The New York City subway system system is a perdition of a machine . With 468 stations in Gotham ’s 468 square miles , this tangle of rails and turnstile moves nearly 5.5 million commuters around town on an middling weekday . And , because it never close , maintenance is a tricky proposition . Case in point : the Bowery stop .
What Is It?
Originally opened a century ago in March 1914 to hold passenger downtown from the newly completed Williamsburg Bridge , the Bowery stop has long been one of the least - used stations in the intact subway scheme .
In fact , with just 2,746 riders on the average weekday in 2012 — the most recent year for which there are final physique — the Bowery stop is the third least - used station in Manhattan . It ’s used so little that the original metal treads are still on the stairs . Though it ’s a large and important street , the Bowery has also long been home to New York City ’s brake shoe row , notorious for drug dependance and homelessness .
But the Bowery is changing . With the addition of everything from the New Museum of Contemporary Art to the Bowery Ballroom concert venue , the orbit ’s become a gentrified finish for New Yorkers and tourists likewise .
Serving the JZ line — yes , the same line from which some say the eponymous rapper got his name , though this is debatable — that carts Williamsburg hipsters to SoHo , the Bowery plosive consonant now serves a whole unexampled clientele . There ’s even a Whole Foods just two block north of the station — and if there ’s anything Whole Foods patrons would acknowledge that the area ’s older nut might not , it ’s the perfectly abyssal condition of the Bowery stop .
Why Does It Matter?
Put bluffly , the MTA does not take caution of it . Not all of it , at least . The Bowery halt looks like a flush it out cesspit where dreams go to die — yet you take the air six block away to the Broadway - Lafayette place that dish up SoHo ’s shopping dominion , and it feels like you ’re saunter into a chrome - plot portal to the future , neon lightheaded art installations and all .
How can two station that host similar logical argument be so dramatically unlike ? This is n’t just an government issue at the Bowery , either . The 6th Avenue stop on the litre string is comparably derelict , while just one stop down the line at 8th Avenue , you could find celebrated bronze sculptures and impeccable hallways .
The answer , it turn out , is very simple . While New Yorkers often gossip about how the MTA apply preference to certain borough and specific line ( read : robust multitude ) , the trueness is much more logical . “ I would never say that it would be priorities ground in geographical location , ” the MTA ’s Kevin Ortiz told me in a recent audience . “ precedence is base on the amount of ridership at each item-by-item post and the amount of work that needs to be done . ” The Broadway - LaFayette block is gracious , quite simply , because it find out 37,283 casual average riders , nigh 14 times what the Bowery sees .
The state of the Bowery serve as grounds that the MTA ’s just not doing enough . While some stations get floor - to - ceiling renovations , the Bowery has been rotting before my very eyes for the five years I ’ve been move around through it . In fact , that ’s a measured decision — and one that reveals the challenges of maintain one of the oldest and most complicated subway system on ground .
Design
If you were a foreigner who just arrived in New York City for the first time and hopped on the J train at JFK and off again at the Bowery , you ’d be mighty surprised by what you learn . Frankly , you ’d retrieve the nation was falling aside .
The Bowery is in bad , bad shape . While a little bit of grime and a confused tile or two is normal in any given subway station , the Bowery seem to be construct entirely out of debris and filth . The blackened ceiling is peeling off in pieces and falling onto the blackened floor , which is so dirty that it ’s actually slippery in places . And that ’s if you manage to avoid the pool of stand water that have presumably been there since World War II .
The cracked corridor that you go in todayis half the size of it of the original station . Behind some haphazard panes of plywood , covering holes in the wall on the station ’s south side , is a graffito - covered cavern that was abandoned in 2004 . whole , there are four tracks that expire by the Bowery station ’s two platforms , though only two tracks are in usance . What ’s queer , though , is that the half of the station that remains open looks just as squalid as the half that ’s abandoned .
Using It
This is predictably problematic . Going to the Bowery station is n’t so tough . You skip off the geartrain , hustle up some nasty step ( with original metal treads ! ) and out the exit . There ’s even a post tender , sometimes , who can secern you how to find Broadway .
If you ’re leaving from the Bowery place to go somewhere else , though , you might want to play some wet wipes . While stepping into the place is kind of like going back in time , with the original ( though crumble ) tile piece of work and all , it ’s also like zooming ahead to some dystopian future where zombies decree the city and Will Smith is the last world active . The lead are full of ice — one timeI even saw a automobile tire down there — and rats run across the platform on a regular basis . The JZ is not the city ’s busiest line , so sometimes you have to stand in the squalor for 20 moment or more , waiting for your train . And you must put up , too , because the program has no benches .
On the upside , getting on the subway system has never felt as sybaritic as it does after you ’ve been adhere waitress in the Bowery arrest for 45 minutes .
No Like
I do n’t like the shite . I really do n’t . And I ’m no clean lusus naturae , either . It ’s just severe to hold down that delicious dinner party you ate in SoHo when you ’re dodging varmint and step in puddles of what looks like nuclear waste .
The literal drawback of the station is how unsafe it feel . With Rudy Giuliani’sbeloved broken windows theoryin mind , you ca n’t help but wonder who ’s lollygag on the other close of the platform , where you ’re never stick to for less than a quartern of an hour . It ’s also hard to count on out who might hear your wow , since the Bowery station has so little dealings . It ’s not unusual at all to be the only one in the entire post at dark . There does n’t even come along to be a trusty CCTV security tv camera to hide under .
One more thing : For the retiring few geezerhood , the escalator has been bump at the Bowery . But a blade new one recently open up . Before , the gargantuan blueish wooden boxful surrounded the hulking piece of machinery left little room on either side for fundament traffic — so every time you had to walk to the stairs , you felt like you were pass to fall onto the Methedrine - covered runway , where a lowlife baron was waitress to eat your eyeball and wear your skid .
The bright , shining new escalator — which only ferry passengers up , since there is no down — serves as proof that the MTA is n’t ignoring the Bowery entirely . The blue box seat is gone , but the moving stairway ’s sparkly stainless sword still highlights how cheating the rest of the place is .
Like
Such position ! With new bars and eating place now flank the post , you ’ve never had more of a rationality to bring down the Bowery . you’re able to see a world course of instruction concert , consume humanity class food for thought , see world division art , and shop at a classy foodstuff store without straying more than a couple of blocks from the station . And if you get bored with all that play , SoHo , the East Village , the Lower East Side , and Chinatown are just a ten - minute walk aside .
It bears observe , too , that unsafe as it feels , the Bowery place has never in reality given me difficulty . ( The Bowery post rats , on the other hand … ) There ’s also reasonableness to believe that the MTA will in the end get around to doing some renewal work with its soon - to - be announced capital programme for 2015 to 2019 . During the capital program full point that just ended , the MTA did work at 187 of its 468 stations .
Here ’s where we can glean some brainstorm into why this station has been so spoiled for so long — and what it says about the MTA ’s approach to maintenance . or else of revivify intact stations , the MTA does what it call “ component ” or renewal employment to specific parts of the place . It ’s a act like the break away window possibility — by prepare small thing at a wider number of stations , the MTA avoids letting more station strike into complete disrepair . Which imply that now that the Bowery ’s escalator is up and race , the station stands to get even more improvements .
Should You Visit It?
The Bowery is an amazing , memorable part of the urban center , and while the condition of the post is pretty high-risk , it scram the job done . That new escalator is pretty nice , too ! Again , I ’d commend travel to the Bowery station and get a drive home somewhere else — like the nearby Broadway - LaFayette , for instance .
Now that New York is actually notthe post - apocalyptical waste it once was , some say it ’s lost its edge . ( Did I cite that the city ’s old slip row is now home to a Whole Foods ? ) New York ’s edge has develop , though , and remaining outposts of disintegration like the Bowery stop suffice as a refreshing monitor that Gotham is still a hulk of a urban center that ’s marred by imperfections and dispute by limited imagination . The Bowery stop live like a microcosm of New York ’s social and political reality — and a reminder that not every quoin of Ithiel Town has bounced back from the squalor of the seventies as easily as others .
Go — but do me and your distressful mother a favor : take a friend .
All image by Nick Stango
Citiesnew yorkNew York Citypublic transitreview
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