59 Street
The Lower Level Express platforms at 59 Street are extremely deep and located in a deep bore tunnel. This is due to the fact that when the trains began running through the station in 1918 the stop was opened as a local stop. Construction to make the station an express stop began in 1959 and was completed on November 16, 1962 at a cost of $6.5 million ($47 million in today's dollars).
The stop has two side platforms for the two- track line that are located fifty feet beneath the local platforms, with the BMT Broadway 60 Street Line crossing between the two levels of the Lexington Avenue Line. The wall decorations of these platforms were the 1950s green design with 59 St written in them when the station opened. When the station was renovated in the late 1990s these were replaced by the current blue trim line with a small dark green boarder with name tablets of the same pattern with 59th Street written in white.
The options to reach the deep lower-level platform are quite limited and consist towards the southern end of the platforms of a single, long up escalator/stair combination shaft from each platform to the respective upper-level local platform near the exits to 59th Street, these rise fifty vertical feet. The other exits are from the decent-sized lower mezzanine area on the level between the BMT N,Q,R Lexington Avenue Station platforms and this platform. Two staircases lead up to it from each of the lower-level express platforms, and there are three staircases up to the BMT N,Q,R Lexington Avenue's island platforms. There is also a single escalator, always running in the up direction that leads 39 feet directly up to the upper-level local 6 train platforms.
Photo 1: September 16, 2005; 2-11: May 21, 2010; 12: November 3, 2012; 13-33: November 24, 2023;
