The Trump administration, in partnership with Amtrak, unveiled a plan earlier this week to renovate the world-renowned Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan.
Penn Station, located in Trump’s hometown of New York City, is the busiest transportation center in the Western Hemisphere. It takes in roughly 600,000 commuters every workday, which is more than the amount of daily traffic at John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty airports combined, according to the Associated Press.
But in recent years, Penn Station has become a home for the homeless and violent criminals. The congested transit hub has been in the news recently for stabbings, confirming New Yorkers’ sentiments that the station is no longer safe.
“It’s a sh*thole,” one law enforcement source lamented to The New York Post in 2021. “It’s drugs. They come from all over … Some are just homeless. Now that [Madison Square Garden] is open you’re going to see scalpers, hustlers, and the residual [violence].”
Congressman Tom Suozzi (D-NY) spoke for many New Yorkers when he declared in 2021 that Penn Station has become “a dangerous dungeon,” adding, “I’ve been coming here for decades. It’s never been this bad.”
President Donald Trump wants to change that.
“The Golden Age of Transportation is coming thanks to President Trump,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “He had a vision to transform this dirty, falling-apart station in the middle of his hometown into a state-of-the-art transit hub that millions can enjoy for generations to come. American families deserve a safe, efficient, and clean commute to their homes, jobs, and churches.”
LOOK at what is coming to New York City 🚨👀@POTUS is transforming Penn Station into the world-class masterpiece it was always meant to be
This isn’t just a renovation, it’s a complete, mind-blowing REBIRTH 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/gNyAW2U5AM
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) June 9, 2026
The winning design for the remodeled Penn Station was submitted by Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), whose founder Vishaan Chakrabarti has worked on American landmarks such as Columbia University, the East River waterfront, and the street grid surrounding the World Trade Center.
PAU lamented in a statement that the original Pennsylvania Station was a “Beaux-Arts masterpiece designed by McKim, Mead & White” that was destroyed “in an act of extraordinary civic vandalism,” leading to the creation of a modern “subterranean station that has long been unsafe, undignified and unable to meet the demands of a growing city and region.” PAU seeks to fix the ailing station with their new design.
“For PAU, the project represents an ‘architecture of memory’—one that draws from historical precedent without replicating it,” the PAU statement said. “The proposal seeks to unite sustainability, durability, public utility, and civic grandeur in a station designed to serve future generations, while addressing the errors of the past.”
Justin Davidson, New York Magazine’s architecture critic, has stated that the architecture will also make Penn Station more navigable and accessible.
“What the plan does accomplish is it clears away columns from the congested platforms and adds escalators, so commuters don’t have to stand in line to exit or rush to board in the few minutes between the platform announcement and departure,” Davidson observed.
“An orderly grid of wide, high-ceilinged concourses, all on one level, replaces the multilevel ant farm of today, making the station safer and less stressful for its 650,000 daily passengers. The 18-wheelers serving Madison Square Garden, which now trundle in, back out, and cause gridlock on the street, will move through the building’s innards and stay out of sight.”
The designs will also include a presidential seal featuring Trump’s name.
The project is projected to cost between $7 to $8 billion, mostly financed through federal grants to Amtrak, together with some private financing, federal loans, and potentially some funds from New York City. They plan to break ground at the end of 2027. In the meantime, the Department of Transportation is open to hearing public feedback on the proposed designs.
The Trump administration unveiled its Penn Station design after other renovation successes, including restoring the Lincoln Reflecting Pool and cleaning up Union Station in Washington, D.C.
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