Benjamin Kabak / Second Avenue Sagas Jay H. Walder, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, at the opening of the 96th Street station house on Monday.A few minutes after 11 a.m. on Monday, with little fanfare and a few inches of police tape, one of the most despised frustrations of the New York City subway system came to an end.
We speak, of course, about those awful staircases at the subway station at 96th Street and Broadway, whereby Upper West Siders were forced to trek down two flights, then up another flight, before reaching the platform for the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 trains.
The staircases –- steep, narrow and barely changed from the day they opened in 1904 — were permanently closed off on Monday, replaced by a gleaming station house of light and glass in the Broadway median between 95th and 96th Streets.
About three years in the making (and the cause of countless expressless weekends on the 2 and 3 lines), the station house is now officially open, allowing straphangers to descend directly onto the platform, in a manner similar to the station at 72nd Street and Broadway.
The new staircases are much wider than most in the system, the better to accommodate suitcases and strollers. The platform is two flights down from street level, about twice as deep as the tracks at 72nd Street. And an abstract garden of hanging stainless-steel flowers, drawing on the iconography of Asian pop art, will soon be installed.
The rehabilitation project, which cost about $98 million and is expected to be finished in September, involved widening the Broadway median (at the expense of space for cars) and narrowing sidewalk space along the block.
New York City Transit workers directed puzzled passengers to the new station entrance on Monday morning. Most seemed to take the change in stride.
“Architecturally, it’s very New Yorkish,” Michelle Greenidge-Joiner said after ascending from the tracks into the airy, brushed-chrome mezzanine of the station. “There’s so much sunshine. It reminds me of Grand Central.”
Others, however, wary of the subway’s recent financial troubles, wondered if the construction was worth it.
“I love the look of it, but I wonder where the money came from,” said Neva Petrovich, who lives across the street from the station. “It seems like they build the Taj Mahal. I feel guilty every time I look at it and enjoy it.”
19 Comments
So… the ceiling of the 181st St station collapses due to sheer, unabashed neglect by the MTA (with no sign of it ever being repaired), but gee whiz, thank goodness Upper West Siders don’t have to climb all those stairs any more?
— KristenHow soon before the smell of urine the air?
— lonNIce to see these improvements. But the 72nd Street station would be vastly improved if they also added a staircase on the south end of the platform to ease exiting from the south side of the mezzanine.
— GeorgePeople feel guilty? Enjoy it, gezzz can’t this city look modern for once??? Look at Tokyo, not afraid to move on and bring great tech mixed with old style…
— TIMAgain taxpayer money spent on show but not substance. Steel flowers please. Let’s see them build something like this in an outer boro and then that would be something
— Ronnie from morris parkUpstairs. we see the post-modern beauty of chrome and glass. But irony lines the tunnel walls beneath. Framing the platforms is the undulating pattern of new white bathroom style tile, slapped scandously on top of the 50-year old former wall tile the work of a contractor who cut corners. The large, swirling red “96″ pattern appears to be the design of pre-schoolers. It is symbolicof a renovation that does not connect to the cultural icon of Symphony Space or the multi-cultural heritage of the Upper West Side.This sad disappointment of a transportation hub misses its contextual connection.
— Aaron BillerLighten up it’s a train station, not a window to your soul. Typical Manhattanites, probably rent controlled curmudgeons way past their expiration dates.
— GrinchManhattan, Manhattan, Manhattan…
You would think given the state of transportation in Queens and Brooklyn that we didn’t pay any taxes at all and whatever taxes we did deign to pay were meant only for the enjoyment of the richest and least needy neighborhoods of the city.
Ride down Nostrand Avenue one night at a pace faster than 15mph and see if you don’t require a chiropractor the next day.
Wait for a thousand years some Saturday morning when you need to get to work but your train to a train to a train to work isn’t running.
Mysteriously, most of Manhattan below 110th St on either side doesn’t seem to have many of these problems. The people who are paying 15% taxes on their capital gains enjoy the labor of those of us who slave in this City six days a week and pay half our checks in taxes. There’s a reason their stations are so shiny, airy and light and in my neighborhood everything is so dreary. Here we are rats, there they are kings.
We only work for a living in dirty old Brooklyn and pay into the system. Why would we need to see pretty things?
— Daniel HughesNow compare this subway station to any station on the A line on any stop past Howard Beach Stop such as Beach 90th, Beach 98th, Beach 105 you wonder where is MTA justice. Pristine subways for some; rusty, dilapidated subways for others. All paying the same $2.25. The Rockaways–the forsaken section of NYC, a mayor’s shame!
— Gogo1Improving the subway system is a wonderful notion. Jay Street in Brooklyn is also on the rise, but when will these improvements extend to Rockaway subway stations , Beach 90th, Beach 98th, Beach 105? Just asking. Traveling to school and to work in respectful stations makes the journey so much easier.
It saddens and puzzles me to be reminded that such stark disparities in service still exist
— MargoMaybe if they hadn’t blown $98 million on this refurb they wouldn’t have to start charging school kids to ride the train.
— Richard JohnstonAmen, Daniel. NYC is the only city I’ve been in where one part of it (Manhattan) gets the lion’s share of infrastructure and transit, while the rest of the city (the majority of the population, mind you) gets squat for the same price.
I, along with about 15 tourists, waited no less than 30 mins for a bus to take us from Snug Harbor to the ferry terminal in St. George, Staten Island. Meanwhile, a full 25 “Not In Service” buses whizzed by us on the way to the ferry terminal to start their runs. The S40 bus is supposed to run every 15 mins during mid-days, but nothing came. Even having ONE of the dozens of “NIS” buses stop and pick up passengers would have made the difference between me and these tourists making the ferry to Manhattan. It took a full 45 mins to make a TWO MILE trip, whereby we promptly missed our boat and had to wait another half hour for the next one.
I’m glad the MTA can spend millions to fix up this station. But I and the group of tourists at Snug Harbor pay the same $2.25 fare as IRT riders in Manhattan, for next to no service. The disparity is unlike anything I’ve seen in DC, LA or other areas served by public transit.
— ferryboiIt’s a nice new station, I live in the area so that’s my local subway station. I wonder how much of the material that went into it’s construction came from China.
— G. AndrewsThis capital project by the MTA was constructed because the area surrounding West 96th Street is rapidly gentrifying and people like the Grinch (#7 above) can think of the once diverse community as their own “Special” slice of Manhattan while so many other stations can just go to hell.
— ConnieDaniel Hughes, seems like the MTA spent an awful lot of dough on the Atlantic/Pacific station in Brooklyn recently. That’s the biggest hub in Brooklyn and it went from totally run-down to gorgeous. I’m not saying its perfect (my station on the F line probably hasn’t seen a coat of paint since 1920), but its not like no money is being spent in Brooklyn.
— Johnny (Brooklyn)Daniel Hughes: “We only work for a living in dirty old Brooklyn and pay into the system. Why would we need to see pretty things?”
I live in Manhattan and I commend you for your positive attitude :) Keep slaving away (silently) and paying into the system :)
On a more serious note, many Manhattan residents work in Brooklyn and Queens, myself included. My friends also live in Queens and we do like to patronize the moderately priced, pretty good Asian and Hispanic restaurants in Queens. I do get incensed every time the MTA monkeys with E-train service, which has been the case almost every weekend for the past six months.
— blacklightAs a regular at the station (the 27th busiest in the system, by the way), its a big improvement. The new entrance replaces old cramped entrances unchanged since they were first built in 1904. A station this busy and decrepit in any borough deserved reconstruction long ago.
— BrianJeeeeeez…. people will complain about ANYTHING. This is GOOD news. Did they upgrade EVERY station? No. Did they upgrade YOUR station? Sounds like they probably didn’t. So, should they NOT upgrade ANY stations (expect yours, of course)? There is a little tea-bagger in each of us, I guess, but you REALLY need to take a deep breath, lighten-up, and enjoy ANY small improvement in the city.
— Bolo JungleFor all the people citing that they “pay the same $2.25″ as if that’s somehow a good thing, remember that the folks near this station are likely paying $2.25 to ride from 96th to about 42nd. You, however, get to ride almost 30 miles (from Far Rockaway, Coney Island, etc.) on your $2.25.
So you’re actuallly contributing less to the system for your money, not more, and certainly not the same. Your rides cost the MTA a heck of a lot more to provide than the “evil” UWSider’s.
Someone mentioned the Washington, DC Metro as a comparison. Fine- the Metro fares depend on how far you travel, so the people traveling the farthest pay the most. Frankly, I would love to see a Metro style system in place in New York; it would be MUCH more fair. Someone traveling 20 blocks in Midtown or a few stops along the G or 7 in Queens would only have to pay $1 or so. 30 miles on the A or D train? $4.00.
— Jim