Canal Street
The Canal Street IRT station is an original opening day of the subway local station that opened in 1904, with two side platforms just beneath the street for the four track line. The station's extensions were all in the northern direction and the only connections and exits are at the southern end of the station's platforms.
The southern end of the platforms have the standard 1904 name tablets with Canal St written in white behind a green background and a gray inner border with a light green outer border. There is a narrow terra-cotta relief trim line with Green C wall reliefs with cornucopias surrounding them inside the trimline. The long and narrow northern extensions of the platforms have a dark yellow-trimline with a light green border, interrupted by white C's on a dark green background at regular intervals, along with Canal St name tablets coming down directly from the trimline with a identical light green borders alongside a dark green background and white text on the name tablets.
To exit this platform on the Uptown platform is a small passageway in the middle of an area between two seperate fare control areas, that leads to a small staircase down to an intermediate mezzanine where it splits to a staircases down to each of the N,Q platforms that lead to the Manhattan Bridge, these platforms are the only way to reach all of the station's other connections, the R,W and J,Z trains. On one side is a fare control area with a token booth and turnstiles that leads two streetstairs, one to the SE corner of Canal Street & Lafayette Street, one just east of this one down Canal Street. Opposite this is some High Entrance/Exit Turnstiles plus an Autogate MetroCard Gate for ADA access that lead to a small fare control area with a single streetstair to the NE corner of Canal Street and Lafayette plus the ADA elevator (that provides ADA access to the Uptown 6 platform only) that replaced a 2nd streetstair up to this side of the street.
The downtown platform has a similar but smaller layout (it was built in 1904 with just one staircase instead of two up to each corner of Canal Street) with two separate fare control areas on either side of the narrow passageway to the station's transfers. The NE corner of Canal Street and Lafayette Street has the ADA elevator (right near the corner) for the downtown platform only plus a streetstair. The entrance from the SE corner has a single street stair. These entrances both lead to small fare control areas with only High Turnstiles on each side of the short corridor that leads to a staircase down to an intermediate landing before continuing down to the N,Q platforms.
Photos 1-4: August 13, 2008; 5-31: July 30, 2009; 32-34: September 24, 2023;
