Penn Station is a major transportation hub in New York City. A variety of transit lines (Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, Long Island Rail Road, New York subways) converge at this station near 32nd Street and 7th Avenue. Wikipedia reports that Penn Station serves 600,000 people per day at a rate up to 1000 people every 90 seconds. Wikipedia also has photographs of Penn Station from the first half of the 20th century. The photos suggest that Penn Station was a lovely, breathtaking structure, similar to Grand Central Terminal; however, that building has since been demolished. Now, a non-descript building with architecture that is neither inspiring nor consistent with other New York City buildings of the original era looms over Madison Square Garden.

Let me tell you about Penn Station on Friday evenings around 5:30pm. This is most certainly when the station reaches the rate of serving 1000 people every 90 seconds.

First of all, many, many people are converging into the station from all directions. It’s like they’re all ants and Penn Station is a luscious chunk of potato salad on a warm summer day. They can’t help but be drawn towards it.

In a rush to begin the weekend, these people make haste around and in the station. People run. They shove their way around other people. They push themselves into people. They sigh loudly, mumble quietly, and curse audibly.

Crowds of people—numbering between fifty and one-hundred at any one time—will brazenly cross 7th Avenue against the light to enter the station. Never mind that buses are roaring down 7th Avenue or that taxis are blaring their horns as they approach. Ignore the delivery boys and messengers on bikes who are speeding along with traffic. Who cares that cars are rolling towards the station at speeds up to 40 miles an hour? The light is red, the red hand is steadily poised, and people cannot resist the urge to get that two- or five-second advance start on crossing the street.

So a few of them step into the street. If the oncoming traffic is unforgiving, these people will run. If the drivers are unassertive, the pedestrians still on the sidewalk will take heart and follow the leaders. Soon, the small mob is crossing the street while taxis, buses, cars, and bicycle messengers approach and then encroach upon the crowd. These vehicles will literally creep up so close that the pedestrians could reach out and, I don’t know, pound their fists against the windshields.

The entrance to Penn Station on 7th Avenue is wide, but not as wide as the street and thus serves as a bottleneck. People must slow down to (1) slip into the entrance and (2) take care to not fall down the stairs or escalators.

But! Please note that these same people who just moments before were risking their lives by dashing across 7th Avenue against traffic sometimes stop walking for no apparent reason prior to entering the station. Though they had no qualms about running into traffic because of their desperation to get to the station as fast as possible, they hesitate to move forward though they are that much closer to reaching their destinations. Some of them are fishing things out of their bags; some of them are futzing with their cell phones, some of them seem to be responding to internal stimuli.

Everyone manages to get into Penn Station, though, and, once the bottleneck opens up again, some people speed up. I’ve seen a few suits dash past, their trenchcoats flapping behind them. There are the young women with rolling suitcases who cannot walk faster because they are wearing three-inch stiletto heels. Kids in the latest fashions amble along, pulling up their sagging pants. Students hoist their backpacks over their shoulders and squeak past in their sneakers. Parents pull their children along, girlfriends impatiently yell at their boyfriends to hurry up, and people try not to look too annoyed as they wonder how they can get around the elderly couple who will not move faster.

If you stand against one of the columns (not in an aisle—you’ll get pushed over) on Friday evenings and simply watch, you will see hundreds of people pass you by in the span of minutes. Most of them look a bit harried; some look amused. You will see all races, all ages, all fashions, and all expressions. They’re all trying to get somewhere. They’re simultaneously waiting and moving.

It’s amazing.