125 Street (1) - The SubwayNut

125th Street is the only elevated station of the original IRT subway line. It was built over Manhattan Valley, a ravine that cuts through the western of part of northern Manhattan. The stop is extremely high on a steel structural arch crosses over Broadway and 125th Street. This means escalators are provided for entering and exiting passengers. Shortly beyond either end of the station the line dips back underground after coming out of Broadway's median with the tunnel portals at 122nd Street and the north at 135th Street. It should be noted that 125 Street is an anomaly in the street grid as it curves north a bit to continue through the bottom of the Manhattan Valley. This makes 128th Street is closer to where the stop fits into the street grid.

The stop itself was given an extensive rebuilding and 'historic restoration' in 2003 before the subway centennial, this includes small window panes on the platform walls where they are wind screened, and simple ornate ironwork fences (which were never removed just painted red instead of green) at the ends of the platforms where they are exposed to the elements. The stop has one single entrance that leads only to the south side of Broadway. Two staircases lead to a station house just beneath the tracks. These in turn lead to enclosed passageways to reach the sidewalk area of broad Broadway, passing over traffic lanes, before reaching three escalators that lead down to the NE (going up) and NW (going down) corners of Tiemann Place (a short street that exists because of 125th Streets curviness), and the SW (going up) corner of 125th Street and Broadway. There is also a single street stair that leaves directly from the station (with half of its downward steps directly over Broadway!) before curving and tucking beneath the escalator structure and ending close to the SE corner of Broadway and Tiemann Place. The directions of these single escalators due change along with these entrance locations. There all signed as entrances to the station, although the NW corner of Tiemann Place is signed in the station as going down.
Photos 1-8: November 13, 2003; 9-11: December 19, 2003; 12-15: October 2, 2004; 16-24: November 21, 2004; 27-32: February 24, 2005; 33-40: August 9, 2005; 41-45: May 25, 2007; September 6, 2011

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Looking across the tracks at 125 Street towards a closed and covered in construction materials downtown platform.

A bench is surrounded by mesh on the downtown platform at 125 Street during the station's rehabilitation

The blur of a downtown 9 train bypasses the closed downtown side of 125 Street.

Some of the new retro glass windows replacing the standard windscreen have already been put in on the uptown platform but there is plenty of plywood everywhere.

A standard wooden bench beneath a 125 Street platform sign on a standard cream colored windscreen (this portion of the station hasn't been touched by rehabilitation yet).