New York Layover Near Penn Station
Part of the full New York Layover: Grand Central From JFK
New York’s Penn Station sits ten minutes’ walk west of the Empire State Building, with Macy’s wooden escalators and the glass vaults of Moynihan Train Hall in between, so a gap between trains here does not need a subway ride to be worth spending.
The Empire State Building’s 86th-floor deck is the open-air one
Fifth Avenue meets 34th Street at the foot of a 1931 tower that held the title of tallest building in the world for forty years, and the deck people queue for is the one wrapped around the outside of the 86th floor. It is not glassed in: you stand at a stone parapet with the city on all four sides, which is a different thing from looking through a window.
Adult tickets start at $44 for the 86th floor, with the enclosed 102nd-floor deck sixteen storeys higher charged separately on top. The building runs late, and the constraint worth writing down is that the last lift up leaves 45 minutes before closing. Between the security screening and two lift changes the visit takes about 45 minutes even when nothing goes wrong, so a timed entry booked in advance is what keeps it inside an hour and a half.
Wooden escalators still run on Macy’s upper floors
Macy’s Herald Square occupies the block between Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 34th Street, and the thing worth going up for has nothing to do with shopping. Otis installed around forty wooden moving stairs through the 1920s as the store expanded; oak and ash treads, wooden balustrades, the mechanism audible under your feet. Most were replaced with steel during renovations, but the upper floors kept theirs, and they are still carrying people.
Ride to the top and walk down through them, which takes about ten minutes and costs nothing. Outside the Broadway doors, Herald Square and Greeley Square are two pedestrian triangles carved out of what used to be roadway, with movable tables and chairs; they are the only free seating for several blocks in a district that otherwise expects you to buy something to sit down.
Moynihan Train Hall’s glass vaults sit over an old mail sorting room
The James A. Farley Building went up in 1913 across Eighth Avenue from the original Penn Station, by the same architects, as the city’s main post office. Its 31,000-square-foot mail sorting room is now the train hall: four glass-and-steel vaults spring from the original riveted trusses and reach 92 feet above the floor, and the whole thing opened on 1 January 2021 after nearly thirty years of argument about whether to do it.
It is a public building, open daily from 5am to 1am, with seating and a four-faced clock hanging in the middle of the concourse. Between 1am and 5am it closes and the trains work out of Penn Station on the other side of the avenue.
Most people standing in this hall arrived on an intercity or commuter train carrying everything for a whole trip rather than a day bag, and there are no public lockers on either side of the avenue; the only storage inside the building is the railway’s own desk, which takes bags when it has room and charges more if you are not travelling with them.
Everything above sits inside a ten-minute walk of the platforms, which is the argument for treating this end of Midtown as its own afternoon rather than a place to change trains. With five or six hours instead of three, the Grand Central route across town opens up a different set of stops on the east side, about twenty minutes away by subway.
Both routes to Kennedy Airport start under the same block
The E subway line runs from 34th Street-Penn Station out to Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue in Queens, which is the AirTrain interchange, with no change on the way: $3.00, and about 40 minutes on a good run. The AirTrain leg on top of that is a separate $8.75 fare charged by the Port Authority rather than the MTA, so nothing you tapped for the subway counts toward it.
The faster option is a Long Island Rail Road train from Penn Station to Jamaica, roughly 20 minutes, at $5.25 off peak or $7.25 in the weekday rush, then the same AirTrain connection. Either way, allow an hour from this block to a terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) before you start counting check-in and security.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near Penn Station and Moynihan Train Hall in New York City?
Walk east on 34th Street and you reach two things inside ten minutes. The Empire State Building's 86th-floor deck is the open-air one, tickets from $44, and it is the stop to book ahead because the lift queue is the whole cost of an unbooked visit. Macy's Herald Square is halfway there and free: the wooden Otis escalators installed in the 1920s still run on the upper floors, which is not true of any other department store in the city. Back at the station, Moynihan Train Hall itself is worth ten minutes for the four glass vaults over what used to be the post office's mail sorting room. Four hours covers all three without hurrying; on two, drop the observation deck.
Which building do I actually want, Penn Station or Moynihan Train Hall?
They are two buildings on opposite sides of Eighth Avenue, connected underground, and which one you want depends on the hour and the operator. Moynihan Train Hall, in the old Farley post office, is open to the public daily from 5am to 1am and handles Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road departures during those hours. Between 1am and 5am the hall shuts and both railroads work out of Penn Station across the avenue instead. The subway platforms are all on the Penn Station side. If you are killing time rather than catching a train, Moynihan is the one with room to sit.
Is there anything worth doing near Penn Station for nothing?
Three things, without a ticket between them. Moynihan Train Hall is a public building and the vaulted hall is free to stand in. Macy's Herald Square costs nothing to walk into, and the wooden escalators on its top floors are the reason to go up rather than the merchandise. Herald Square and Greeley Square, the two triangles where Broadway crosses Sixth Avenue, have public seating and are the only sitting-down space in this part of Midtown that does not come with a purchase. The Empire State Building is the only paid stop in the area worth the money.
How long does the Empire State Building take if I have booked a slot?
Budget 90 minutes door to door from the station, of which about 45 is inside the building. A booked entry time gets you past the ticket desk but not past the security screening or the two lift changes, and the 86th floor is an outdoor deck, so a queue for the parapet builds on clear evenings. The last lift up leaves 45 minutes before closing, which is the deadline that actually matters on a flight day. The enclosed 102nd-floor deck is a separate charge on top and adds another wait, so skip it if the clock is tight.