Waiting for a train at a dazzling subway station

Vaulted ceilings, pendant lighting, mosaic tiles, colored glass that let in natural light—these are some of the spectacular features of the City Hall IRT station, opened in October 1904 and the southernmost station on the original IRT route.

Unfortunately all of this beauty has been shut off to passengers since 1945—when the station was deemed redundant because the Brooklyn Bridge station so close. Also, it just didn’t accommodate the longer trains necessary to carry the vast numbers of city commuters.

Now this is a subway station worth celebrating

I’m as thrilled as any other New Yorker about the opening of the first leg of the Second Avenue Subway last weekend.

And while the three new stations on the line are bright, clean, and easy to navigate, they just don’t hold a candle to the sublime and triumphant City Hall subway station, opened to an excited and celebratory public in October 1904.

Though the tile-and-chandelier station closed to commuters in the 1940s, you can still view it.

Either sign up for an official tour sponsored by the New York Transit Museum (here’s a peek at what you’ll see) or look hard out the window of the 6 train as it turns around after the Brooklyn Bridge stop to head back uptown.

[Postcards: NYPL]

Something beautiful hiding under City Hall

No turnstiles, no token or MetroCard machines, no posters or maps—just a lovely vaulted-ceiling platform with an oak ticket booth at City Hall.

This City Hall station, with its chandeliers and skylights, had a short life span, from 1904 to 1945. You can catch a glimpse of it if you stay on the 6 train as it uses the City Hall station to loop back uptown again.

The ticket booth is long gone, but the station itself remains, sometimes open for tours, as seen in these recent photos.

A peek at the long-shuttered City Hall station

Shut down and decommissioned in 1945, the glorious City Hall subway station—the first station to open in 1904—is occasionally accessible to the public via MTA tours.

An Ephemeral reader descended beneath City Hall last month and took some lovely shots of the elegant subwaytechture: gorgeous tiles, arches, curves, and skylights.

The ghostly platform and tubes of today look pretty much the same as they did in this vintage postcard.

Well, except for the hulking token booth–looking structure in the corner….

The beautiful subway station you may never see

This glittery postcard, mailed with a one-cent stamp in 1906, celebrates the loop at the City Hall subway station, the first station ever built.

Opened in 1904, it was the southern terminal of the IRT East Side line and featured stunning tiled arches, skylights, and brass chandeliers.

Because the station couldn’t be expanded to fit the longer trains needed to accommodate more passengers, it was closed in 1945. Closed but not totally abandoned. The Transit Museum occasionally gives tours, and the 6 train still uses the loop to reverse direction and go northward.

Read more about it and its architectural beauty here. Or hop on board the East Side IRT at 14th Street by watching this circa-1905 film clip.