Canal Street
Canal Street is the last or first stop before the local tracks diverge to terminate at World Trade Center (Hudson Terminal) and the express tracks continue onto Brooklyn. It has two slightly offset platforms with the downtown platform more north than the uptown. The switches the C uses to crossover are in the area where the platforms are offset. This means that C trains in both directions crossover after stopping at Canal Street. On the Downtown Platform they share the local tracks with E trains, uptown platform with A express trains. Pre-1999 when the C began running out to Euclid Avenue at all times it is in operation (except late nights) uptown trains came in on either track depending upon time of day. The stop was renovated in 2000 and has a modern panels (put directly over the original tiles) consisting of a blue trimline with Canal written in capital letters in an incorrect font beneath. The two platforms have a single line of blue columns with Canal St signs.
The stop has a full-length mezzanine with a layout for use as a Pedestrian Underpass for pedestrians crossing under busy Canal Street, not trying to ride the subway, as signs in the station read, but there are no signs that say pedestrian underpass at the station entrances. This means that all exits can be walked between without paying a fare and there are five distinct fare control areas and only one actually has a free change of direction crossover at the southern end of the station.
The southern end of the station is where our tour starts with a streetstair down from the NE corner of 6 Avenue and Walker Street in front of the AT & T building that has its own direct entrance in its basement to the station through a revolving door. A closed staircase through a passageway once led to the SW corner of Walker Street and West Broadway. Here there is an unstaffed bank of turnstiles with one staircase down to the extreme southern end of the downtown platform and two to the northbound platform providing the only free crossover without paying another subway fare. The public area of the mezzanine outside of fare control gets much narrower, occupied by the Police Station for district 2.
After the police station ends there are streetstairs out to what is the west corner of a complicated 5-way intersection between West Broadway and Lispenard Street, intersecting 6 Avenue and across from it between the NW corner of 6 Avenue and West Broadway and one block long York Street. This is immediately followed by the staffed token booth facing two separate banks of turnstiles for each direction. There are large name tablets on the walls facing them saying Uptown or Downtown.
The mezzanine continues with some areas of fencing allowing peepholes down to the platforms. This is before small fare control areas on each side with high turnstiles only with two staircases down to downtown platform one down to the Uptown Platform, the open portion of the mezzanine ends with streetstair to SW corner of Laight Street and 6 Avenue, with the northernmost one, a streetstair to the NE corner of Canal Street and 6 Avenue near where Thomas Street enters the complicated intersection. A closed off passageway once continued north under Canal Street to the north Side of the Street and long closed and slabbed over streetstairs to each side of 6 Avenue between Canal Street and Grand Street.
Photos 1: February 19, 2003; 2 & 3: August 21, 2004; 4 & 5: September 6, 2005; 6-32: May 24, 2010; 33-34: Ocotber 2, 2012; 35: November 15, 2013
