East Coast Travelogue №3: Moynihan Train Hall as a Portrait of Inequality and Cuomo’s Dark Legacy
That corrupt sex pest had a penchant for making things shiny without improving their functionality for the people who actually use it daily. Nothing exemplifies both Cuomo’s disturbing legacy and the rampant wealth disparity that defines 2020s NYC quite like Moynihan Train Hall.
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Previously, on Episode 2 of the Return to the East Coast Travelogue, I spent the week in Raleigh for a game dev conference and was taken aback at how much it had changed under what looked like colonization from northeasterners.
This time, the journey to the next stop had a couple legs and didn’t stop at the airport.
Originally, it was supposed to terminate at Newark Airport. But while Newark isn’t as miserable of an experience as LAX (except that stupid AirTrain design, making them like Ferris wheel cars — people got luggage!), the Jewish wedding principle struck and my plans got derailed.
I was supposed to have a quick ride in and out of my hometown’s odd half-sibling across the Hudson, then a free crashpad with my parents for the night before I hopped the train to upstate New York to visit friends. But my parents were on vacation, caught COVID, and had to quarantine until they were cleared to return to the US. I looked into rerouting my flight to Albany, but the change fee was astronomical. So I changed the date on my train ticket instead.
This wound up being a blessing in disguise since it gave me more time with my friends and I had enough Best Western points to get another night for free anyhow. Moreover, it’s because I got an unexpected little adventure: finally getting to see Moynihan Train Hall.
It left me feeling emotional, but probably not for the reasons you’d think.
