By GARY FONVILLE
Forgotten NY correspondent
Due to NYC’s massive subway system, there is bound to be some distinctive features. Among these differences are subway entrances. Subway entrances, something riders rarely think about, can range from ordinary to extraordinary. The differences were dictated by location, construction challenges, what entity built them (IRT, BMT or IND) and architectural esthetics. Odd entrances come to mind: Dyckman Street (A), where the entrance is integrated into an apartment building; 174-175th Street (B, D), where you can enter the station from above or below the platform level; Avenue H (Q), where the entrance looks like a country cabin; or Bushwick-Aberdeen (L), where the station is so small and narrow, it can be very easily missed when passing by. But this station at 59th Street & 4th Avenue in Brooklyn is one that I somehow missed until driving by the other day going to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Subway entrances are usually on corners, but not this one. It’s literally at the footstep of 6008 4th Avenue. Can you imagine a real estate listing for an apartment in this building saying that it’s “close to public transportation”? That’s really truth in advertising. Wouldn’t you say?
ED. note: there is another pair of entrance/exits for this station in the midblock between 58th and 59th Street.
2/16/16
8 comments
I don’t know if this one counts as being midblock, but when the new entrances were built for 96th Street for the 1, 2, and 3 trains not that long ago, they were both placed in the Broadway Mall and closed up the station’s previous entrances over at the corners.
The #1,2,3 Lines (West Side IRT to old timers like me) has (and had) other similar examples of entrances not placed at street corners. 72nd Street is the most obvious one, with its new entrance building placed in an expanded pedestrian space in the middle of Broadway. Years ago 103rd and 116th Streets had small entrance buildings in the Broadway Mall but these were deemed a hazard because of the need to cross Broadway and were thus replaced with conventional sidewalk stairs in the late 60s-early 70s, Finally back to 96th Street. In 1958-59 the station was remodeled and extended south with new entrance stairs midblock between 93d and 94th Streets, allowing the old 91st St. Station to be closed permanently.
There are a few stations along the Grand Concourse where access is from above or below the track level — mostly stations that are built atop streets that pass under the GC. Kingsbridge Road was my home station growing up and it had both accesses. I seem to recall Tremont Avenue as another. Maybe 167th Street.
I know of two mid-block entrances. One on 16th street and the other on Winsdor Place both between Prospect Park West and 10th Avenue.
You can also count Steinway Street on the R and M lines in Queens. Not so much midblock, but a little more than a quarter of the way down from the corner of Steinway and Broadway. This is due to the turn the subway makes from Steinway St. onto Broadway. You can see the curve the subway takes in the station mezzanine exit.
I laughed out loud when I read your “close to public transpiration” line.
The Utica Avenue station for the 3 and 4 trains is on Schenectady Avenue by the Eastern Parkway, but the station itself is about 2/3 of the way from the street itself and has no entrance or exit to Utica Avenue at all, while I’m not sure about High Street-Brooklyn Bridge, which serves the A train, could be midblock for where it stands on Cadman Plaza West despite not having any entrances or exits on High Street itself, plus the West 4th Street-Washington Square Station, which serves all lines of the IND 6th and 8th Avenue Lines, is another subway station to not have an entrance or exit to the street it happened to be named for, though this one isn’t a midblock station, just another one that doesn’t happen to touch the street that it’s named for.
You can add 63 Drive – Rego Park station on the IND Queens Blvd Line as having a mid block entrance where the stairs are integrated into the row of stores. I believe there may be a shoe repair shop at the bottom of the stairs. The green entrance lamp is located on a pole at the curb.