MIDTOWN — New Yorkers heading out of town for the Fourth of July holiday weekend began pouring through Penn Station Tuesday afternoon.
Pam Parker, an Upper West Side resident, was waiting for a train to Cape Cod, where she looked forward to spending the holiday at her beach house.
“I like to escape from New York City once in a while,” she said.
Sam Yelton, a college student living in Crown Heights, was headed to Gettysburg, Pa., where she planned to attend events marking the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Afterward, he said he would spend July Fourth with his family in Charlotte, N.C.
The station was also filled with tourists, eager to get home and spend time with their families for the Fourth.
Lee and Mike Ott, a couple from Colorado, were headed to Groton, Conn. to see their 29-day-old granddaughter.
And Meghann Parkinson, 21, a clarinetist for the orchestral, indie-pop band M.H. & His Orchestra, was traveling to Fort Plain, N.Y. to spend the Fourth with her family. The members of her band met each other about a year ago on an Amtrak train headed to New York City’s Penn Station.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority was set to increase train service starting Wednesday to help ease the crush of New Yorkers leaving town.
