175 St-George Washington Bus Terminal
175 Street is the southernmost station on the A train where the line becomes two tracks after the local tracks terminate as the C train. These were originally designed to rise up and cross over the George Washington Bridge (probably following Broadway, not stopping at 175 Street) and into New Jersey.
The station has a single island platform with a single green column along the center of the platform. Along the platform walls are simple 175 tiles with no trim line or other colors. The platform is fully ADA compliant with two elevators to reach the surface. These elevators are some of the older ones in the subway system and were installed by 1990.
Above the platform is a full-length mezzanine. This mezzanine has staircases relatively regularly along it down to the platform. It is quite wide and has a single green column that extends to meet the column on the platform. There is also a platform elevator. Some unusual features include portions in the middle of the mezzanine where the floor doesn't extend all the way to the track edge with a two-foot gap. This allows views down to the sides of the platform walls. A few white text on purple (like the name tablets at 181 Street) background mosaics are on the mezzanine for the two exits, at 175 and 177 Streets. This is the only color (other than the green columns) in the entire station since the track walls lack a trimline.
At the southern end of the mezzanine, with the closest staircase at the very end of the platform is the now unstaffed secondary entrance. Here, high entrance/exit turnstiles lead across the middle of the mezzanine to a street stair at the SE corner of 175 Street and Fort Washington Avenue. Another streetstair is across the street on the west side of Fort Washington Avenue and is an entrance with stonework walls alongside Jay Hood Wright Park.
The northern end of the mezzanine has the full-time token booth and a wide bank of turnstiles includes an autogate MetroCard gate for ADA access. This used to be a simple slam gate (I don't know how boarding wheelchair passengers were supposed to pay their fares) since the station became ADA compliant before the MetroCard was introduced. Across from the main turnstiles is a single staircase up from the northern end of the platform to two high exit only turnstiles for additional platform egress.
At the main full time fare control area are exits to 177 Street and Fort Washington Avenue: A short staircase leads up to an intermediate landing before it divides into two more staircases, the southern one turns 90 degrees before leading up to a streetstair at the SW corner. The northern middle staircase leads up to another landing just beneath the street where two streetstairs lead up to the NW corner. To the suth an intermediate staircase leads to another streetstair and the street elevator (with 1990s squares of glass enclosure) leading up to the NE corner.
At the northern end of the mezzanine is a short wide staircase that leads to a wide passageway that is clearly newer than the 1932 subway station. It is owned and controlled by the Port Authority of NY and NJ and was built as part of the George Washington Bridge Bus Station that opened on January 13, 1963. It has blue tiled walls and illuminated advertising panels. It was clearly built with florescent lights since there built into the ceiling, not added in later. The passageway slowly rises a bit more towards the surface and leads a block under Fort Washington Avenue and directly into the Port Authority Bus terminal. Doors lead out to the lower level of the bus terminal. Immediately a simple staircase up to it just beyond the entrance doors from Fort Washington Avenue. There are escalators farther back up to the main level of the terminal and doors out to the lower level bus bays used by Spanish Transportation. The bus station's signage is identical to that at the Port Authority Airports. This means the signage for the A train and its tunnel is just like those at Howard Beach from AirTrain JFK (unlike AirTrain there is no extra fee to use the pedestrian tunnel). Doors out to the Broadway entrance have a unique sign with a big S and ubway, ops, services next to it. This discription of access to the GWB Bus Station is no longer accurate, after the station was closed and underwent a full rebuilding (including making it ADA accessible) from 2013 through 2017
Photos 1-3: December 9, 2003; 4-6: JUne 11, 2007; 7-10: June 26, 2008; 11-13: July 22, 2009; 14 & 15: June 17, 2013; 16-20: September 8, 2011; 21-54: January 30, 2013; 55: November 16, 2012; 56-58: July 26, 2011; 59: April 22, 2013;
