Bowling Green station
The Bowling Green station is a station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line of the New York City Subway, located at Broadway and Battery Place, in the Financial District of Manhattan. It is served by the 4 train at all times and the 5 train at all times except late nights. It is the southern terminal for the 5 train on weekends.
The station opened in 1905 as an extension of the Interborough Rapid Transit 's original subway line to South Ferry. At the time, there was a single island platform with one exit at Battery Park and another in Bowling Green. When the Lexington Avenue Line was expanded to Brooklyn in 1908, some trains continued going to South Ferry, resulting in the creation of a short island platform at the Bowling Green station for the Bowling Green–South Ferry shuttle. The shuttle operated until 1977. During the 1970s, the station was completely renovated, a new exit was built, and a third, side platform was created for northbound trains.
The Bowling Green station contains two island platforms and one side platform. The westernmost island platform, formerly used by the shuttle, has been closed since 1977. The station retains its original head house in Battery Park, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a New York City designated landmark. There are two other exits to Bowling Green, one of which contains an elevator that makes the station compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
History
Construction and opening
Planning for a subway line in New York City dates to 1864. However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act. The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, the Rapid Transit Commission's chief engineer. The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations. Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company in April 1902 to operate the subway.Several days after Contract 1 was signed, the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners instructed Parsons to evaluate the feasibility of extending the subway south to South Ferry, and then to Brooklyn. On January 24, 1901, the Board adopted a route that would extend the subway from City Hall to the Long Island Rail Road 's Flatbush Avenue terminal station in Brooklyn, via the Joralemon Street Tunnel under the East River. Contract 2, which gave the IRT a 35-year lease, was executed between the commission and the Rapid Transit Construction Company on September 11, 1902. Construction of the Joralemon Street Tunnel began at State Street in Manhattan on November 8, 1902. There was to be a station at Bowling Green. South of the station, the main line would slope down to the Joralemon Street Tunnel, while a loop underneath Battery Park would allow southbound trains to serve the South Ferry station and rejoin the northbound track. The New York Times wrote that the installation of the switches between the loop and the main line presented "an engineering problem of great difficulty".
Work on the section of line from Ann Street to Bowling Green had not started by September 1903, and McDonald blamed Parsons for the delays. The dispute was quickly resolved, as neither man had realized that the other did not want the project to disturb daytime traffic along Broadway; work started shortly thereafter. During the Bowling Green station's construction, workers uncovered and removed some of the original lampposts that had illuminated Bowling Green Park. The tunnel between Ann Street and Bowling Green was nearly complete by July 1904. The Bowling Green station opened on July 10, 1905. The station was originally built with a single island platform; a station head house at the south end, in Battery Park; and a secondary entrance at the northern end of the platform, adjacent to Bowling Green Park. There was as yet no IRT service to Brooklyn, and all Lexington Avenue trains terminated at South Ferry's outer-loop platform.
Early modifications
After the Joralemon Street Tunnel opened in 1908, ticket sales increased at Bowling Green and the IRT's other subway stations in Lower Manhattan. Some trains continued to terminate at South Ferry, even during rush hours, while others went to Brooklyn. This service pattern was soon found to be inadequate for the high volume of Brooklyn riders. As a result, in 1908, the New York State Public Service Commission applied for authority to build a second, shorter platform and a third track to the west of the existing island platform. Three months after the Joralemon Street Tunnel opened, construction began on the third track and the western island platform at Bowling Green. Once they were completed in 1909, all rush-hour trains were sent to Brooklyn, with a two-car Bowling Green–South Ferry shuttle train providing service to South Ferry during those times. Even after the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line local service began to South Ferry in 1918, the shuttle remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1977 due to budget cuts.To address overcrowding, in 1909, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening the platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to $1.5 million spent on platform lengthening, $500,000 was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent. The main island platform at the Bowling Green station was extended to the north. On January 23, 1911, ten-car express trains began running on the East Side Line, and the next day, ten-car express trains began running on the West Side Line. The Lexington Avenue Line north of Grand Central–42nd Street opened on August 1, 1918, and all Joralemon Street Tunnel services were sent via the Lexington Avenue Line.
In Fiscal Year 1937, the platform was extended to the north. This avoided the need to install gap fillers on the curve at the south end of the platform. The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. On September 8, 1952, the New York City Board of Transportation made the entrance kiosk at Battery Place and State Street entrance-only instead of exit-only in order to relieve congestion at the station during the evening rush hour. A fare box was installed at the top of the stairway to accommodate the change. The New York City Transit Authority announced plans in 1956 to add fluorescent lights above the edges of the station's platforms. The lights were installed the next year.
NYCTA architect Harold Sandifer prepared plans in the late 1950s for a modern-style station house within Bowling Green Park, which would contain a brick-and-aluminum facade, along with planters containing dwarf Japanese yew trees. The NYCTA approved the project in February 1958, awarding the construction contract to the Lenmar Construction Company at a cost of $87,200. The next year, the new station house in Bowling Green Park was completed, with new stairways to the platform. Later in 1959, contracts were awarded to extend the platforms at Bowling Green, Wall Street, Fulton Street, Canal Street, Spring Street, Bleecker Street, Astor Place, Grand Central, 86th Street and 125th Street to to accommodate ten-car trains. The NYCTA approved a proposal in September 1960 to install an experimental token-vending machine, which would dispense advertisements along with tokens, at the Bowling Green station. Work on the platform extension was still underway in 1962, and the project was substantially completed by November 1965.
1970s renovation
As early as the mid-1960s, local civic group Downtown-Local Manhattan Association had raised concerns that the Bowling Green station was severely overcrowded during rush hours. The association commissioned a study of the neighborhood, which recommended that the station's platform be extended and that its entrances be widened. In 1970, the New York City Planning Commission considered transferring the Custom House's unused air rights to 1 Broadway, where the Walter Kidde Company planned to build a 50-story skyscraper. In exchange, the Walter Kidde Company would have been required to pay for numerous improvements to the surrounding area. Local civic groups also proposed connecting the station to the basements of skyscrapers in the area, as well as to the then-separate South Ferry and Whitehall Street stations and a planned terminal for the Second Avenue Subway. By the early 1970s, the station had 14 million passengers per year.On March 5, 1972, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that the station would be renovated and expanded, doubling the capacity of the station. The work was done in conjunction with the renovation of Bowling Green Park, which was rebuilt to conform with its appearance in the late 18th century. A new northbound side platform was built to alleviate congestion on the narrow island platform, which would then only be used by downtown trains. Stairs and a new mezzanine were built below track level, and a new exit with modern escalators was installed just south of Bowling Green. The street at the southern end of Bowling Green, in front of the Custom House, was converted into a pedestrian plaza. The new mezzanine, excavated under Bowling Green Park using a cut-and-cover method, was connected to the platform and street levels with ten new escalators. The existing subway entrance at the west gate of the park was removed, providing more open space in the park. These capacity improvements were made to accommodate increased ridership resulting from the construction of additional office buildings in Lower Manhattan, including the World Trade Center. The station lost its original mosaic tiles, which were replaced with bright red tiles, similar to those at 49th Street and the under-construction stations on the 63rd Street lines and Archer Avenue lines. In addition, the station's token booths were renovated.
Work was initially set to be finished in 1974. In July 1975, it was announced that the project's completion had been delayed to March 1976. In December 1976, a spokesperson for the New York City Transit Authority said that work on the project would not be completed until early 1977. The southern headhouse entrance was closed for six months beginning in April 1978 as it was being rehabilitated. The renovation was completed in 1978 at a cost of $16.8 million. Funding for the project was provided from the NYCTA's capital budget. The Bowling Green station's renovation was supposed to be the first of numerous large-scale station reconstructions in the New York City Subway system.
At midnight on February 13, 1977, service on the Bowling Green–South Ferry shuttle was discontinued, and the platform and the track used by the shuttle were abandoned. The service was discontinued as part of a three-phase cut in service that the NYCTA had begun in 1975 to reduce its operating deficits. Despite the discontinuation of the service, the shuttle platform was renovated, receiving new tiling, signage, and refinished flooring. Some time after 1983, a fence was installed on the eastern edge of the island platform, which had been used to board trains prior to the opening of the side platform in 1978.