Have to get expedited passport tomorrow at 10am, traveling from Pa about 3 hours away. Can anybody give me an idea about the traffic and parking in that area? There are parking garages nearby, should/can I make appointment for same or find street parking? Should I park somewhere else and take train to area/ Whatever is best thing to do, I appreciate any advice.

i would not drive into lower Manhattan, no way, no how. Drive or take a train to Penn Station Newark. From there take PATH red line to WTC, or connect from Red to Yellow, to Christopher St. thats close to Hudson St

Thank you so much, will do that.

Red line, Yellow line? To be more specific - on PATH the line colors are just for quick identification on a route map (like the route colors on the NYC Subway) no one uses the line colors when talking about the routes. On PATH, the "Red line" would be the Newark-WTC line and the "Yellow line" is the Journal Square-33rd St line. [Note: during overnight hours and weekends, the "Yellow line" becomes the "Yellow-Blue line" as the line also serves Hoboken in both directions]. From Newark you would take the WTC train to Journal Square and go across the platform for the 33rd St train to Christopher St. When you exit to the street at Christopher St go to the right for Hudson St, then go left and walk to W. Houston St.

The NY Passport office is at 376 Hudson St at W. Houston St. That is about 5 blocks south of the Christopher St station on PATH. That is the closest station on PATH. The WTC PATH station would be a much much l-o-n-g-e-r walk (22 blocks or just over a mile). The nearest NYC subway station would be Houston St (at Varick St) on the 1 line (and then one block walk to Hudson St).

My son took me as I was very nervous and he lived in Manhattan awhile and also commuted from NJ. and thank goodness he did. I was overwhelmed by Penn station. If you remember the song about Tom Dooley never returning from the subway of Boston, I would still be wandering around down there.

What we did was drive to and park at Newark Penn station, take train to NY Penn Station then to line 1. Googlemaps told me to exit at Christopher st and in walking to Hudson street we passed the Houston st station so took that back.

Would like to comment on my experience at the Passport agency. The process was very organized, one employee checked your printed appointment confirmation to make sure you went on correct line. There were 2 parallel lines, one for,say, 10 am along the building then an adjacent line for 10:30 which was my appointment line. If you were in earlier line than your appointment you were told to leave line and go to end of you correct line so no sneaking in earlier. I was speaking to someone who was late, at 10:15 she arrived for an 8:30 appointment but no problem to get on line. When you get inside another person checks your appointment form, go through security, line up to have documents checked and pay fee and you are given a number to bring upstairs to 10th floor. someone upstairs checks that you have the number, go into room and wait for number to be called. That person checks everything again, collects it all then if, like me, you need an expedited passport you are given a time to return in afternoon to pick it up. Every single person you deal with is friendly and polite.

It was a good experience except for the drive from NE Pa. Traffic was horrendous,; we left at 6:15 am and arrived just before 10 am!

KRNS, glad to hear you made it there (and back) relatively easily (except for the driving which is never easy).

I do wonder, however, why Googlemaps showed exit at the Christopher St station on the 1 rather than the Houston St station (good to hear you passed the Houston St station when walking so you could take it back to NY Penn). Well, I have advised many not to accept what Googlemaps has as "gospel" without looking at the whole area carefully.

NY Penn is not that bad. It was a lot worse before they redid the LIRR level and got rid of all those support beams and raised the ceiling.