There is a water fountain in the NJ Transit section of Penn Station. I'd be happy to send you a picture!

One thing would help Penn Station in a tiny but important way. Sunday nights during the summer, make sure the escalators from track level on LIRR are on & going up. Even worse than a stationary escalator 10pm on a July/August Sunday is one going down. Who is leaving Manhattan at that time?

Jared from Harrison, NJ is the only person between the host, guests and callers that made any sense. Bring a book, get on the trains early enough so that you won't be late and take your time. Also be curteous to one another. People love to act like riding the subway is the cross to bear for living in NY. The system runs 24hrs a day and will get you to within walking distance of any location you need. I lived in Washington DC where the system is "more modern" but it shuts down at midnight and it costs a fortune to ride. We've got it pretty good, we just need to take care of it better and be a little nicer to each other.

An excellent book about the history of Penn Station is "Conquering Gotham"
by Jill Jonnes. Very entertaining read, like a Ken Burns epic, it covers the
people involved as well as the technical hurdles overcome. Go here to
read a sample

http://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Gotham-Building-Station-Tunnels/dp/0143113240/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1344530024&sr=8-3&keywords=pennsylvania+station

and you'll appreciate what remains ans what was lost.

I do remember the old Penn Station. My outrage--constant sense of annoyance--with the present station is always part of the 'new' station experience. Worst feature: low ceilings! Atmosphere: a motel lobby. What a contrast!

Other peeve: Enter the station from Seventh Aveue, and you find gates to the Amtrak waiting area CLOSED. Since I'm 81, walk with a cane, it's an added insult to have to walk all around the waiting area to get in.

If I try to shorten the walk and enter from Eighth Avneue, I can't always depend on finding a 'down' escalator. I've sometimes found them all going 'up.' Navigating the stairs is very hard.

Buying or picking up tickets can be another nightmare. I do use the Amtrak kiosks of course, but now and then, want to exchange a ticket or buy one using my Amtrak 'rewards' points, and the waiting lines are ALWAYS endless. Why are there so many ticket windows and so few attendants? Does Amtrak take customer service cues from the Department of Motor Vehicles?

Although the Customer Service area is grudgingly helpful, it seems to have been purposly stuck in a small corner behind big columns. The whole place is a hopeless travesty.

Some images of what was lost:

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON004.htm
http://www.businessinsider.com/penn-station-historic-pictures-2011-12?op=1

And a list of movies where you can catch glimpses of Old Penn:

http://www.powwmedia.com/pennsy/media.htm

I absolutely agree w/the caller who said the signage needs to be improved. The problem, as in many other places, is that the signs are set up by & for people who already know the info the signs are there to provide. But if you don't use Penn Station often, or if you're going to a different train or one from a different service from the one you usually use, it can be really confusing. There should be a general principle that signage is designed for someone who's trying to find their way through a place for the first time. In fact, I think whoever sets up signage for any place should go through the whole facility w/someone who's never been there before to see what info they need & the best way to provide it (incl. the placement of the signs--like *not* where you have to get halfway down the stairs to see if that's the way you need to go!).

As it stands now Penn Station is beyond salvation. While not a daily commuter I'm forced to use it frequently and still have trouble navigating it after being a lifetime resident in and around the city. I consider it an assault on all the senses.

While too young to have seen the masterpiece that was cynically demolished to bring about the failure we have now, I'm ashamed every time I see photos or footage in old movies of what was lost. The City was robbed to make a few people a lot of money, and generations of residents have been short changed ever since. This wrong should be righted with a new station both grand and functional. Madison Square Garden has found a new home many times before, it can do it again.

One of the guests spoke about 'remnants' of the old Penn Station that was torn down. I do not believe there are ANY remnants of the 'grand' old Penn Station in the current one; the old Penn Station was not on the same site. It was a couple of blocks away to the northwest. The nice brass railings and wide archways the guest spoke of were simply the higher quality construction of the time when the current Penn Ststion was first built.

I agree 100% with Nancy, Penn Station is really ugly and depressing and I glad I don't have to deal with it more than maybe, MAYBE 1 to 3 times a year on a holiday visit to relatives. I also agree it's sad the the PO will have to suffer its fate to become the "new" Penn Station. Now our beautiful main post office will give up it's grand position for a train station which itself once was one of the beautiful structures of NYC.

Any improvement, will be an improvement, next stop Laguardia and JFK!

Great topic, but please don't confuse casual opinion with expertise. I can't remember when I've heard more "I don't know, but"s

I remember Penn Station as a overwhelmingly stiffling and smelly place. Bathrooms were vile. Now we have an occasional spots of art, temperature controlled and relatively clean bathrooms. I am not there often, but am not as offended as so many of the people offering their views. Now I am a native New Yorker, so have a high tolerance level for disarray, and dirt - Not the rats on the connecting 8th ave subways though

PUN name for the bar is KABOOZE.

Penn Station is one of the most poorly designed public spaces -- possibly anywhere in the world. It took me years to quickly get myself from the IRT subway to the Amtrak area. And the NJ Transit area is equally well hidden for the uninitiated. Food is awful. Never could find anything to eat when taking Amtrak -- huge problem. So happy I spent most of my life traveling to and from Grand Central Station with is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

There's a perfectly good water fountain next to the LIRR police desk.

Question: Now that we all agree that the old Penn Station was a beautiful building which should not have been torn down, what about what is being planned for the post office? Is that not an equally beautiful building?

I used to do that LIRR commute for years and while I appreciated being able to read the NY Times from cover-to-cover and do other reading, it was a nightmare. The delays, the secret announcement of the tracks 5 minutes before departure & the inevitable mad dash, and the unbearable heat before they got a/c there, to say nothing of the LIRR delays - it all was too much.

I ended up doing the unthinkable and moving to New Jersey.

First, I took the PATH for a few years, and now I have a HEAVENLY commute on the NY Waterway ferry. Th emorning and evening commute are the 2 best times of my days. The views of NYC, the light, the fresh air - it's all glorious.

Don't get me wrong - the ferry is expensive and the bus service is iffy at times (and it's not really "free" as they like to advertise, it's just built in to the cost), but it is such a delight compared to the LIRR and the subways.

The only thing I miss from Penn Station: the glorious music of violinist James Graseck: http://www.recklesslyromantic.com/

Where is this water fountain from the original Penn St?

The present day Penn Station should be preserved just as it is, for a look, for future generations, at an example of a completely horrible "1960's form is function" building. An unfriendly, ugly, noisy, uncomfortable, confusing, nasty, yet functional building.

Penn station and other key subway stations need to use one way turnstiles and other means to ease the flow of commuters. Example: during morning rush hour have more turnstiles designated " exit only from the ABC and 123 subways ; do the opposite in the evening.

Roped off corridors to FORCE people walking to keep to the right will help also. It works in other cities..

Also...if you expect to always get from the subway to the train in less than 2 minutes...well you deserve to miss your train .... get real.

Tearing down the old Penn Station was a major crime. And those in charge should rot somewhere.

But one great thing did come out of it - the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Now if only those folks would do their job. We not only need to preserve our historic building, but also not quite old buildings, too, so they'll have a chance to be historic one day. LPC is not thinking enough about NYC's future history. Unfortunate.

Walls with poetry outside NJTransit area are well done. We know one of the quoted poets.

The loss of historic Penn is one of the worst crimes of 20th century "Urban Renewal". Public spaces should be enobleing. The current Penn was designed in an era official loathing of trains and transit by the powers that be. The fact that 600,000 people pass through daily is a testament to the enduring value of mass transit and trains.

Penn Station is a great place to weather a nuclear strike. Commuting or catching a train? Not so much. The only worse Amtrak station I've ever been to is in Atlanta.

One of my great Penn Station moments consisted of walking a friend from out of town from Times Square to Penn on his way out of town. He had a train to make and as we reached Herald Square 34th was closed because Hillary Clinton was speaking at Madison Sq. Garden. He was going to miss his train but I ducked into the red line and guided him to Penn underground.

The new Penn Station is the Architectural Crime of the Century.

Are any of its planners/architects still alive and practicing?
Would be great to hear their take on it!

I've always wondered why the tracks for departing trains at Penn Station are announced only in the last 9-10 minutes? It causes a horrible crush to get on the train. At Grand Central tracks are announced far in advance and therefore boarding a train is not such a panic-inducing event.

As a long term commuter, just wanted to send out some love: I love this series! As a new jersey transt-er....I was psyched to start using the LIRR bathroom just under the escalators instead of the nasty one up top by he 8th ave exit!

Penn Station does have a weird feeling about it, with the low ceilings and lack of daylight, but I don't know how much worse it is than any other station. It would probably be a good idea to move the lines a bit so people aren't standing out in the middle of the floor all the time. But, as with any other enterprise, we commuters learn the pitfalls and how to get around them over time.

An example is trying to buy a ticket for NJ transit on a Friday afternoon. The lines for both the machines and the ticket windows are impossibly long and one can wait forever and miss several trains. The solution? To buy the return ticket as soon as you arrive in the morning. That way it's in your pocket when you get to the station and you can go right to your platform. Live and learn.

I grew up in Connecticut, coming into New York through Grand Central. I loved Grand Central even when it used to be a dump - now, of course, it is luxurious and truly grand. When I took a job on Long Island and "my" station became Penn Station, I felt personally diminished - it really does make you feel like less of a person to be extruded through that evil dungeon. One of the worst differences? In Grand Central, the train is often waiting in the station for a good 20 minutes. At Penn, you have about 14.3 seconds between the time the track is announced and the time the train leaves, creating the indignity of racing your fellow travelers to get a seat. Mr. Bloomberg, tear down this station!

Excerpt from the commuters prayer:...and lead us not into Penn Station.

As a daily NJ Transit train commuter and long-time resident of both sides of the Hudson, I can say that as terrible as Penn Station is, Port Authority Bus Terminal is even worse.

That NYC - one of the world's great metropolises - has such poor commuter hubs is a travesty and an embarrassment. And don't even get started on NYC-area airports...

Penn station is an example of New York in the 70's. A disaster. Look how Grand Central is a gem. The food court is second rate.

Disgusting, godawful place: low ceilings, dentist office type lighting, mediocre shopping, byzantine type layout. They couldn't build the new one fast enough. Shame the old one was ever torn down.