34th Street–Herald Square station
The 34th Street–Herald Square station is an underground station complex on the BMT Broadway Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan where 34th Street, Broadway and Sixth Avenue intersect, and is served by the D, F, N, and Q trains at all times; the R train at all times except late nights; the B, M, and W trains on weekdays; and the <F> train during rush hours in the reverse peak direction.
The Broadway Line platforms opened on January 5, 1918, as part of the Broadway Line, which was built for the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation as part of the Dual Contracts. The Sixth Avenue Line platforms opened in 1940, completing construction of the first phase of the Independent Subway System. The IND platforms functioned as a terminal for some trains until 1968, when the Chrystie Street Connection opened. The station complex was renovated in the 1990s.
The BMT and IND stations both have two island platforms and four tracks, and there is a mezzanine above both sets of platforms. The station complex contains elevators, which make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. There is an out-of-system connection to the PATH's 33rd Street station, as well as closed passageways to the adjacent 42nd Street–Bryant Park station and to 34th Street–Penn Station on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. The 34th Street–Herald Square station is the third-busiest station in the system as of 2019, with over 39 million passengers entering the station that year.
History
Dual Contracts
The New York Public Service Commission adopted plans for what was known as the Broadway–Lexington Avenue route on December 31, 1907. A proposed Tri-borough system was adopted in early 1908, incorporating the Broadway Line. Operation of the line was assigned to the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company in the Dual Contracts, adopted on March 4, 1913. The Public Service Commission approved plans for the segment between 26th and 38th Streets, including the 28th Street and 34th Street stations, in April 1914. The contract for that section went to the second-lowest bidder, the United States Realty and Construction Company, as the lowest bidder was too inexperienced. U.S. Realty began constructing the tunnel between 26th and 38th Streets in August 1914. A. W. King was hired to install finishes in the 34th Street station in July 1917.The Broadway Line opened between 14th Street–Union Square and Canal Street in 1917; it originally only served local trains. On January 5, 1918, the Broadway Line was extended north to Times Square–42nd Street and south to Rector Street, and express service started on the line. Before the 34th Street station had officially opened, Women's Wear Daily reported that the stop would be "one of the most important subway stations in the world", as it would lead directly to three busy crosstown streets.
IND expansion
New York City mayor John Francis Hylan's original plans for the Independent Subway System, proposed in 1922, included building over of new lines and taking over nearly of existing lines. The lines were designed to compete with the existing underground, surface, and elevated lines operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation. The IND Sixth Avenue Line was designed to replace the elevated IRT Sixth Avenue Line. In 1924, the IND submitted its list of proposed subway routes to the New York City Board of Transportation, which approved the program. One of the routes was a segment of tunnel from Fourth Street to 53rd Street. Part of this stretch was already occupied by the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad 's Uptown Hudson Tubes. As a result, negotiations between the city and the H&M continued for several years. The IND and H&M finally came to an agreement in 1930. The city had decided to build the IND Sixth Avenue Line's local tracks around the pre-existing H&M tubes, and add express tracks for the IND underneath the H&M tubes at a later date. The IND started advertising bids for the section of the Sixth Avenue Line between 43rd and 53rd Streets in April 1931.In April 1935, engineers started planning in earnest for the Midtown portion of the Sixth Avenue Line. The city government issued corporate stock to pay for the $53 million cost of the project, since the line was not eligible for federal Public Works Administration funds. The first contract, for the section between 40th and 47th Streets, was awarded to Rosoff-Brader Construction in October 1935. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia broke ground for the Sixth Avenue subway at Bryant Park on March 23, 1936. The Carleton Company was hired in September 1936 to construct the section from 27th to 33rd Streets, and Rosoff-Brader was hired that October to build the segment from 33rd to 40th Streets.
The line was built as a four-track tunnel north of 33rd Street, but there were only two tracks south of that street. The work largely involved cut-and-cover excavations, although portions of the subway had to be tunneled through solid rock. The builders also had to avoid disrupting the Sixth Avenue elevated or the various utility lines on the avenue. The line had to be built below the H&M and BMT tunnels, but it also had to pass above the East River Tubes at 32nd and 33rd Streets. Excavation work was conducted 24 hours a day, with most of the blasting work being conducted at night. Workers had to use small charges of dynamite to avoid damaging nearby buildings or the parallel Catskill Aqueduct. The section north of 33rd Street had mostly been excavated by November 1937. The H&M's old 33rd Street terminal closed on December 26, 1937, and a rebuilt terminal opened on September 24, 1939. The IRT's Sixth Avenue elevated closed in December 1938, just before the Sixth Avenue subway was completed. Otis Elevator received a contract to install 16 escalators at the station.
The IND's 34th Street–Herald Square station opened on December 15, 1940, as part of the opening of the IND Sixth Avenue Line from 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center to West Fourth Street. The opening of the Sixth Avenue Line relieved train traffic on the Eighth Avenue Line, which was used by all services except for the G Brooklyn–Queens Crosstown service. The line was initially served by the rush-hour BB, the D, and the F; the BB and D terminated at 34th Street.
1950s to 1990s
On April 19, 1961, ground was broken for a $22 million project to build two express tracks between the West Fourth Street and 34th Street–Herald Square stations. The express tracks were part of an $80 million subway improvement program that began with the reconstruction of the DeKalb Avenue station in Brooklyn. The project was part of the Chrystie Street Connection, which would allow 45 additional trains per hour, carrying a combined 90,000 passengers, to enter Manhattan during rush hours. On November 26, 1967, the first part of the Chrystie Street Connection opened and Sixth Avenue Line express tracks opened from 34th Street–Herald Square to West Fourth Street. With the opening of the connection to the Manhattan Bridge, BB service was renamed B and it was extended via the new express tracks and the connection to the BMT West End Line in Brooklyn. D service was routed via the connection and onto the BMT Brighton Line instead of via the Culver Line. It only ran express during rush hours. F service was extended from Broadway–Lafayette Street during rush hours, and from 34th Street during other times to Coney Island via the Culver Line.On November 28, 1969, the turnstiles and exit gates at the northern end of the station were relocated, making four more staircases from the Broadway Line platforms available for transfers to the Sixth Avenue platforms. Previously, transfers could only be made from two staircases. This complex was overhauled in the late 1970s. The Transit Authority fixed the station's structure and renovated its appearance. The overhaul replaced the original wall tiles, old signs, and incandescent lighting to the 1970s modern look wall tile band and tablet mosaics, signs and fluorescent lights. It also fixed staircases and platform edges.
On February 9, 1983, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that it had awarded a $6.1 million contract to replace 16 escalators at the station to two companies.
In the early 1990s, the station received another major repair, which included an upgrade for ADA-accessibility and modernized wall tiling. The MTA repaired the staircases, re-tiling for the walls, installed new tiling on the floors, upgraded the station's lights and the public address system, installing ADA safety treads along the platform edge, new signs, and new track-beds in both directions. William Nicholas Bodouva & Associates, the renovation architects, also intended to streamline various passageways and ramps that had been added piecemeal over the years. The $66.4 million project was completed in 1996.
Since 2000
On August 28, 2004, Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay were arrested for planning to bomb the Herald Square station during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Elshafay cooperated with prosecutors and received a plea deal; Siraj was convicted of conspiracy on four counts, the most serious of which was plotting to bomb a public transportation system, in 2006 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2007.The station's token booths were shuttered in May 2005, after fare tokens were replaced with MetroCards; station agents were deployed elsewhere in the station to answer passengers' queries. This was part of a pilot program that was tested at seven other stations. To save energy, the MTA installed variable-speed escalators at 34th Street–Herald Square and three other subway stations in August 2008, although not all of the escalators initially functioned as intended. A Korean restaurant, Nōksu, opened on the station's mezzanine level in late 2023. In November 2024, the United States Department of Transportation provided a $72 million grant to cover two-thirds of the design and engineering phase of the renovation of New York Penn Station. Among other things, the project will include a direct connection from the 34th Street–Herald Square station to Penn Station.