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BY GARY FONVILLE The New York City subway system was planned with a lot of standardization. Standardization was very practical for subway planners and financial backers: if each station was custom designed, costs would have risen exponentially. As a result, wall tiles, entrances, support columns, construction techniques, lighting techniques and kiosks (for the IRT) were basically similar. But often due to a station's physical location, standardization went out the door. |
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RIGHT: A truly unique station at Wilson Avenue on the L line. Engineers were faced with a challenge at this location. The line had to be squeezed and between a rail line and a cemetery. The Manhattan-bound platform gives the impression that it's underground. It's not: it's at ground level. The upper level directly faces a cemetery -- Trinity Cemetery: it ranks as the most serene station in the system.
Nice single point perspective by the way --your webmaster
Yet, it was one of the last BMT stations built, in 1928, and it seems that Squire Vickers and company threw conservatism to the wind and got every color of the rainbow involved in the mosaics. Usually BMT stations used a limited palette.
IND stations, which were already under way when this station was finished, were decorated on a different plan using monochromaticism in each station.
RIGHT: Again Manhattan's topography created a challenge. Just south of Dyckman Street on the 1 line, the grade level changes abruptly. Engineers decided it would be easier just to built the station in a hybrid manner. It's the system's only station that partially on an elevated structure and partially at the portals of a tunnel.
ABOVE RIGHT: An Art-Deco masterpiece that has seen better days. This neglected beauty graces the IND on the west side of West 147th & St. Nicholas Avenue, Manhattan. Dates from the IND's opening in 1932.
Two eras of MTA typography can be seen here too: above the entrance, the International Style featuring sanserif letters (specifically Akzidenz Grotesk (Standard Medium), introduced ca. 1970 by Unimark and designer Massimo Vignelli, and below, the later version with Helvetica.
Most of these fancy entrances have been replaced by more utilitarian ones.
Cristoforo ColumnoFNY has never heretofore noticed the station names you'll find on several platform columns in several early subway stations....
Originally, IRT designers used generic round cast iron posts as support columns. Unless one really pays attention, it's easy to see that there are a few places where columns were meant to be placed in specific stations. However, FNY's inquiring camera has found a few locations where support columns were meant to be placed in a specific station.
RIGHT: Atlantic Avenue from August 3, 1907 (that's probably the installation date; the station opened May 1, 1908). Station serves 2, 3, 4 and 5 lines at Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn.
LEFT: This support column is indeed a rarity. Not only is the station's name on the column, but it's also on the floor! Hoyt Street station on the 1 & 3 lines in Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn.
(The names on the platform were likely placed there as part of station renovations in the very early 1980s).
LEFT: One of the subways' newest stations at Jamaica-Van Wyck in Queens. It's barely twenty years old. Its uniqueness is based on the fact that it's the only station where the E train doesn't share a station with another line. The E shares stations along its route with the A, B, C, D, F, G, J, N, R and V lines.
(Note the rare use of a Type B Henry Bacon park post as a streetlight).
RIGHT: These spindly columns support a structure dating from the 1880's on Fulton Street. This represents the oldest continuously used elevated structure in the system. Near Alabama Avenue station on the J line.
Subway planners tried to place stations at least walking distance from one to another. Due to geography, these two stations (Howard Beach and Broad Channel on the A en route to the Rockaway peninsula) are spaced 3.5 miles apart, making them the two stations that are spaced the farthest.
LEFT: A rare sight these days can be seen from the downtown 33rd Street Station on the 6 line. Possibly dates from this line's 1904 inaguration.
RIGHT: A few years ago your webmaster spotted a similar sign on the uptown #1 at Cathedral Parkway. Not sure if this one survives.
More ancient subway signs here.
RIGHT: Superman might find this booth comfortable. This 1948 IND station notified passengers of a pay phone with tile and not a sign attached above. Mezzanine at Liberty Avenue Station in East New York, Brooklyn.
RIGHT: This is the only Prospect Park station that ACTUALLY is in Prospect Park. This station services the F line at the Prospect Park Southwest station. Other stations designed in a similar manner that serves city parks are the stations at 135th Street & St. Nicholas Avenue for the C & B trains, 59th Street & Central Park West and 110th Street & Central Park West.
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Page completed April 19, 2008; photographs and commentary by Gary Fonville
erpietri@earthlink.net
©2008
