If you are like me, any visit to Penn Station NY requires keeping an eye out for surviving elements of the late great original Pennsylvania Station. Rail historians may want to make a visit to the station area and the bloks east to the North River as the whole area is undergoing dramatic changes that are revealing, removing and (in a few cases) restoring railroad artifacts.

Starting in Penn Station itself, continued modernization is seeing new escalators and other touches that are eliminating or obscuring original features such as wall surfaces, tiles and iron staircases. If you know the scorecard of where all the original pieces are, you need to update. Hopefully any pieces removed are being add to the collection of original Penn Station relics planned to be part of Amtrak's Moynihan Station across 8th Ave in the old post office.

Speaking of which, while most work on Moynihan is within the building, you can see work being done at track level and also along the new entrance ways on 8th Ave.

East of Moynihan the Penn Station throat tracks used to be exposed to a block of daylight. No more. New development is seeing ironwork cover the lead tracks making it an entirely dark ride from the west portal of the Hudson tunnel right through to the east portal of the East River tunnels in Long Island.

Even further east of Moynihan the rest of the New York Central "High Line" is being finished as the fi al extension of this incredible linear park. As with the rest of the High Line the structural elements have been renewed, but most other traces of the railroad are wiped out. The small brick warehouses under the High Line along 30th St have been demolished. "Inside" the High Line's "C" shaped elevated approach, the Long Island Railroad passenger yard (built on a former NYC freight yard site) is being covered by new high rise construction. For the first time, all active rail lines east of Penn Station and between 30th and 35th St will be covered.

This new construction is directly over where the propsed new rail tunnels to New Jersey will have their west portal. To accommodate for this, a trough was dug and lined for a multi-track approach to Penn Station. There are no tunnels, yet, but developers were smart enough to build the provision for them now.

Through all this, bits of old Penn Station and the High Line have been revealed and covered. It had been interesting to watch as one of the last undeveloped blocks of Manhattan grow.

Of course, I can't look at this area without thinking of the NYC "cowboys" on horse back leading trains down the street pre-High Line. Or the roundhouse. Or the milk station. Or even the original NYC&HRR depot site (which was used by one of the four Madison Square Gardens, ironically.

I didn't see any of these things as I am too young even to remember old Penn Station, but thanks to maps, photos as a few tangible bits they come to life if you know where look.

If anyone comes to explore, PM me for tips on historic (or just plain good) pubs.


Rob