Move over, Grand Central, a new Manhattan station will be turning heads.
Here’s a first look at the future Moynihan Station, a sleek, airy and light-filled space expected to severely ease crowding in overflowing — and ugly — Penn Station.
The renderings, released yesterday by Amtrak, show the old James Farley Post Office redone in the manner of a continental European station, complete with soaring ceilings and clearly marked track space.
The first phase of the $267 million project is expected to open by 2016.
As pretty as it will be, the improvements for commuters will largely be cosmetic.
No extra trains will be able to come into Penn or its gleaming new neighbor, Moynihan, because the tracks running under the Hudson are already operating at capacity.
But officials say that Moynihan will improve the times it takes people to get into and out of the station.
The renderings were released in an Amtrak report, which detailed the future of high speed rail in the coming decades.
The railroad company is hoping to add track improvements to significantly reduce travel times on the busy Northeast Corridor, which links Boston to Washington, DC.
If implemented, those improvements could decrease travel time from New York to Boston or DC to 94 minutes by 2040, the report said.
They could also reduce New York to Philadelphia trip to a mere 37 minutes, the report said.