Moynihan Hall is closed every night from 1:00 AM until 5:00 AM. Between those hours, all Amtrak operations are handled out of the old New York Penn Station.
Whoops! Missed that!
I think the homeless-unfriendly aspect may have played a part, whether deliberate or unspoken. But I think the main problem was emphasizing form over function -- make it look pretty and impressive without sufficient attention to how well it would work.
That would be an unobtrusive place for some benches. The problem is that this is exactly where they line people up for boarding. I agree with the “form over function“ observation.
Oh. I didn't know that it was a thing to tip the staff in the lounges. Is that true also at the Chicago lounge?
As usual you can do whatever pleases you. I have never tipped anyone in the lounge.
No, just the Servers @ the Food Service area in Moynihan( they're not Amtrak Employees/ Contract) not the Amtrak attendants @ the Front Desks( unless they perform some special service for you like Ticketing, or Luggage handling etc.)
Having followed the politics since the 1980s, the underlying issues are (1) the mental hospitals were closed by the Reagan administration and severely mentally ill people were literally thrown out on the street with no support, something we have still not corrected; (2) welfare support for other unemployed persons, particularly those without children, was almost eliminated starting under Reagan and continuing through the Clinton administration; (3) zoning has been used by local governments to make it illegal to construct enough apartments, resulting in housing prices skyrocketing; (4) the minimum wage has been left so low that it is not a living wage and many fully employed people cannot afford any kind of housing either.
The only way to widen the platforms at Penn Station would be to sacrifice some track(s). That is not going to happen, unless they can finish the 'gateway' project our otherwise find a way to expand the station. The platforms are more crowded now then they were before the big rebuild in the '60's when they added support columns for the Madison Square Garden above. Not to mention, a lot more people use the station now...
Since most arriving passengers are interested in getting home or their hotels or wherever, however they wish to do it, rather than lingering in the station. I don;t see the issue in them finding the closest stairs and exit from the station rather than taking a long walk to get to the new train hall. Do they really care about the grandeur of the new train hall? Unlikely that their care rises to the level of railfan fetish about it.
I'd say that, if you are going to spend $1.6 billion on a train hall, it's a shame that the vast majority of arriving passengers will not pass through it.
Everybody that looked at the pedestrian traffic flows have known that for years. It was supposed to be partly a Mall and partly a station thus hopefully generating more traffic. The Mall part has not quite happened partly due to COVID and partly other reasons. The $ whatever billion was justified by the real estate and commercial use development, not by the train station concourse alone.
Could stay at the Fairfield next time. Solid hotel right across the street from Moynihan.
