No, Union Station is in Washington, DC. The Amtrak station in Philadelphia is 30th Street Station.

And, Pennsylvania Station in New York, while it is the Amtrak station in Manhattan, is, actually, a disgrace: poorly signed; utterly confusing even to regular users, let alone first-time visitors; a rat's nest of passageways and corridors.

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Which might explain how I got on a train to Washington, DC when I was supposed to be heading to Northhampton, MA

Could have been worse. You could have gotten on a train headed to Harrisburg, PA.

And never returned.

Union Station is in PA—Erie, PA. It's definitely not in NYC.

There are Union Stations in many cities besides DC, including Chicago, KC, and LA. (Sorry, I used initials.)

And in NYC there is Union Square where many subway trains converge.

Penn Station has brilliant signs and instrucions comapred to the PA, I mean the Port Authority. Old NY'ers used to call it The Port of Authority.

You might want to check out MenuPages.com or Yelp.com
They have ratings, price ranges and (as the name implies) MenuPages.com has menus.
Note 1: A lot of the restaurants have ratings based on only one or two reviews.
Note 2: The menus may not be completely up-to-date, but they will give you an idea of the fare before you go.

There are Union Stations all over the country - named after the Union Pacific RR - the first line to cross the country. That's also why there are a bunch of Penn Stations - based on the early Pennsylvania RR. (All long since combine into Amtrak.) (And no - there is no Union Station in NYC - just Penn Station and Grand Central.)

Menupages is a good source of basic info - location, hours, type of food and price range. Reviews are uneven to useless.

Menupages is a good source of basic info - location, hours, type of food and price range. Reviews are uneven to useless.

And the reviews in Yelp are bizarre. And the number two restaurant on Trip Advisor is Basso 56, number 3 is a cookie bakery that is below street level, and 5 is a pizza joint in the Theater District.

These sites are beyond suspect.

It is true that there are Union Stations all over the country. But Union Station in Washington, DC, is arguably the most famous and historic of all of them. It is so named because it served two railroads when it opened in 1907, The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It was completed in 1908.

The Union Pacific Railroad never served Washington, DC.

Since both the Pennsy and the B&O had trackage and terminals in the area of DC now known as the Mall, the construction of Union Station enabled the creation of the Mall as we know it today, a promenade running from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol.

Subsequently, Union Station was also used by other railroads, including the Southern Railway and the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad.

As others said, Anything goes ++ a must;
for a flavor of NY why not a base ball game??
I've not seen but perhaps I've read too fast some suggestions on Ellis Island museum, and then Lower East Side tenement museum, which could be more interesting than Coney Island(even if Coney island is not so bad if you want more to see than to have fun..).
For the restaurant, Ocean Grill on Columbus is very nice(good food, service sometimes not on top...), Aureole on 42nd street a must and I think they can organize a large table, also Gramercy tavern and in the european(french...) standard, prices are not so high...
Harry potter worth the visit,
and if you have a sunday afternoon in your vacation the Parlor entertainment in Harlem worth absolutely the visit : jazz jam session in an appartment...
Also on evening a jazz club is an idea(Smoke not too expensive, in Upper West side) or the more "known"(Village Vanguard, Blue Note, Birdland, Iridium) depending/programm...
Erik

I've been in so many Union Stations that I forgot that NYP was New York Penn. The "Union" does not always mean that Union Pacific was involved in construction. Union means that 2 or more railroads decide to combine their rails and build a single station in a city. There was a time when there were 2 or even 3 stations in a city. To change trains, you had to cross town.
Washington DC and Chicago are the 2 largest in the US. Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver are the largest Union stations in Canada.

ellenem on Jun 5, 11 at 02:12 PM
tomfuller,
"PA" was a reference the the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC, not to your state.
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Ye, thanks, I think he got confused by what I was referring to.