Hilton corridor at Penn Station and the IRT

When I was in high school 40+ years ago I used to take PATH to Herald Square and then walk the Gimbels passageway and Hilton Corridor underground to the Garden to see the Knicks and Rangers - back when the Knicks were good. The Gimbels passageway is now closed, and Hilton Corridor is still there in Penn Station on the lower level, but I can't figure out how the Hilton corridor used to cross the IRT (7th ave subway) - the Hilton (now Hotel Pennsylvania) was on the east side of 7th Ave. I think today, coming from Penn Station, the corridor ends at the subway fare control where the subway passenger tunnel is underneath the IRT tracks at 32nd st to get from one platform to another. Was that tunnel not inside fare control way back when? Or was there yet another pedestrian tunnel under the IRT?
Hope this makes some sense, Jim S

they probably reconfigured the IRT fare control at one point. They do things like that occasionally.

Kamen Rider wrote:they probably reconfigured the IRT fare control at one point. They do things like that occasionally.

As to reconfiguring, the main example of that that I can think of is at 42nd Street on the 8th Avenue. Going between the uptown and downtown platforms by way of the mezzanine instead of the old way of going down past the abandoned lower level track.

The corridor used to be outside the subway fare control. Back in the early 1980s I worked near Union Square and walked to Penn Station to catch the LIRR to Bayside. One of my crowd-avoidance techniques was to duck into a nondescript doorway in the 32nd Street side of the hotel, down a crummy stairway, and under 7th Ave. into Penn Station. Can't do that anymore!

Thanks Alchemist! The Rangers are good again, and now we'll see which happens first - the Knicks getting back on top, or that passageway under 7th avenue opening up. By the time the Knicks or Rangers win a championship, maybe they'll have the passageway open all the way to Herald Square again. Hope springs eternal JS