A first step toward a larger vision
SOM is playing a central role in reimagining New York City’s Pennsylvania Station, the busiest train station in the Western Hemisphere and a hub for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), New Jersey Transit, Amtrak, and two subway lines. SOM’s work, a series of dramatic interventions that are transforming the travel experience throughout the multi-block complex, reached a major milestone on the final day of 2020. Just hours before trains first rolled into the SOM-designed Moynihan Train Hall, the East End Gateway opened as a brand new entrance to Penn Station on Seventh Avenue.

The gateway, designed to bring the grandeur of Moynihan Train Hall to the eastern side of Penn Station, represents the first phase of a complete revamp of the LIRR concourses. It brings natural light into the concourses for the first time since the demolition of the original Penn Station in the 1960s, and establishes an easily identifiable eastern entrance that the station has lacked for decades.