The reason was logistics. Coming from the north into Manhattan you had the New York Central, that either went up through manhattan to central NY or up the Hudson river, that terminated in Grand Central. The railroads from the south came into Penn Station via the Hudson River tunnels and there was no access to the north from there. The East River tunnels ended up on Long Island, so the Hell Gate logically tied Long Island to the mainland (Bronx), where trains could run north up along the coast to Boston. Basically the alternate to the Hell Gate would have been building a route connecting Penn Station to the Park Avenue Tunnels the NY Central and New Haven used, then switching over to the east Bronx to pick up tracks that led to New Engla,and that wasn't going to happen, both logistically and that the Penn Railroad was bitter rival of the NYC, plus it would have been a lot more expensive to do that, or worse, build a new tunnel all the way up Manhattan from Penn Station, cross into the Bronx on a new tunnel or bridge, to connect. The Hell Gate Bridge also allowed freight to move after being floated over to Brooklyn and LIC to the Bronx and on to New England as well.
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