MTA City Hall Subway Tour

11/20/2024

Yesterday we toured the abandoned Old City Hall subway station in NYC.

It was A) extremely neat to enter a secret historical space, 2) full of ear-piercing noises, and iii) required jumping through some ridiculous hoops to actually buy a ticket to the tour

It was fun watching modern trains trundle through the station, despite the BART-level screech they made. But I was sad that modern stations don’t get the same beauty-for-beauty’s-sake treatment.

If you like trains and train history, it was worth the visit https://www.nytransitmuseum.org/oldcityhall/

Long view down the curvy city hall station platform. Arches go overhead with green-and-white tile patterns.

The 6 train going through the station. It just barely fits and has a 3ft+ gap between the train and the platform at certain points.

The skylight in the station entry way. The number of times the tour guide said "leaded glass" when describing this was unsettling.

Beautiful, old station sign saying "City Hall" in front of the stairs going up and out of the station. The words are placed in a green-and-white tile arch with embedded lightbulbs. There's a hint the main platform skylight visible as well.