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Photo from disused underground "Gimbels Passageway" connecting the Herald Square transportation services (the 6th Avenue IND subway lines, the Broadway BMT subway lines, and PATH) to Penn Station. (Via Railroad.net forum.)
Isn't it irritating how when you take the subway or PATH to Herald Square en route to Penn Station you have to clamber up to the street and wade through the mob scene just to schlep a block over to Seventh Avenue and go back underground again? Why can't there be a tunnel connecting the two stations? Turns out there is; it's just that it was closed sometime around 1990, possibly because nobody wanted to pay for its maintenance.
Called Gimbels Passageway, it's named for the old Gimbels department store that closed in 1986, which was replaced by Manhattan Mall. The draft scope of work (PDF) for the 15 Penn Plaza Project (which would replace the Hotel Pennsylvania with a commercial tower) states that a restoration of the passageway would be part of the proposed subway improvements.
Rail Fan Window blog has lovingly parsed the report, and finds that not only would one be able to walk from 32nd Street and Broadway "and not come back above ground until reaching the IND subway stairs on the west side of 8th Avenue at 33rd Street," but also:
Even better, if Moynihan Station gets built, you’ll be able to stay indoors and keep walking west another half-block towards 9th Avenue. And if Madison Square Garden gets built on the western half of the block, then maybe you’d be able to stay inside all the way to 9th Avenue!And after that, a tunnel to Hoboken! We've contacted NYC Transit for more details, and though it's going to be a while until this happens (if ever!), a plan to avoid the Herald Square consumer crush when late for a train is definitely change we can believe in.
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Gimbels turned into A&S Plaza then into the Manhattan Mall. I'm only being a stickler because A&S was what I remember it most as.
Most of these tunnels were closed about twenty years ago because of numerous attacks/rapes. There were so many of them and they were soooo convenient.
^Yep!
A plethora of security cameras, emergency assistance buttons, serious lighting and having a cop on the beat in the tunnels would probably solve this. (Recommendation - add some flat screens to the tunnel walls showing what on the security cameras, for that panopticon effect. Screw the charming historic tilework.)
That and locking the tunnel up between say Midnight and 6:00.
Toronto has a great system of underground tunnels, funnily enough called PATH. It is around 17 miles of underground tunnels some of it with shopping. It connects about a half dozen subway stations, Union Station, oodles of office buildings and other public buildings.
Something like that would be much nicer than just a typical long subway connector like between the 6th Avenue IND and 7th Avenue IRT at 14th Street.
Ah... that explains those childhood memories. I always chalked my clouded remembrances of subterranean jaunts under 33rd Street to too many Nedicks dogs after marathon sessions of the Goonies. Thx
http://www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?SecID=1000&ArID=27208
gimebels is where the santa at macy's told me i should go so i could buy that gift for my child.
The original Gimbels was at 34th and 5th(NE), now a public library.
It's the CUNY Grad. Center now. But wasn't it a Bonwit-Teller's for a while?
Actually what is now the CUNY Grad Center used to be B Altmans, from when it was built in the '30s to 1989 when it closed. It was then vacant for ten years before it was bought by the NY Dorm Authority (which technically owns most properties used by public universities), which leases space to the GC as well as Science Industry and Business Library of NYPL and Oxford University Press.
The building also made a brief cameo in the Will Ferrell movie "Elf" as a stand-in for whatever department store.
Gimbel's was always at Herald Square, hence the famous rhetorical question "Does Gimbel's tell Macy's?" meaning do competitors give away each other's secrets?
I used to use this tunnel all the time to get from the Broadway train (N,R) to Penn Station. Very convenient.
It's a very good idea -- a very convenient tunnel. Perhaps they could keep some of the old signs, with a plaque explaining what "Gimbels" was.
But even with a roaring economy they di--ed around with Moynihan Station, kept glomming stuff on, until it was too expensive to build even when the Dow was 14000.
As for 15 Penn Plaza , good luck with that.
Bottom line, we'll be waiting awhile for that tunnel to reopen.
www.forgotten-ny.com
say verbal, i think you might have some of the sites wrong. where the cuny grad center is now was berdoff goodman and gimbels was where a&s and then that stupid mall that's becoming a jc penny is today. damn i remember when jack's was willoughby's, the world's largest camera store.
i remember that gimbels before it became a&s. come to think of it i remember may's on union square at 14th and broadway and walking through the tunnel along 14th street between 7th and 8th aves too. when it closed and we had to take the carnarie line which then became the LL now known simply as the L.
Gimbel's is gone. Long gone. You're Gimbel's.
Came here for this, left satisfied.
Perhaps they will open the tunnel between 7th and 8th Avenue at 50th Street.
That Statler Hilton sign is great too. I was just reading about Ellsworth Statler who founded his hotel chain in Buffalo and eventually built the Hotel Pennsylvania. He died in 1928 and his heirs ceded control to the company's board which sold out to Hilton in 1951. As a Statler Hotel, a night at the Hotel Pennsylvania cost $3.50.
As a Statler Hotel, a night at the Hotel Pennsylvania cost $3.50.
And probably a chunk of your health as well.
Another great bit of New York Subway estoric (I'd have been dissappointed to have not seen a post from you Kevin). So much hidden beneath the streets that's crying out to be revealed.
As long as the MTA took care of the rats and CHUD problem before they reopen the tunnel, I am all for it.
There are other underground tunnels in that area which I believe were built for President Roosevelt's visits to NYC.
FDR, not Teddy.
The FDR private train story is (mostly) legend. For the long, convoluted (but more accurate) explanation:
http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/gct61.html
Thanks for the link.
34th Street Partnership -for whom I work-, the local BID, has been pushing the MTA to reopen the tunnel for a number of years now. Same for tunnel between 35th and 40th below Sixth Ave.
It is unlikley to happen unless some public pressure mounts on the MTA to open it or some third party pays for the ongoing maintenance costs.
That's right there is also a tunnel under 6th Avenue from the Herald Square Station to the 42nd Street Station on the B/D/F/Q. If they opened that tunnel as well, one could walk underground from 8th Avenue and 33rd Street to 5th Avenue and 42nd Street!
Several commenters have mentioned the MTA. However, the MTA has nothing to do with this, and thus was not mentioned in the blog posts. As is the case with most "transit improvement areas" that are off of MTA controlled property, it is the developer of 15 Penn Plaza who will most likely be responsible for reopening and maintaining the Gimbels Passageway.
I believe the relocation of Madison Square Garden is now dead -- thank God. They're moving Penn into a much nicer building to get away from that piece of shit.
Actually, while access would be provided to all tracks, only NJT would have "facilities" in the Farley building. And since the vast majority of passengers approach Penn Station from the east, no one is really going to use the Farley building just to get to their train. That would be several minutes out of the way. Only people who are really early and want to stop in at the retail that will be available at Farley will use that building. So it won't do much for the dashing commuter.
However, if the MSG move wasn't dead, and MSG moved one block west, then the plan would have been to also completely renovate Penn Station between 7th Av and 8th Av and *THAT* would have been a real benefit for commuters. So I'm quite sorry to see that the MSG relocation plan is dead.
That tunnel seems incredibly narrow. Do they have enough available space to widen it to resemble the 42nd street port authority-times square tunnel?
Haha right, the MTA can barely re-paint a fuckin station for under $100 million. Maybe if they first grow a brain then I'll believe them.
this tunnel should have never been closed; it's incredibly difficult to walk against the crowds during rush hours along 32nd and 33rd streets between 6th and 7th aves.
say verbal, i think you might have some of the sites wrong. where the cuny grad center is now was berdoff goodman and gimbels was where a&s and then that stupid mall that's becoming a jc penny is today. damn i remember when jack's was willoughby's, the world's largest camera store.
i remember that gimbels before it became a&s. come to think of it i remember may's on union square at 14th and broadway and walking through the tunnel along 14th street between 7th and 8th aves too. when it closed and we had to take the carnarie line which then became the LL now known simply as the L.
Are they hiring the same contractors as those who have been working at the Columbus Circle station....
i remember this tunnel from the 70's when my dad and i would use it to get all the way to GPO where he worked. there were also a number of shops along this tunnel. there's no reason not to reopen it, and, nowadays, there'd be little question of safety, with all the advanced surveillance technology available...