Wall Street
Wall Street is one of the early IRT subway stations along the first subway line to Brooklyn and is located just beneath the street and has two side platforms for each track along the two track subway lines. The platform walls are decorated with beautiful terracotta detail work mostly in green, some of the original decorate ceiling work also remains especially in the underpass. The wall street mosaic name tablets are white text on blue with a green boarder. The main relief above the platform in the trim line is of the wall of New Amsterdam, how the street got its name. Pink marble accents the bottom of the platform walls with white tile between it and the trim lines. In the portions of the station that were extended for ten car trains the tiling is similar except no 3D-detailwork just flat mosaics. The platforms are offset with the uptown platform extending a bit farther south.
There is one main underpass in the station connecting both platforms with a free within fare control transfer, towards its southern end, although the Equitable building passageway open Monday-Friday only that also leads to the Broad Street J/Z station (outside fare control transfer) and Chaise Manhattan building eventually can also be used as a free cross under when it is open. From a 1970s renovation until 2006 all of the original wall details (except for the trim line and name tablets) were tiled over with thick blue tiles until these were removed.
On the downtown platform the first entrance (coming from the southern entrance described below) is located in a small shopping arcade with a small sign for the subway station, along Broadway near the SW corner of Broadway and Rector Street. The fare control area at the bottom of this staircase is a wide unmanned bank of turnstiles and one of the lowest fences between the paid an free areas anywhere in the subway system. Just south of this entrance is the underpass to the downtown platform. Outside of fare control the low fence continues to the main uptown platform entrance that was restored to look historic. There is a vintage wooden change booth that was selling MetroCards until the staffing reductions in 2010, a ticket chopper is next to the modern MetroCard turnstiles. Two street stairs from here lead out in front of Trinity Church and are both black and have unique ironwork. At the northern end of this little area outside of fare control are two more High Turnstiles.
There is another vintage street stair in front of Trinity Church that leads to its own tiny fare control area with a couple of High Turnstiles. At the northern end of the downtown platform is a part time entrance open Monday-Friday 6:00am-7:30pm, with two High Turnstiles leading up to a small shopping arcade with a Subway Sandwich Shop and the Suspender Restaurant, its an unmarked from the street subway entrance, you need to be in the know to use it. Closed doors once led to a passageway that continued under Thames Street to an exit at the NW corner of Thames Street and Broadway, including direct access to the building and a no longer in regular use streetstair outside this building that sits unused on the sidewalk.
Towards the northern end of the downtown platform within fare control just before this exit is a staircase, that leads down to a small underpass beneath the tracks that comes up to a landing meeting a long passageway from the extreme northern end of the uptown platform (this platform is offset to the south from the downtown one). These passageways join together and soon reach two High Turnstiles and a couple of MVMs, the passageway continuing outside of fare control reaches revolving doors into the Equitable Building (mosaic signs direct passengers to it as well within the station). The passageway from this building to escalators up to the spectacularly restored lobby appear to be open to public (there are a couple of shops). I was though yelled at by security for taking pictures within the building. The passageway from the building continues before going down another staircase and reaching a wider passageway leading north from the Broad Street (J/Z) subway Station to also the Chase Building.
The main entrance from the uptown platform is less complicated. It has the full time token booth along the platform with turnstiles out to some street stairs on the eastside of Broadway.
The station has multiple abandoned exits that once led to additional office buildings. At the southern end of the Downtown platform is a closed passageway that led to a small set of stairs and into the building at 61 Broadway (opened in 1916), just beyond this is a walled off entrance to fromer American Express Building (65 Broadway). The uptown platform has just one abandoned exit, with a former passgeway (walled off from right next to the station's token booth) that once led into 1 Wall Street (Irving Trust Bank Building), now converted into condominiums. The passageway through this building led to primary entrances via steps up to revoloving doors up to New Street (the next parrallel street to the east of Broadway).
Photo 1: November 11, 2004; 2: January 2, 2004; 3-6: April 13, 2004; 7-57: May 19, 2010; 58-60: November 4, 2012
