Note: this photo was published in an undated (Oct 2010) Everyblock NYC zipcodes blog titled "10025."

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Wikipedia informs usthat the 96th Street subway station, right across the street from my apartment building, "was part of the original IRT subway and opened on the inaugural date of October 27, 1904."

Though I sometimes feel quite old indeed, I can reassure you that I was not here to witness that inauguration. If I had been there, I’m sure I would have been amazed — for Wikipedia says that at the time, the station served as the "terminus" of express subway service. Adventurous pioneers who really wanted to venture into the wild frontier as far north as 145th Street (not quite as far as today’s Yankee Stadium) had to be content with the fact that the express trains turned into local trains for the rest of the journey north of 96th Street.

In any case, the station continued being used in its original form for quite a long time — until July 2006, when Manhattan Community Board 7 approved an $80 million renovation of the station. The renovation was initially conceived as a response to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it was planned as a more-or-less straightforward construction of an elevator on the east side, and the west side, of Broadway. But that turned out to be a dead-end; for while the elevators would have carried disabled riders two stories down below the street, they would still have had to climb up one flight of stairs to reach the track level. So a more elaborate plan was eventually developed, which involved constructing a train-station-themed central "headhouse" between 95th and 96th Street, in the median area between the uptown and downtown lanes of Broadway — with staircases and elevators leading directly to the track/platform below. And that required cooperation and approvals from both the Transportation Department and the Parks Department (which "owns" the median space between the uptown/downtown Broadway lanes) and god only knows how many other bureaucratic agencies….

I had just moved into the neighborhood when all of this began, and wasn’t really aware of what was going on. But it became evident in the fall of 2007, when construction began … I live on the 21st floor of a building diagonally across the street from the construction, so it became a daily ritual to observe the state of construction, and the progress (or apparent lack of progress) each morning when I got up to get my first cup of coffee. I knew that it was difficult for the architects and construction crews to carry out the project while the subway was still in full operation, but I didn’t realize just how much of a burden it was; just recently, one of the architects told me that the entire project could have been finished in half the time if they had had the luxury of shutting down the entire station while they were working on it.

Though it seemed forever, the construction is now on the verge of wrapping up, in the fall of 2010. The new headhouse opened on April 5th of this year, and the second of the two walkways from the 96th entrance was opened right around Labor Day. More importantly, there are now trees and plants and shrubbery along the east and west sides of the "plaza," though it will take another 10-15 years for the trees to really take root, spread their branches, and provide shade and cover for the whole area.

On a recent "guided tour" of the subway station, the architects told us that one of the "themes" of the design effort was to make the 96th station look like an old 19th-century train station; hence the curved archway motif. They also wanted to create a sense of "permanence"; hence the use of granite stones for the walls and the walkways. And they wanted to create a sense of transparency, so that the subway station would not be seen as a dark, solid obstacle separating the east side and west side of Broadway; hence the extensive use of windows and access to light.

The photos in this set come from three separate "visits" (that is, photographic visits; I "visit" the subway station almost every day to ride the train uptown or downtown). On one visit, on a sunny mid-day Saturday, I simply sat on one of the "stones" that provides a resting space for visitors and tourists, set my camera to wide-angle, and pointed it in the general direction of people walking by; of the 600 photos that I took, roughly 30 were worth uploading. On a second occasion, I participated in a guided tour of the renovated station, conducted by the architects and the artists who provided some wonderful artistic decoration inside the station. And on the third and final occasion, I sat on the concrete mini-wall at 96th Street, and took 400+ photos of people rushing in and out of the station, from which I was able to extract about 30 interesting "keepers" to upload…

There will probably be more photos in the future, as I return to take pictures of what’s going on; but hopefully this initial batch will give you an idea of the situation…

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