail hub inside the landmark James A. Farley Post Office Building.

The new rail hub's signature feature is the vast skylight arching over the 31,000-square-foot train hall, the former mail sorting room, as a direct reference to the architectural heritage of the original Pennsylvania Station demolished half a century ago.

"We’ve designed a place that evokes the majesty of the original Penn Station, all while serving as a practical solution to the issues that commuters in, to and from New York have endured for too long," said Colin Koop, Partner at

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

, the architecture firm that has been working on the project since 1998. "By connecting to our architectural past through the adaptive reuse of the Farley Post office building, we are breathing new life into New York, and recreating an experience no one has had here in decades."

"The skylight, designed with the structural engineering firm

Schlaich Bergermann Partner

, is arranged in four catenary vaults," explains the project description. "To support the structure, SOM uncovered the building’s three massive steel trusses, which had been invisible to the postal workers a century ago, and chose to reveal them as a major focal point of the design. With a web-like structure, the bolted trusses add an extra sense of lightness to the train hall – establishing a modern look and feel while displaying the workmanship of neoclassical design."

"Each of the four catenary vaults is composed of more than 500 glass and steel panels that come together to form a moiré effect. At the edges of each vault, the panels thicken to sustain greater structural loads, while at the apexes, which span 92 feet above the concourse, the panels’ depth lightens to enhance the airy ambience of the space. The trusses are each equipped with new lighting fixtures that illuminate the train hall at night."

"Along the eastern wall, four large LED screens feature New York State imagery designed by

Moment Factory

, and help brighten the train hall at night. Hospitality spaces – including ticketing kiosks and information kiosks designed by SOM, Amtrak waiting rooms on the concourse level designed by

Rockwell Group

, an Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge by

FXCollaborative

, and a food hall designed by

Elkus Manfredi

– surround the space on two floors [...]."

"Moynihan Train Hall connects to nine platforms and 17 tracks that

primarily service the Long Island Railroad and Amtrak. The station

connects directly with the Eighth Avenue Subway, and plans are in the works to connect the entire Penn Station complex, including Moynihan

Train Hall, to MetroNorth and AirTrain JFK."