August 17, 2005
Subway Station Style
After reading about beautiful subway stations around the world from Metro Bits, Gothamist was a bit depressed that the stations we wait in are dingy and dirty, especially relative to the museum-like structures practically everywhere else. Sure, there are stations here and there that are more pleasant than others, like the soon-to-be finished West 8th Street stop in Coney Island. Perhaps this is the price we pay for having the second oldest subway station in the world, with 1.4 billion travelers and with terrible government funding. Hell, we just want them to be clean. [Via Anil]
Do you have any nominations for the nicest subway station? We're racking our brains for one... sure, there's great artwork in some stations, but none are that great, sadly. We guess we'll have to wait for the Fulton Street Transit Center, modified design and all. Speaking of subway beautification, the Brooklyn DA's office announced they managed to recover $800,000 in wages for workers who tiled subway stations.
Photograph from the 190th Street stop
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What about the obvious choice? Stillwell Ave? open, airy, new. granted, it's not your typical underground sweathole, but i like it.
What about the obvious choice? Stillwell Ave? open, airy, new. granted, it's not your typical underground sweathole, but i like it.
This is the one time I agree with Gothamist's socio-economic view on government funding- the pernicious and terrible evil it is.
Oh wait, it was meant in an interventionist plea for more waste in government? Oh how naive I am.
It's not clean, really, but I love the weird lighting and the hugeness of the 168th St. 1 station.
And I the 81st Street/Museum of Natural History stop is pretty darn clean, and it has dinosaur mosaics.
The new Stillwell Avenue terminal at Coney is nice, and I usually don't like the new stuff...
www.forgotten-ny.com
I am partial to the Franklin Street stop on the 1. It has a minimalist feel, making it an unlikely choice, but the wall tiles, for once, don't remind me of a shower wall.
the new york subway is not the second oldest system in the world - that i know of london and paris have older ones. london's openned sometime in the 19th century, something crazy like the 1860's. paris's metro openned in 1900. i'd guess that new york'd be next, but i'm not sure.
I think the subways are pretty when they are dirty and covered in bathroom tiles. Maybe I suck or something .
Stephen, you're right...the New York City subway system officially opened in 1904...later than London(1863) and Paris (1900). As for favorite stops, I like the Wall street stop on the 4/5 line. I think it's something about the dark blue tiles. I am also partial to the 8th avenue stop on the L, with it miniature statues and spacious platforms.
Boston had the first subway in the US, opening in 1897.
If you're like me, and barely see the stations for the trains, there's a nice exhibit in the lobby of the UBS building at 1285 Ave of the Americas featuring the MTA Arts for Transit. Runs until Sept. 9.
alice in wonderland, people!! i forget which stop that is in manhattan
I live near the 190th Street stop pictured in your photo, and I don't understand it: One day I saw MTA employees tearing off the art posters that had been hanging in each one of those nooks. I thought, Maybe they're going to replace them. But no. Nothing. Just what you saw. I don't understand why they couldn't have just left the posters up if they weren't going to replace them. They were those MTA-sponsored prints of subway trains orbiting the ESB.
Delancey F or Houston 1
We all know the best subways look like this:
http://www.joesnyc.streetnine.com/archives/5_train_manhattan_panorama-may_04_2005_21.html
Recently moved here from Chicago, and the Chicago subways are horrible compared to those in NYC. Most of Chicago's were built in the 1940s and they are purely functional. Very few even have tile -- just dirty white paint in a perpetual state of peeling.
It's all woefully underfunded, that's for sure.
Construction of the Hudson Tubes connecting New Jersey to Manhattan actually began in 1874, but legal, financial, and engineering problems caused the project to take 34 years and the first crossing wasn't until 1908. Makes the WTC re-development seem speedy.
stillwell. done.
Gosh, I like em all! Especially Smith and 9th. What's wrong with me?
The work being done at Times Square, particularly the connections to the NQRW(not the platforms though,those suck) probably makes it the nicest station. There are some nice elements at other stations. The entrance to the 53rd Street EV station on 53rd is a really cool glass and steel canopy.
The MTA obviously doesn't have the funds, but what architect(myself included) wouldn't want a crack at remaking a couple of stations. I'd totally do the work for a song. I think the bid/contract process is really screwed up because the work takes basically forever and is rarely "finished"(there is ONE new missing floor tile at 86th street and it's been that way for months). I don't know if it's just crappy oversight or what, but for some reason they just can't get anything done.
Also, the fact that they don't actually "gut" the stations, but rather just tile over existing tile and such makes it that much harder to totally rework stations. Can you imgaine removing the upteen levels of paint and tile from a station. I wouldn't want that job.
Agreed: London, Boston then NY.
FACT CHECK!