1/2/3 Trains - 34 St. (Day 1, stop #31)

Out:  Surprisingly, the streets here are much more crowded than at 42^nd St.  It’s getting close to rush hour and the commuters seem to be flocking here.  There are definitely people of all races and from middle-class to wealthy.  Many people in office gear, but definitely not all.  

To the south it’s apparent that the buildings of midtown are fading into the smaller apartments and other buildings of Chelsea.  However, right by Penn Station there are still many large office towers as well as the enormous Macy’s with its large electronic billboard on the side.

In:  On the platform, there is a strange and almost unique layout: there is a three platform, four track layout.  On the center platform, there is access to both the uptown and downtown express trains.  To access the local trains, however, you must go onto an underpass (also at the same level as the Penn Station entrance) and then cross onto the local platform.  Very strange; not sure why this layout is like this.  But always extremely annoying on practical level.  The station is not very clean but the lighting is pretty good and the tiling pattern is brown & jade.  There is a real mix of characters here inside the station; always a good quotient of crazy/homeless folks around.  At the north end of the express platform there is a large tile mural of deer, bears, and other animals frolicking in a forest near a river.  Not particularly appropriate for Penn Station, but maybe it symbolizes that you could escape to wildnerness by hopping on a train here?