Subway Headaches at 79th Street
Straphangers who use the No. 1 train have faced frustrations in recent weeks at the West 79th Street stop on Broadway. The downtown entrance on the northwest corner of the intersection has been closed since early April, with a sign stating that the entrance is expected to reopen by April 20. During the morning rush-hour, commuters can only use the southwest entrance to reach downtown trains, which deposits straphangers at a single turnstile. There are additional turnstiles on the northern end of the station, back toward the shuttered entrance.
The source of the headaches, according to Deirdre Parker, a spokesperson for New York City Transit, is a leak in the area that required investigation by the citys Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
Theres a broken water main in the area and they cant seem to find the break so DEP has been digging, looking, re-cementing, digging, looking, re-cementing around that area, Parker said. That is going to go on until they find where the leak is.
The leak, as it turns out, is a broken service line, or pipe that leads from the city water main to a property, explained Mercedes Padilla, a Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson. In this case, the property is owned by the MTA, so the authority was issued a three-day notice on April 15 to fix the problem.
Since the entrance has been shut for the leak investigation, New York City Transit decided to conduct separate work on the northwest staircase that will help make the station less prone to flooding during rainstorms. Workers will add a small rise to the top step so that the staircase is not at grade level with surrounding pavement.
Were going to work on the staircases, too, to keep water from just running down and flooding at the bottom of the stairs, Parker said.
The April 20 re-opening date posted on the entrance is an estimate, she added.
Once the northwest staircase is finished, each of the remaining entrances will be shut briefly so that similar flood-prevention work can be conducted.
New York City Transit has been doing similar work at the southeast entrance to the uptown platform of the No. 1 train, at West 86th Street and Broadway. A sign at the station says that the entrance, which has been closed since April 9, will reopen on April 23.
This story originally appeared in the West Side Spirit.
Photo by Andrew Schwartz