The NY Daily News today has an article about the worst stations in the NYC Subway System. Here is a quick location breakdown: 5 are in the Bronx, 2 are in Manhattan, 2 are in Brooklyn and 2 is in Queens.
Not surprisingly, the station the paper lists as a shining example of what a subway station should be like is in the UWS right by the Museum of Natural History (81st St. and Central Park West. B/C station). After the jump, read the full article is you so choose.
Dirt & danger: 10 worst stations
By PETE DONOHUE
Thursday, November 3rd, 2005
If your subway train pulls into these subway stations, you may not want to get off. They are worthy of a subway hall of shame – 10 stations so run down and neglected they’re an insult to a city that bills itself as the capital of the world.
Peeling paint, crumbling concrete, leaks and grime are the norm.
The Daily News picked these hell hubs as among the worst in the 468-station network, after inspecting numerous stations suggested by riders, transit advocates and watchdog groups like the New York City Transit Riders Council and the Straphangers Campaign.
One dilapidated station is among the 46 slated for total rehabilitation in the next five years; another is being razed and rebuilt with federal funds.
Two others on the list had been slated for total makeovers, but were dropped from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 2005-2009 capital plan because of insufficient funds.
The Transit Authority said it sets rehabilitation schedules based on criteria such as usage, structural condition and location. But money also is a big factor.
“We have a limited amount of money for our station rehabilitations and there is only so much work that can be done,” TA spokesman Charles Seaton said. “We don’t want to disrupt the system with too many closings at one time.”
A few of the stations feature obvious safety hazards. All are dismal and in dire need of work.
And transit union leaders charged yesterday that workers performing critical day-to-day maintenance are being shifted to cleaning tasks – trying to hide critical problems with a veneer of cleanliness.
About 50% of subway stations have been brought to “state of good repair” since the 1980s, when a campaign to reverse decades of neglect began, according to MTA documents.
But the following 10 stations, used by about 100,000 riders a day, have been left behind.
- 205th St./Norwood, the Bronx, D line:
D stands for decrepit. Or disgraceful or disgusting – take your pick. All would apply to this station at the northern end of the D line. The ceiling almost uniformly is blighted by ridges of peeling paint. Crumbling concrete exposes rusted and corroded steel beams. Unsightly leak-caused streaks run down platform pillars. A solidified orange ooze hangs from pipes above like chemical icicles.
Wall tiles are yellowed, cracked and stained. A putrid stream of water slowly moves between the tracks. Liquid also drips into a bucket on the platform – and it hasn’t rained in at least a week.
“It’s one of the worst I have seen,” said Marvin Melendez, 26, an expediter from the Bronx. “You start your day on an ugly note.”
- 182nd/183rd Sts., Fordham area, the Bronx, B and D lines:
This station has all the charm of Rikers Island. The large mezzanine is divided into sections by long, floor-to-ceiling stretches of black, iron barriers. The smell of urine is overpowering. And it’s just as grim downstairs. Unmoving water, filled with gunk and streaked with oil, sits on the platforms along soiled walls. The drains look clogged. Peeling paint, disintegrating concrete and missing tiles complete the dismal picture. “It’s depressing and dirty,” said Jessica Morales, 21, of the Bronx, as she waited for a train with her 1-year-old daughter, Ashley. “It makes you not want to be here.”
- Third Ave./138th St., South Bronx, No. 6 line:
A drab stairway rises from one platform to a small landing shrouded in darkness. A cluster of burned-out, uncovered light bulbs hangs from the ceiling. “It’s definitely a haven for bad things to happen,” said Antonella Misciagna, 21, a Bronx college student, not at all pleased that her train was taken out of service for reasons never voiced by the conductor. The scene’s familiar to anyone who has been to the Norwood, Brook Ave., or 21st St. stations. It’s not to Misciagna, a college student from the Throgs Neck section of the borough. “It’s gross,” she says, boarding another train – and vowing never to return.
- Bowery, Chinatown, Manhattan, J, M, Z lines:
This station is a throwback to the 1970s. Graffiti marks nearly every pillar, as well as stairwells and walls. There are even scrawls on the tunnel wall inches from the electrified third rail. Black soot covers stretches of concrete, the walls are soiled and yellowed, the platform filthy and grimy.
“It’s not safe,” said Pamela Chia, 35, a Brooklyn secretary who chose to wait on a stairway landing for a train rather than on the platform. “It looks like a dead zone,” Raymond Watkins, 42, a trucker from Manhattan, said. “It looks like it’s been closed for 30 or 40 years and they opened it for business without doing anything.”
- Brook Ave., Mott Haven section, the Bronx, No. 6 line:
This station stinks. Literally. A revolting odor descends from vents between sidewalk grates and the underground platforms. It comes from catch basins below the sidewalk, where muck and rotting garbage sits. “Oh, my God!,” Ronnie Smith, 41, of Brooklyn, exclaimed seconds after he entered a putrid zone. “It’s disgusting. Despicable … Even a pet shouldn’t be in this.” The platforms are dotted with blackish grime. Soot or steel dust taint the walls, as do ceiling-to-platform streaks, cracks, pockmarks and more grime. Trash litters the station. Wires hang from above. “They clean but the people don’t cooperate,” Wilson Muniz, 57, a trucker from the Bronx, said. “They throw garbage on the floor.”
- Fulton St.-Broadway/Nassau, Financial District, Manhattan, J, M, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5, A and C lines:
This sweltering hub, a hodgepodge of three separate stations, is a confusing warren. Transferring lines can mean going up and down several staircases, making a U-turn or two, shuffling along sloping passageways and confronting a cluster of signs with route symbols and arrows pointing in different directions. Thousands of travelers zigzag toward their destinations. It also ain’t pretty.
The southbound No.4 train platform is missing many tiles. The area is coated with dirt, dust, grime, rust and chips of paint. A helmet could come in handy. The signs of decay include a 10-foot stretch along the platform edge where the concrete has fallen in chunks. Black, rubber-like goo hangs from beams overhead. Concrete beams over the platform are badly cracked. Post 9/11 federal funds are to pay for a new complex expected to be done in late 2008.
- 21st St., Long Island City, Queens, G line:
The only good news is that a relatively small amount of people must use this squalid pit as they go to and from work in this industrial area. Steel pillars, completely stripped of paint and badly corroded, stand as underground symbols of neglect. Silence fills the station, interrupted only by the sound of water dripping onto the soiled platform and the periodic roar of trains. Black-and-rust-colored stains, about 4-feet wide and 12-feet high, mar tunnel walls. Across from the platform, there’s a hole in the wall behind a set of tracks. A worker, probably retired by now, apparently wielded a sledgehammer to gain access to a pipe. The hole remains unpatched, another long-forgotten project left unfinished. On the opposite set of tracks, a chunk of concrete rests on the third rail. “It’s dank, dark, falling apart, dirty,” said Daniel McKinley, 32, an artist who lives nearby. “Nobody seems to care. It’s pretty depressing.”
- Mosholu Parkway, Norwood section, the Bronx, No. 4 line:
This is one dangerous dump. Thin wooden beams are barely attached to the platform edges. They are supposed to shorten gaps between the platforms and trains, and provide a place for firm footing. But several are loose and uneven, setting the stage for someone to fall onto the tracks.
The platform overhangs at the elevated station are weathered and dilapidated. Sections are rotted out and missing. Regulars know to wait downstairs when it rains – then race upstairs when their train arrives. The corrugated metal walls that line platforms are sorry barriers missing much of the drab paint that was applied long ago. Paint also flakes off other walls and ceilings. Trash fills closed-off stairwells no longer in use. It lies on the tracks, on platforms and the mezzanine. It spills from stuffed garbage cans which are in the station schedule for an overhaul in the next few years.
Erica Ortiz, 20, a cashier, shrugged off the depressing scene. “You expect it,” she said. “You see a lot of train stations in the Bronx that look like this.”
- Bay Parkway, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, N line:
This station has truly gone to the birds. Pigeon droppings are everywhere. The least-liked bird in the city roosts on top of light fixtures on the outdoor, elevated platform, and inside the two entrance buildings. “I frequently catch the N train in Brooklyn and this is the worst for pigeon poop,” said Brooklyn artist James Williams. “It’s a health hazard.” Crumbling concrete, peeling paint, loose metal step plates, stained walls and leaking ceilings round out this Third World picture.
- Smith/Ninth Sts., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, F and G lines:
This elevated station looks like it was abandoned decades ago. Weeds grow from cracks on the chipped and deteriorated platform. Some wooden beams along the platform edges are perilously unstable. The protective overhangs have large holes, paint peels everywhere and concrete crumbles. Faded graffiti remains on the parapets jutting into the sky. “It looks terrible,” said Crystal Jones, 43, a Queens real-estate broker at the station for the first time in years. “It looks neglected.”
But wait! Here’s the way it should be done
There’s a gem of a train station below ground at 81st St. and Central Park West.
The station serving the B and C lines received an $11 million overhaul by the Transit Authority that included concrete work, improved lighting and new wall tiles.
There’s even colorful artwork.
Mosaics abound with depictions of birds, insects and reptiles – a nod to the nearby American Museum of Natural History, which kicked in about $500,000, according to TA officials.
It’s clean, bright and largely free of leaks that make other stations rusty, dismal, moldy messes.
“It’s a very good job,” said Andrew Albert, chairman of the New York City Transit Riders Council. “There is no doubt when you arrive there that you are at a museum station.”
Advocates generally give the TA good marks for the rehabs it has completed.
Other stations that stand out, include:
# Stillwell Ave. terminal in Coney Island, Brooklyn
# Yankee Stadium station in the Bronx
# 74th St./Roosevelt Ave. station in Queens
