42 Street-Bryant Park
42 Street-Bryant Park has two island platforms for the four track line with an original orange trimline of 3 tiles with a half-tile black border and little 42 tiles beneath. The station has a slightly split mezzanine area due to the 42 Street shuttle having to pass over towards the northern end of the station. Starting our tour from the north side of the intersection of 42 Street and 6 Avenue there is an entrance near the NE corner inside the storefronts of 1100 Avenue of the Americas — The HBO Building — (a short way up the block). The NW corner has the new glass entrance in front of the Bank of America Building with two staircases on eitherside of an elevator (that provides no accessible access to the platforms and it would be hard to retrofit this entrance for ADA compliancy) these lead to a small mezzanine area north of the shuttle tracks passing above and after the unstaffed turnstiles there is a single staircase down to each platform at its extreme northern end.
Going down the platform the ceiling gets very low for the passing shuttle above, this is the reason the station lacks a full-length mezzanine. On September 7, 2001 a new passageway opened connecting to B,D,F,M platforms to the 42 Street Shuttle. A single staircase (surrounded by silver gates to allow the staircase and passageway to be closed during late nights from Midnight to 5am when the shuttle isn't running) leads up from each platform to the eastern end of this passageway, built between the two remaining shuttle tracks, the passageway where track 3 once was, the staircases on the former track bed of track 2 (not in service since 1918 when the Shuttle debuted along the original opening day IRT route). These staircases are signed with large S's and very small bullets for the 1, 2, 3, N, Q, R, and W. No mention of the A,C,E accessible by walking two blocks underground, and the 7 train is much closer by walking to the 5 Avenue Station.
Just beyond the new staircases up to the shuttle, we come to the large mezzanine area that is the length of the platforms for the rest of the station and has staircases up to it at regular intervals. Starting from this mezzanine's northern end there is a large bank of turnstiles and the only token booth for the 6 Avenue portion of the station. These lead out to a more orate street stair at the SE corner of the intersection of 42 Street and 6 Avenue at the NW corner of Bryant Park. Another long passageway with what looks like abandoned ticket counters leads down beneath 1095 Avenue of the Americas (this building runs the entire block along 6 Avenue between 42 Street and 41 Street) and beyond 42 Street 175 feet to a staircase up to the pedestrian plaza on the opposite side of the building beyond 6 Avenue. Within fare control right after these turnstiles the passageway to the 7 train is found at 5 Avenue which is relatively narrow and bends a few times running half a block (about 500 feet) towards 5 Avenue before becoming the mezzanine above that platform.
The wide mezzanine continues south slightly narrower at times with areas in the walls that seem like they were carved out to form a shopping concourse but no shops exist except a florist. At the 40 Street end of the mezzanine (there are no exits to 41 Street) there is another bank of turnstiles and a Bryant Park more elaborate street stair to the NE corner of 40 Street and 6 Avenue (and the parks SW corner), with a conventional street stair out to the SW and SE corners. The entrance to the NE corner is slightly more complicated basically right (6 feet down 40 Street) on the corner inside surrounded by marble I the storefront of a building.
Photos 1 & 2: December 30, 2003; 3-9: August 15, 2008; 14-18: December 28, 2008; 19-24: June 24, 2009; 25-27: July 30, 2009; 28-40 August 6, 2009; 41-45: September 8, 2011; 46-49: October 31, 2011; 50-53: November 2, 2012; 54: March 3, 2013; 55-57: October 7. 2018; 58-61: September 3, 2023
Station Subway Lines (2000-2010)
