135 Street
135th Street is a local station on the IND, with two side platforms between what are six train tracks. The outside two tracks are the local tracks that stop at the station, the inside tracks are the express tracks, between each express and local track is a siding/storage track (ending at crossovers to both tracks north and south of the station) and at times midday B and C trains may be seen in the station stored on these tracks. North of the station, the Central Park West Subway Line splits into the Concours Line and Washington Heights Line at flying junctions (after the storage tracks switch back onto the express and local tracks). The uptown platform has holding lights that are used by Midday and Evening B trains when they terminate on the middle track at 145 Street, to hold at 135 Street until the previous train has left the 145 Street terminus (otherwise trains could potentially block both the Central Park West Local track, also used by C trains, and the Concourse Line local track also used by D trains if they continued north of the station to where the red signals for the middle track would be).
The station's two side platforms have name tablets with 135th St. written in white text on a green background with a black boarder. The station doesn't have a proper trimline color, just 135s tiled on the walls under where an actual trimline would be. The same green color is also used for mosaics for Men or Women for the now closed restrooms. The station is located just beneath the street with only on platform exits with no mezzanine or free change of direction transfers.
Each platform has two fare control areas, one at each end of the station. At the southern end of the station are the original full-time entrances. The uptown platform has a fare control area with regular turnstiles but is now unstaffed, the token booth was closed and removed around 2010. This fare control area leads out to two streetstairs at the SE corner of St. Nicolas Avenue and 135 Street, and one to the NW corner of St. Nicolas Avenue and 135 Street, where Edgecombe Avenue begins at this intersection (diverging slightly away from St. Nicolas Avenue). These 3 streetstairs are the only conventional streetstairs at the station, the other 3 station entrances are located in parkland and have stonework surrounding them to blend into their park-like settings. The Downtown platform has a single extra-wide streetstair across from the end of this section of 135 Street surrounded by brick located at the bottom of St. Nicolas Park, which is a hilly park built around a bluff. Paths in the park lead uphill providing pedestrian connections to the City College of New York Campus, built on top of the bluff. 135 Street is actually closer to campus (if you don't mind climbing or descending the hill) than the 137 Street-City College stop on the 1 train.
The northern end of the platforms each have secondary unstaffed High Entrance/Exit Turnstiles exits. The downtown platform was a part-time staffed fare control area with regular turnstiles as well until January 2004, at times in the 1990s the Uptown platform exit (before a high entrance turnstile was installed) may have been exit only. Only the Downtown platform has an MVM, the uptown platform has no place to purchase a MetroCard. Each of these has a single exit staircase that leads up with stonework into parkland. The Downtown platform's is also at the base of St. Nicholas Park, across from the end of the eastern half of 137 Street (137 Street has another section of street at the top of the hill in St. Nicholas Park), the Uptown platform's streetstair is located inside Dorrace Brooks Square, a small square formed by Edgecombe Avenue diverging from St. Nicholas Avenue, between 137 and 136 Street. This streetstair is along the south side of 137 Street, facing inside square, not the street on the very short block of 137 Street between St. Nicholas and Edgecombe Avenues.
Photos 1: April 20, 2004; 2-11: June 1, 2007; 12: November 23, 2003; 13: November 5, 2012; 14-32: February 26, 2014
