City Hall: The most beautiful secret subway station in New York

The city that never sleeps, the headquarters of the skyscrapers, the most iconic city on the planet distributed in huge blocks, infinite streets, and up to nine islands, hides a multitude of treasures worth discovering.

Although thanks to the film industry, New York City has become one of the favorite places when planning a trip, it is enough to walk through its streets, its parks to find surprises on each side.

Because New York City is one of the cities with the highest population density and the most tourists in the world, getting around by car through its streets is quite complicated. This is why many choose the subway to get from one place to another.

The city’s subway system was inaugurated in 1904 and has the most extensive network in the United States, as well as one of the largest in the world, with almost 500 stops and more than 1,000 kilometers of tracks.

The first underground line had three branches. One of its lines was the Lexington Avenue line, which linked Borough Hall to the Grand Central railway station. This line, with a length of 13 kilometers, currently exists and currently has 23 active stations and another 4 completely abandoned. One of its ghost stations is the old south terminal, called City Hall.

The station is located under the New York City Hall, at the intersection of Center Street and Chambers Street, forming a curious closed curve.

City Hall drew attention for its elegance and style, very different from the rest of the stops, the truth is that it was more like a palace than a subway station. It had crystals through which natural light entered, chandeliers and also vaulted ceilings covered in tiles. Despite being the most beautiful station in the entire city and after almost four decades of perfect operation and abundant passenger traffic in the mid-1940s, City Hall experienced a significant decline in use. During its last year in operation, it was only used by 600 people a day, which was very little compared to the rest of the nearby stations. This, together with the safety risk that its pronounced curve posed to recent trains, which were longer. So, the City Hall Station stopped working permanently on December 31, 1945, and was replaced by the Brooklyn Bridge station, becoming an abandoned station. Trains no longer stopped there to pick up passengers. The entrances to the street were sealed, and their bright skylights were covered.

After 78 years of neglect, you can still see its striking skylights that decorate the ceilings, as well as the vaults and rails that made up the space. The City Hall station is considered a historical monument of the city and registered since 2004 in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) of the United States, it can only be visited on special occasions since it is not open for public entry.  However, for those who wish, it is enough to take line number 6 until the end of the route, after Brooklyn Bridge where they can go through the ghost station and admire it in all its splendor since, for safety reasons, the trains pass at very low speed. Ideal for taking photos. In this way, passengers will be able to see the station in the shadows, as if they were traveling back in time and on the other side of the windows, they could travel to the 40s. It is better to go on a sunny day so that the station is naturally illuminated through the skylights in the ceiling.

On the surface, in front of the City Hall Park, you can see what the entrance was, which currently only serves as an emergency exit and does not allow you to go down to see the station. As a curiosity, in the middle of the park there is an area reserved for dogs and there is an iron opening that allows you to look out onto the station platforms

Another option is to sign up for the guided tours offered by the New York Transit Museum, whose price is around 50 dollars. The tour of this station of more than two centuries lasts an hour and a half, and it is allowed to take pictures for personal use.

Despite its apparent solitude, the City Hall station has a new “life” thanks to the New York graffiti artists who, respecting the elegant platforms, have taken over the shunting tunnels to turn its walls into a veritable gallery of street art.

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