When Fulton Center opened in 2014, city officials heralded this massive transit hub as a superstation uniting 12 subway lines with a connection to PATH service.
But the extra convenience when it comes to transferring between lines cost New York some of its lovely early subway architecture.
Case in point is this stylized subway exit on the downtown East Side IRT platform.
Bronze and with slender ionic columns, this exit once lead to stairs and no leads nowhere. The second photo shows the exit in 2011, as the station was undergoing construction; the turnstiles weren’t pretty, but one could still leave the platform here and get a feel for what the station was like decades ago.
Now, the exit remains—but its passageway is sealed forever.
The remnant of the exit isn’t even accessible as an artifact to look closely at or even touch while you’re waiting for your 4 or 5 train, thanks to the escalator blocking it off.
Where did subway riders who disembarked here and took this exit to the street end up?
Thanks to the exhaustive New York City subway archive at nycsubway.org, it appears to have once taken riders to 195 Broadway, the former AT&T Building. Number 195 is directly across the street from Fulton Place and is noted for its Doric columns.
[Third photo: nycsubway.org, 1999]
Ephemeral New York 