Hidden treasures, in plain sight: The City Hall subway stop

If you've spent any time in NYC, you know the subway stations aren't its best ambassador to visitors. Sure, some of them are quite alright, but generally they're pretty stuffy, raggedy-looking places.  The 7th Avenue station in Manhattan in particular is usually nice and stinky.

Not exactly built to awe and inspire.

There is one station, though, which was designed to do just that -- awe and inspire, wake up all of your urban beauty sensors, and showcase how much of which the city was capable. It just hasn't seen a passenger in 70 years.

The City Hall station was once a part of the Lexington Avenue line, and was built to be the jewel in the crown of the subway system.  The first subway was launched from this station in 1904, with Mayor George McClellan at its controls.

The station is all arches, brass fixtures, and chandeliers.  It's peppered with skylights to let in the sun (which, fun facts, were covered over with tar during the Second World War for blackouts).  On the walls, there are plaques commemorating the achievement of the building of the subway system itself. 

Despite its grandeur, it served relatively few passengers, since it was very close on the same line to the much busier Brooklyn Bridge station.  In the 1940s, an increase in subway users led the city to longer trains, and as a result, longer platforms.  The curve of the City Hall station made for a dangerous gap between the car and platform with these longer trains.  Given the renovations and money which would have been required to bring the station into line with the newer trains, and its relative lack of use, the city decided simply to close the station.  It saw its last departing train on New Year's Eve, 1945.

For a long time, the station lay completely abandoned.  After the New York Transit Museum was established in 1976, it ran occasional tours of the station.  There have been rumors and rumblings periodically of the station being restored and turned into a museum, most recently and seriously in 1995, when the Transit Museum applied for funding to set it up as a museum annex.  None of these plans have ever come to fruition, due most recently to a 1998 decision by Mayor Rudy Giuliani - fearful of its proximity to City Hall and its vulnerability to potential terrorist attacks - to declare it part of a "highly secure area" around City Hall.  Tours resumed in 2006, but are only available to members of the Transit Museum.

But never fear!  You can still see the station today!  The current 6 train still uses the City Hall station as its turning loop.  For years, MTA staff required all passengers to get off the downtown train at Brooklyn Bridge, which is the last stop on its line.  Today you are allowed to remain on the train while it goes around its loop through City Hall and around to the uptown platform at Brooklyn Bridge.

Which means, if you find yourself heading downtown on the 6, don't get off at the last station!  Stay on for an extra few minutes and treat yourself to a peek of this abandoned New York treasure.

In the meantime, you can treat yourself to this photo of the station in its heyday, right after its construction in 1904. 

What's your favourite public hidden gem?

A quick note:  All of the photos, with the exception of the last one, were taken from James Maher.  He takes really lovely photos of the city.  A number of his photos are available to buy as prints, so if you liked what you saw in this post, maybe head over to his site and see whether he has a frameable of your favourite landmark.  (By the way, this isn't an ad -- I'm completely unaffiliated with him, I just like people who take pretty pictures of this city.)  The last photo came from The Atlantic.