Urban Explorers Underground New York

What a great blogpost from friend and colleague Jim Cutler. He's been underground New York, taking great pictures.

Fifteen of us explored a ghost NYC subway station that’s been closed to the public since 1945. From 1904, millions of people traveled from here until it was closed 68 years ago. My family recently joined the NYC MTA Transit Museum. They allow a very small group to tour this “Jewel In the Crown”, the closed Old City Hall Subway Station. 

It’s located directly below Old City Hall, not far from the current City Hall/Brooklyn Bridge station. The old station’s  curved platform is unusual but accommodated the original shorter subway cars of 1904. By the 1940′s the curved platform presented a huge problem for the new longer cars. Because of the 100% curved station, today’s subway car-doors don’t even get close to the platform. I won’t give away too many wonderful details about the architecture, the masonry, arches, original brass fixtures, skylights, the amazing story behind how it was built and who designed it. For that, please join the NYC MTA Transit Museum.

What struck me was the similarity with the ornate metro stations in Moscow.

Moscow Metro