Update 1/2/21 7:58 PM PT: The new Moynihan Train Hall for the Amtrak Station opened on January 1, 2021. Until I can go see it for myself, scroll to the bottom of this post for a video of Amtrak's renderings.
And in the meantime, here are my photos from 2010.
This year at the top of my list was a tour of the future site of Moynihan Station, the extension of the current Penn Station underground across 8th Avenue and up into the big Farley Post Office, whose main building and annex are currently 90% abandoned, save for the front lobby.
This year's event marked the first time that those areas of the Farley building had been open to the public in 80 years...
...the federal postal goings-on having been highly protected under tight security...
...until they ceased operations recently.
Although much of the debris and relics from postal work (including a police station) have been cleared out...
...there were still plenty of throwback signs from seemingly every decade of the 20th century...
...scattered throughout the sorting room, future concourse, and offices.
Everything seemed unplugged...
...but there were still small signs of human activity...
...maybe the security staff, maybe maintenance/janitorial, maybe the planners for the new site...
...and whoever cleaned, managed to not clean everything.
The development project doesn't have nearly enough funding yet, so even Phase One—extending the Amtrak train tracks under Eighth Avenue—seems like it's a long way off.
But this weekend's tour definitely felt like my last (and probably only) chance to ever see this great landmarked building in its current, vacant iteration, without a fresh coat of paint.
Added 1/2/21 8:04 PM PT:
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