Writing in the Wall Street Journal, scholar and critic Michael J. Lewis placed the SOM-designed Moynihan Train Hall atop a list of 2021’s best architecture. “To all of us who have suffered the indignities of New York’s Penn Station,” Lewis writes, “Moynihan Train Hall is easily the most gratifying building of the year.”

As one of the most monumental civic projects undertaken in New York City in a generation, Moynihan Train Hall realizes a long-held New York dream—to expand Penn Station into the landmark James A. Farley Post Office Building. The project serves as a model both of modern station design and of adaptive reuse.

Lewis cites Moynihan Train Hall as a key example of designers creatively answering the challenge of “inserting an entirely new program behind a beloved historic facade.” Rather than treating the interior of the Farley Building as a blank slate, SOM developed a modern design that celebrates the McKim, Mead & White-designed building. Completing an incredible transformation of a once-insular workplace, the design brings in sunlight, emanates a sense of warmth, and integrates artistic elements into a civic space that travelers have not experienced in decades.