Penn Station, even the current incarnation, is full of fun secrets–the subject of our upcoming tour on the Remnants of the Original Penn Station. Yesterday, we discovered a new curiosity: this door to nowhere in the Amtrak terminal. This is a question for all you intrepid Untapped readers out there. What is this door for?
Coming up from the Hilton Passageway into the Amtrak area, you’ll encounter this door up against the wall next to Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. Looking behind the door, there’s no opening either.
But there are locks on the front:
UPDATE: Reader Tony P has solved the mystery–it’s a metal accordion security gate:
See more quirky NYC facts and discoveries in our “Daily What?!” series. Check out what may be the smallest door in the NYC subway. Get in touch with the author @untappedmich.
Im a LIRR engineer and I’ve walked by this many times without giving a second thought (which is weird because urbex is one of my hobbies) but after having this link sent to me by my urbex friend, i figured id check it out again It’s actually storage for one of those metal accordion security gates that the police use to section off parts of Penn Station during service disruptions. I simply walked up to it and opened it up. I felt kind of duped like trying to figure out a magic trick and the answer is simple and in front of your face.
Thank you for solving the mystery Tony! I was sure I had seen that exact spot blocked before, but I didn’t think of an accordion gate! I measured the width of the door, and saw that it could not fully block the staircase if it was “swung around” and assumed it was a remnant of something. Glad the article ended up in the hands of an LIRR expert!
Looks like it has hinges on both sides, and that is just a sliding catch, not ‘locked’. Have you tried opening it?
Maybe used in a film and never removed.