City Hall — Local services in New York

If you’re riding the number 6 subway line downtown, the final stop isBrooklyn Bridge. You typically wouldn’t think to stay on the train as it continues to the end of the line and turns around but if you were to, you’d be in for a real treat. Before the 6 changes direction and heads back uptown it passes through the most spellbinding and legendary secret place in NYC – City Hall Station.

Opened in 1904 as part of NYC’s first subway line, the small station is one of the most beautifully-designed in the city. It features Guastavino tile vaults, skylights, and Romanesque Revival architecture. Ironically, the graceful platform curve which lends it some of its charm was also its undoing. As ridership increased on the subway during the mid 20th century, cars and platforms had to be lengthened – a job that would have been difficult to complete on on the curved platform. Plus, Brooklyn bridge was getting much more traffic anyway. Now it’s a ghost station and a time capsule from a more elegant (and less crowded) era. If you want to see this secret place in NYC you either have to try the heavily frowned upon – and illegal – method of staying on the train until it turns around, or do the preferable thing and sign up for one of the infrequent but free tours led by the New York Transit Museum. Keep an eye on their events page for notices of...

It is a fairly clean train station. I guess it needs to be. What if the mayor decides to take the train to work? If you go in on the wrong side you can walk around the black iron fence rods to the otherside. I wish I knew this the first time I went to the wrong side and then had to double back through the stalls and swipe again losing my train fair.

There are many times the W train will not come when it says it is supposed to come in the north bound side (Queens direction).

Do not confuse this station with the City Hall station on the 6 train. Although that station is closed, you can still see it by continuing on the 6 train past...

For all you film buffs out there, the screeching winged ghost that flys out of a subway entrance in the 1984 classic GHOSTBUSTERS... yup, that staircase actually leads to the City Hall Subway Station on the N/R line. The lower level was said to contain an entrance leading directly to the lobby of the Woolworth Building right above the station! Those who wonder why the Northbound tracks make a funny turn into the Station will be interested to know that this was due to an abandoned plan for adding an express track. It would have been similar to the design of the platforms at the Whitehall Street Station just 3 stops...