Penn Station opens new Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street entrance

Penn Station’s entrance at West 32nd Street and Seventh Avenue reopened Sunday with a wider entryway, more robust escalators, and easier access for passengers with disabilities, as well as people with strollers, wheeled luggage and other heavy items.

The old entrance had closed in August 2022. The work also replaced the stairs and added an elevator to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are now three escalators that Amtrak said support luggage and heavier items, in place of the two old escalators. The entrance width is now 50% bigger, with more natural light, too.

"It’s easier to get to the train, it’s easier to get out, we’re not in this dark, whatever Penn Station was before. … But we're beginning to get away from that now,” said Assemb. Tony Simone, a Democrat who represents nearby Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen and Times Square.

Every day, about 600,000 people use Penn Station.

The work is part of a partnership with Vornado Realty Trust, which built a new skylit canopy above the entrance and integrated it with a renovated office building.

It’s the latest incremental work done at Penn Station, the much-reviled transit depot that serves Amtrak, the Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit and the city's subways.

In August 2022, the LIRR concourse at Penn got a little brighter and taller with the unveiling of a section of a raised ceiling, following the removal of low-hanging beams at 6 feet, 8 inches, known as “head knockers." That ceiling is now at 18 feet — and the concourse doubled in width to 57 feet from 30 feet.

The sidewalk is also being widened along the west side of Seventh Avenue between 33rd and 31st streets.

In New York City, where transit construction moves at a snail’s pace and the Second Avenue subway took almost a century to complete, even the remodeling of an entrance is cause for a celebration.

On Sunday morning, politicians, real estate executives and bureaucrats cut several ribbons before the official opening to the public.

“Today we mark the opening of a new gateway to New York City, the first impression for Penn Station’s 600,000 daily visitors. The dark cramped stairs of before are gone,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan).

Emily Ladau, a disability rights activist, praised the installation of the elevator.

“It is not just an elevator,” she said at the ceremony, adding: “If you have access to transportation, you have access to employment, to education, to health care, to socialization, to exercising your right to vote, whatever the case may be.”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.