[ad_1]
[Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]
It’s Monday. ? On this day in 1983, the famous “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline was published in The New York Post. The man who wrote it: Vincent Musetto.
Weather: The week starts wet and may end wet. Today, expect rain in the morning, with possible showers later and wind gusts above 40 miles per hour in the afternoon.
Alternate-side parking: In effect through Wednesday, then suspended through Saturday for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Passover.
Subway fares will increase on Sunday. Soon after that, L train service will be disrupted on nights and weekends. (And, of course, big dogs in bags will be a fixture in your subway future, too.)
In light of all that, it’s easy to forget that the subway was once grand and majestic: chandeliers and skylights, graceful arches and vaulted ceilings.
There’s one subway station that still has all those glamorous features, and you’re not allowed to explore it — except on a special tour.
Where is the station?
It’s right under City Hall in Lower Manhattan.
It’s technically one stop south of the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall stop. Southbound No. 6 trains head into the old station, using it as a turnaround to get onto the northbound tracks at Brooklyn Bridge.
How can I see it?
The station is accessible only to members of the New York Transit Museum. Members can buy tickets for the next round of tours starting Wednesday.
Or, if you forget to get off the No. 6 before the train turns around, you can see the unused station through the window. And if you’re standing in front of City Hall closer to the Broadway side, you can see a few glass cubes embedded in the pavement. That’s the roof of the old station.
When was it used?
It opened Oct. 27, 1904, and closed Dec. 31, 1945.
Why isn’t it used anymore?
The station was closed in part because its curved platform was too short to accommodate longer, newer trains, and it did not line up with their doors, leaving dangerous gaps, according to Polly Desjarlais, the New York Transit Museum’s education manager.
Also, not many riders were using it.
What else is down there?
There is surprisingly little dirt and grime, according to The Times’s Winnie Hu, who was among a group of reporters on a recent tour of the station. There were no rats in sight, she said, and only a smattering of graffiti was visible.
According to Ms. Hu, riders once passed through a pair of kiosks that were modeled on those used in the subway system in Budapest. Inside, at a carved-oak booth, tickets were sold for a nickel.
Who built it?
The vaulted ceilings and tiled arches are by the Spanish architects Rafael Guastavino Moreno and his son, Rafael Guastavino Esposito, whose handiwork graces the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal, the Registry Room at Ellis Island and the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.
A commemorative bronze plaque on the wall was made by Gutzon Borglum, who later sculpted the presidents on Mount Rushmore.
The skylights were made to amplify daylight down below.
Were other stations like this?
None were quite like this. The City Hall station anchored an inaugural subway system that was made up of 28 stations along 9.1 miles of track running to 145th Street in Upper Manhattan, Ms. Hu reported.
The system was built in four years and seven months by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company for $35 million, or roughly the equivalent of $972 million now, according to museum officials.
That is a fraction of the roughly $4.4 billion that it cost to build the first section of the Second Avenue line on the Upper East Side, including three new stations.
From The Times
One in five bus riders in New York City evades the fare, far worse than elsewhere.
Here are the stories that inspired readers to give $5.6 million last year.
[Want more news from New York and around the region? Check out our full coverage.]
The mini crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.
What we’re reading
Three construction workers were killed in New York City last week. [NY1]
Could congestion pricing help lead to wider sidewalks, expanded bike lanes and more pedestrian plazas in Manhattan? [Wall Street Journal]
The top two streets for complaints about drag racing are in Queens. [New York Post]
The police asked the M.T.A. to cut subway service to Roosevelt Island because of “significant crowding after the Cherry Blossom Festival.” [Gothamist]
Here are other places in the city where you can see cherry blossoms. [Curbed]
Coming up today
The Bronx Library Center hosts a discussion and screening of the documentary “The Latino Americans” for Immigrant Heritage Week. 2 p.m. [Free]
What do jazz and neuroscience have in common? Experts in each field explain at the Forum at Columbia University in Manhattan. 6:30 p.m. [Free]
The author George Chauncey discusses his book “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940” at the Brooklyn Historical Society. 6:30 p.m. [$10]
— Iman Stevenson
Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.
And finally: A secret surf museum may get wiped out
The Times’s Corey Kilgannon reports:
Last summer, a curious temple to surfing appeared on an unused lot on Beach 96th Street in the Rockaways, Queens, a block from the ocean.
“I always felt Rockaway needed something to show how important surfing and surf culture is here,” said its creator, Fernando Pires, 59, a longtime Rockaways surfer and a fixture on the boardwalk who repairs surfboards in the sand and gives surf lessons.
Mr. Pires spent more than a year building what he called the Secret Spot Surf Museum, a display of dozens of vintage surfboards and memorabilia he had acquired over decades, often on surf trips.
He said he hoped the museum would ride the growing wave of surfing popularity in the Rockaways. But after only one summer, his dream has been dashed — at least for now.
The landlord, who had been letting him use the property for free, said he would now require monthly rent of $5,000, Mr. Pires said.
This was a prohibitive amount, Mr. Pires said, especially because he had sunk more than $20,000 of his own money into the museum, which relied on meager donations and whatever Mr. Pires earned repairing and renting out surfboards, and giving lessons.
The museum had a tiki décor, with shells and bamboo settings, and some local-themed exhibits, including memorials to Richie Allen and Steve Belson, two Rockaways surfers and New York City firefighters who died while responding to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Mr. Pires said he would begin dismantling the museum this week and putting his boards into storage in the hope he may find another location.
“The plan was that it would grow gradually, but I spent all my time building it, and I never promoted it,” he said. “So, I blame myself.”
It’s Monday: Ride somewhere new.
Metropolitan Diary: Seventh Ave. South
Dear Diary:
I noticed a woman in front of my local supermarket asking a man for directions. I also noticed that he looked as baffled as she did.
As a proud New Yorker who loves giving directions, I decided to step in. I’ve lived in the city long enough to be confident that I am usually correct.
We were at 15th Street and Seventh Avenue, and the woman was asking how to get to an address on Seventh Avenue South. I told her she only needed to go south from where we were, that if she just kept walking Seventh Avenue would turn into Seventh Avenue South and she would find the address she was looking for.
She thanked me, smiled and turned to set off. I told her it was my pleasure to help and gave her my standard, consistent, confident piece of advice: Just do as I advise and do not to ask anyone else for directions.
She smiled.
“Of course I trust you,” she said. “You’ve never lied to me before.”
— Isolde Blum
New York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.
We’re experimenting with the format of New York Today. What would you like to see more (or less) of? Post a comment or email us: [email protected].
[ad_2]
Source link
