First Avenue Subway Station (Canarsie Line)

First Avenue is a station on the BMT Canarsie Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of First Avenue and East 14th Street at the border of Stuyvesant Park, Stuyvesant Town, and the East Village in Manhattan, it is served by the L train at all times.

History

This station opened on June 30, 1924, as part of the 14th Street–Eastern Line, which ran from Sixth Avenue under the East River and through Williamsburg to Montrose and Bushwick Avenues.

In September 1983 this station was the site of a New York City Transit Police arrest of a black vandal, Michael Stewart, who was writing graffiti on the station wall, and who later died in police custody. Six of the police officers involved, all of them white, were acquitted by an all-white jury.

The station originally had entrances only at its western end, on First Avenue. Its eastern entrances at Avenue A were built as part of the wide scope in the 2019–2020 rebuilding of the Canarsie Tubes that were damaged during Hurricane Sandy, and to improve service for people living in Stuyvesant Town and the East Village. Work on the entrances began in July 2017, necessitating the relocation of bus stops at that intersection. The entrances to the Brooklyn-bound platform were opened on November 4, 2019. The entrance to the Eighth Avenue-bound platform was expected to be opened by the end of 2019, but the opening date was postponed to February 10, 2020. This was followed by the temporary closure of the entrances at First Avenue.

New elevators are being built at the new eastern entrances and are expected to open in summer 2020, while substantial completion of the entrances is projected for November 2020.

Station layout

This underground station has two side platforms and two tracks. It is the easternmost Canarsie Line station in Manhattan. East of here, the line travels under the East River to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The platforms are columnless and have the standard BMT style trim-line and name tablets. The former contains "1" tablets in standard intervals while the latter consists of "FIRST AVE" in Times New Roman font.

Exits

The station's western entrances are at the (railroad north) end of the station; from each platform, a single staircase goes up to a small mezzanine that contains a turnstile bank, token booth. Two street stairs to the Eighth Avenue-bound platform lead to the northeastern corner of First Avenue and 14th Street, while the ones to the Brooklyn-bound platform lead to the southeastern corner. The mezzanine on the Brooklyn-bound side had a florist shop outside fare control; the shop closed in 2019. There is no free transfer between directions at this station.

The station's eastern entrances are at the railroad south end of the station; there are platform-level turnstile banks from each platform. Two street stairs to the Eighth Avenue-bound platform lead to the northwestern corner of Avenue A and 14th Street, while two more to the Brooklyn-bound platform lead to the southwestern corner. Elevators are under construction at these entrances and are expected to be opened in summer 2020.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "First Avenue station (BMT Canarsie Line" and modified on June 2, 2020 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.