The City Hall subway station has been closed for 65 years. And for 65 years, New Yorkers have broken every rule trying to get a glimpse of one of the city's lost treasures. Why? Because City Hall may be the most beautiful subway station in Manhattan, with arched ceilings, chandeliers, and fabulous skylights.
Until recently, one of the only ways to see the station (aside from infrequent tours) was to sneak onto a downtown #6 subway at the last stop on the line (Brooklyn Bridge). The #6 trains use the City Hall stop to turn back uptown, but passengers haven't been allowed to go along for the ride.
But now they've decided to stop kicking people off the trains! Just stay on the downtown #6 after the last official stop, and you can ride through City Hall station without getting in trouble. And no one wants to get in trouble. Right?
(Thanks Nathaniel and Paige!)
13 comments:
O_O Coolest. subway. ever.
I agree with Some Lost Melody. That's an awesome subway tunnel.
cooool. have you been? did you ever try to sneak in? why was it closed if its so pretty?
Omg I wanna go see it so bad now that looks so cool I wonder why they wouldn't let people see it until now
wow... it looks like something from harry potter in hogwarts
It looks amazing!
Way "back in the day" there were subway stops in the city of Berlin that were closed because the subway trains were West Berlin, but the stops were in East Berlin. The tunnels themselves predated the split of the country after World War II.
I've taken public transportation to another country, but I've had to walk across the border. How cool would it be to take light rail and get off the train in another country?
GREAT looking subway stop. Why'd they close it?
Robert in San Diego
Coolio x 989999900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 p.s. kirsten if you read this and i understand if you dont because you probably have about a million fans and publishers and random people trying to talk to you all the time please tell my friend happy birthday her happy birthday on your blog her name is claudia and we both love your books she was in the front passenger seat of the minivan in austin if you remember she is turning thirteen and the shout out would make her just about the happiest person on earth thank-you so much :) :D
Wow!
As a regular subway commuter, I find the architecture amazing.
Here in Moscow, all stations, even those at the "brown" (circular) line, are perfectly straight. So, a curving station like this is something completely new to me.
What is more, our subway architects would never dare to choose such dark colors for the ceiling — it really looks weird. Or is it just the photo?
That's fantastic! What a story!
Dear Deepasm:
I envy you your subway stations. We've got some OK ones in San Diego for our mostly above-ground trolley system. Alvarado Med Center has a huge riddle graven into the cinderblock retaining wall (the answer is hidden on the underside of a railing, in Braille!). But most of them are blah open air concrete platforms.
You, on the other hand, have 173 miles of route, 172 stations, and those wonderful downtown stations with the marble arcades, chandeliers, etc.
Robert in San Diego
*Ring* Hey Aunt Mary! It's me, 42. I was just wondering if I could stay with you over break? I really want to see the subway station -I mean- my cousins!
But seriously, that's awesome.
I did some checking and remembering: In San Diego we have plenty of stations where the tracks are curved. However, BART in the San Francisco Bay Area and VTA Light Rail in the Santa Clara Valley are mostly straight-tracked at the stops. I think there's one or two curved VTA stops, but they're where they had no other choice when it came to placing the stations.
We've got a trolley station problem in San Diego, though. The station platforms in the downtown area are too small for almost all the new trolley cars they were looking at that had low floor plans for wheelchair users, baby-stroller pushers, and the folks who get on with bicycles (like me, although I've been a wheelchair user once or twice too).
Robert in San Diego
Robert Leone
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