jnewman wrote:I guess the boarded-up doorway in the tunnel between 34th street and the PATH station was the 6th Ave end of this, does anyone know where in Penn Station end was?
...and...
UpperHarlemLine4ever wrote:The tunnel ran from Penn Station to the PATH. It was referred to as Gimbel's Alley by railroad employees. It ran under 32nd Street. It was owned by the Pennsy and then it's decendants, Penn Central, Conrail and then NJT. Don't know when it was closed, all I remember was patrolling it when I was a PCRR Police Officer.
Actually, the tunnel ran under 33rd Street (access to Gimbel's was from the north side of the store, not the south side).
The Sixth Avenue end is behind that locked metal door. The Penn Station end is no longer visible since the renovations a decade or so ago. It is behind the tile wall with the Metrocard machines at the 33rd street entrances to the northbound local platform (which still serve as an entrance to Penn Station from the east side of 7th Ave at 33rd).
In olden times, when that tunnel was still open
and the Sixth Avenue mezzanine level connecting 34th and 42nd street stations was still open (with the entrances at 38th Street), it was possible to walk undergound from 40th & 6th to 31st & 8th - no doubt the longest legal underground walk in Manhattan.
(Of course, with the present configuration of fare controls under Herald Square, even if both passageways were opened tomorrow, it would now require a Metrocard swipe to make that walk. Back then, the entire walk would have been outside of fare control zones.)