Woodside
Mets-Willets Point is a special event station on the Port Washington Branch with trains only stopping during Mets Games at Citi Field, the US Open at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and other special events using these venues. Although starting February 10, 2021 the station has been open full time with all Port Washington Branch trains stopping to accommodate New Yorkers going to the Citi Field mass COVID-19 vaccination site. It is also the proposed connection to the backwards 2.3 mile long AirTrain to La Guardia Airport, that will provide slower service to Manhattan than the current LaGuardia Link non-stop Q70 bus from Jackson Heights. This AirTrain is primarily being built to allow airport employees who drive to work be able to use a proposed parking garage by this new AirTrain Station. If the Airport People mover is built (it’s recently released its final Environmental Impact Statement and has the full backing of the narcissistic, ribbon cutting hungry Governor Cuomo) this will involve the full reconstruction of the LIRR Station with the people mover station located directly above the LIRR platforms, with the LIRR the critical part of the false claims that it would be a 30 minute ride into Manhattan (this would only be possible if your final destination literally the LIRR platform at Penn Station).
The stop has undergone a number of names, but has never been a full-time station, open just for special events. The station first opened in 1939 and was named World’s Fair Station during the 1939 and 1964-1965 World’s Fares. It closed before reopening again as the United Nations Station from 1946 to 1952 when Flushing Meadows-Corona Park was the temporary site of the U.N. General Assembly, with shuttle buses to the temporary U.N. Headquarters in Lake Success. The stop got its longest serving name from 1966 through 2008 when it was named Shea Stadium, but it was renamed to the more generic Mets-Willets point, just like the nearby 7 line subway station, after Shea Stadium closed in 2008 and Citi Field opened in 2009 after Citi refused to pay the MTA for naming rights.
The stop is along a portion of the normally 2 tracked Port Washington Branch where the line expands to 6 tracks with 3 island platforms, to allow maximum capacity and in theory special event trains to run and terminate at the station during special events. Only the platform for the northern two tracks, tracks 1 and 2 is still open for passenger service, along the two main line tracks and sees train’s stopping. This platform has an 8 car long island platform that is canopied for its southern half and exposed for it’s northern half where when I visited in 2011 banners were advertising Delta Airlines on the lampposts. The platform has a tactile warning strip, and although an elevator for the station was funded in the 2016-2020 MTA Capital Plan, one hasn’t been constructed yet. To leave the platform two staircases lead up to a platform entrance area under a large angular canopy structure on the south side of the Passerelle Pedestrian Bridge that connects Roosevelt Avenue with Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. In this area are various metal sanctions that are designed so tickets are collected during special events from passengers before they board or after they exit their trains. When I first visited the station in 2003 there were turnstiles. There is also a small wooden single story extra-large shed like structure (with a few Air Conditioning units poking out from it) that contains ticket windows open only during special vents.
This platform entrance is located on the east side of the wooden Passerelle Pedestrian Bridge, with the LIRR tracks tucked just south of the 7 train’s Corona Maintenance Facility, and just north of the National Tennis Center. To reach Citi Field, passengers walk north on the pedestrian bridge, over the Corona Maintenance Facility, and Casey Stengel Bus Depot, through the mezzanine area of the Mets-Willets Pont Subway Station (crossing over Roosevelt Avenue) and finally down the steps out to the entrance plaza into Citi Field, signs in the subway station direct passengers to the LIRR.
Photos 1 & 2: December 7, 2003; 3-31: August 12, 2011
