Please help me navigate Penn Station to the LIRR

July 28, 2022 3:50 PM

I need to catch a 6am Saturday train from Penn Station, NYC, to Babylon, Long Island. It's going to be so damn early that there's no room for error. Penn Station is a maze and at least two railroads use it. So, please tell me where I should enter the station FROM THE STREET at 5:30am Saturday, to be near enough to the LIRR tracks (Babylon Branch if it matters) that I won't get lost and miss my train.
posted by JimN2TAW to Travel & Transportation (6 answers total)

Best answer: 7th Ave., almost right across from where 32nd St. stops at the superblock. The LIRR boards directly from the lower level so you'll have to descend another level from there, but that's the closest entrance.
posted by praemunire at 4:21 PM on July 28, 2022 [7 favorites]

The MTA map of Penn Station shows four entrances from the street, it does look like 7th Avenue or along 34th will work best for you.
posted by channaher at 4:30 PM on July 28, 2022

Best answer: Depends on which direction you're coming from. There's now a dedicated entrance to the LIRR section of the station on 7th Avenue, and that's what I use most often.

But the ticketed seating area in Moynihan Train Hall, the new annex of the station inside the old Farley Post Office Building, on the west side of 8th Ave., is by far the nicest place to wait for a train. You just have to watch the screens to see when a platform for your train is announced. Then you go down the escalator to a corridor from which you can access all the LIRR platforms. Generally, the platforms are announced at least 10 minutes before departure. That's plenty of time to get from the waiting area to your train.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:03 PM on July 28, 2022

Best answer: If you happen to be coming up 8th Ave in a car or coming from the west side, you'd do just as well to enter Moynihan Train Hall on the west side of 8th Ave at the corner of 33rd St. Generally speaking, Moynihan is a much nicer way to access Amtrak and LIRR compared to Penn Station and it's very easy.

When you walk inside the 8th Ave-33rd St entrance you just go down a short ramp and boom, there are all the escalators to the platforms. The only difference from the 7th Ave entrance mentioned above is that you'll be at the back end of the LIRR platforms instead of the front.
posted by theory at 5:27 PM on July 28, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks, folks. At 5:30am we won't need to wait, so we won't need the new Moynihan Train Hall.

What I'm getting is that 7th Ave near 32nd is the simplest, and if my Uber happens to be at 8th Ave and 33rd for some reason, I can also enter the new Moynihan Train Hall.
posted by JimN2TAW at 5:36 PM on July 28, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Be aware that they are doing construction at that entrance right now--it looks like it's not open, but it is.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:04 AM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]