Kris
May 11th, 2003, 07:42 AM
Reimagining A Hub
By Robert Polner
Staff Writer
May 10, 2003, 3:58 PM EDT
It was voted the dirtiest subway stop in the city in December 2000 -- a swirl of grunge crisscrossed by 132,000 travelers a day.
"It's a mess," said Elizabeth Capellan, 18, of Long Island City, as she left the Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street subway stop recently, heading for the business institute she attends in Jackson Heights.
But more than two years after commuters gave it a vote of no-confidence, in a Straphangers Campaign survey of the city's 15 busiest stations, the bustling Jackson Heights station is being transformed into a spacious, modern transit hub with some vintage touches.
"It will bring the community up," said Seymour Portes, Metropolitan Transportation Authority program manager for station rehabilitation, who said the renovation is one of the system's biggest projects. "It will be the jewel station for Queens."
Jackson Heights community activists, usually exacting about architectural aesthetics, are equally excited about the $150-million rehabilitation. Most aspects of the project will be accessible by May 2004.
"Instead of just another cog in a sprawling subway system, you will have the sense of arrival in a community that matters," said Jeffrey Saunders, chairman of the transportation department of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group, an influential community organization. "Major aspects of the design are wonderful, almost fanciful."
Visually, the focal point will be the station's gateway facing southwest at Broadway and 74th Street, a translucent pavilion leading to an airy turnstile area with a large curving staircase.
This entryway will ease passage into the station and the adjacent bus depot, where commuters can transfer to buses to LaGuardia Airport and other local destinations. Several elevators from the street and within the station will ensure access for handicapped travelers.
Since more people transfer within the station than enter from the street on any given day, according to Portes, the main objective of the overhaul is to ease movement within the facility, one of the few in the system that allows tranfers between an underground stop and an elevated line:
On the elevated No. 7 train platform, all six stairwells are to be moved to make more room on the platform, officials say. They will also be widened. Currently, as any rider knows, stairwells clot with travelers and human bottlenecks form on the platform when train doors open during rush hour.
The No. 7 train platform's canopy over Roosevelt Avenue is to be renovated and lengthened so riders will no longer need to clump toward the center to stay dry when it rains.
The mezzanine to the 7 line, a porchlike area halfway down to 74th Street and the community's "Little India," is also being reconstructed. Some fare booths will be removed so they will no longer block commuters heading toward the turnstiles.
Gone, too, said Portes, will be the mazelike conditions in the larger below-ground concourse. This space will have better lighting, new porcelain tiling and flooring, and about 10 small shops.
The reconstruction is the first significant renovation in the long history of the station.
Sharp increases in usage, most recently in light of the borough's immigrant-fueled population surge and the citywide MetroCard discounts of the 1990s, fueled its reputation for dungeonlike squalor.
"It's shadowy, a bit chaotic," Jennifer Medina, 24, a social worker from Ridgewood, said as she exited the station the other day.
The disrepair is a drag on nonetheless rising real estate values, said broker Michael Carfagna. And it is challenging the determined efforts of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group to raise public expectations for the community's appearance.
When Assemb. Ivan Lafayette heard the MTA was planning to spend $46 million in the late 1990s to install four street-level station elevators for the disabled, he and then-Deputy Borough President Peter Magnani asked for a meeting and set in motion efforts to persuade the MTA to incorporate the handicapped access project into a major rehabilitation.
It didn't hurt their case, said Lafayette, a Democrat who has represented the area for 27 years, that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has veto power over MTA capital projects, or that Wall Street and the national economy were still going strong at the time.
The station's architect is Fox & Fowle of Manhattan, whose work includes designing a flagship tower for The New York Times in Times Square. Vollmer Associates, the engineering contractor, worked on the recent rehabilitation of the Seventh Avenue IRT stop at 42nd Street.
Once the Jackson Heights station's main construction is completed, the project calls for improvements to the remaining street entrances over the next year and a half, Portes said.
The Jackson Heights Beautification Group is seeking some changes. It wants room for a running display for historical photographs; less reliance on stainless steel for railings and paneling to cut down on glare, and air-conditioning throughout the station, rather than only in the entrance pavilion and the shops.
The MTA says discussions are continuing.
For now, the beautification group is anticipating the station's rebirth by planning to produce dozens of street placards describing historical details and architectural facets of the landmarked neighborhood, which has buildings dating back to the 1920s. These are slated for July. An array of other sprucing-up projects include discussions with a private property owner about creating a community park off 72nd Street and a plan to get merchants to bag the trash in city litter baskets before it overflows.
"The station's renovation is going to be significant," said Karatzas, the Jackson Heights historian. "It can only be an improvement, actually, considering that what it is replacing was nothing less than depressing."
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.foxfowle.com/roosave.htm
By Robert Polner
Staff Writer
May 10, 2003, 3:58 PM EDT
It was voted the dirtiest subway stop in the city in December 2000 -- a swirl of grunge crisscrossed by 132,000 travelers a day.
"It's a mess," said Elizabeth Capellan, 18, of Long Island City, as she left the Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street subway stop recently, heading for the business institute she attends in Jackson Heights.
But more than two years after commuters gave it a vote of no-confidence, in a Straphangers Campaign survey of the city's 15 busiest stations, the bustling Jackson Heights station is being transformed into a spacious, modern transit hub with some vintage touches.
"It will bring the community up," said Seymour Portes, Metropolitan Transportation Authority program manager for station rehabilitation, who said the renovation is one of the system's biggest projects. "It will be the jewel station for Queens."
Jackson Heights community activists, usually exacting about architectural aesthetics, are equally excited about the $150-million rehabilitation. Most aspects of the project will be accessible by May 2004.
"Instead of just another cog in a sprawling subway system, you will have the sense of arrival in a community that matters," said Jeffrey Saunders, chairman of the transportation department of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group, an influential community organization. "Major aspects of the design are wonderful, almost fanciful."
Visually, the focal point will be the station's gateway facing southwest at Broadway and 74th Street, a translucent pavilion leading to an airy turnstile area with a large curving staircase.
This entryway will ease passage into the station and the adjacent bus depot, where commuters can transfer to buses to LaGuardia Airport and other local destinations. Several elevators from the street and within the station will ensure access for handicapped travelers.
Since more people transfer within the station than enter from the street on any given day, according to Portes, the main objective of the overhaul is to ease movement within the facility, one of the few in the system that allows tranfers between an underground stop and an elevated line:
On the elevated No. 7 train platform, all six stairwells are to be moved to make more room on the platform, officials say. They will also be widened. Currently, as any rider knows, stairwells clot with travelers and human bottlenecks form on the platform when train doors open during rush hour.
The No. 7 train platform's canopy over Roosevelt Avenue is to be renovated and lengthened so riders will no longer need to clump toward the center to stay dry when it rains.
The mezzanine to the 7 line, a porchlike area halfway down to 74th Street and the community's "Little India," is also being reconstructed. Some fare booths will be removed so they will no longer block commuters heading toward the turnstiles.
Gone, too, said Portes, will be the mazelike conditions in the larger below-ground concourse. This space will have better lighting, new porcelain tiling and flooring, and about 10 small shops.
The reconstruction is the first significant renovation in the long history of the station.
Sharp increases in usage, most recently in light of the borough's immigrant-fueled population surge and the citywide MetroCard discounts of the 1990s, fueled its reputation for dungeonlike squalor.
"It's shadowy, a bit chaotic," Jennifer Medina, 24, a social worker from Ridgewood, said as she exited the station the other day.
The disrepair is a drag on nonetheless rising real estate values, said broker Michael Carfagna. And it is challenging the determined efforts of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group to raise public expectations for the community's appearance.
When Assemb. Ivan Lafayette heard the MTA was planning to spend $46 million in the late 1990s to install four street-level station elevators for the disabled, he and then-Deputy Borough President Peter Magnani asked for a meeting and set in motion efforts to persuade the MTA to incorporate the handicapped access project into a major rehabilitation.
It didn't hurt their case, said Lafayette, a Democrat who has represented the area for 27 years, that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has veto power over MTA capital projects, or that Wall Street and the national economy were still going strong at the time.
The station's architect is Fox & Fowle of Manhattan, whose work includes designing a flagship tower for The New York Times in Times Square. Vollmer Associates, the engineering contractor, worked on the recent rehabilitation of the Seventh Avenue IRT stop at 42nd Street.
Once the Jackson Heights station's main construction is completed, the project calls for improvements to the remaining street entrances over the next year and a half, Portes said.
The Jackson Heights Beautification Group is seeking some changes. It wants room for a running display for historical photographs; less reliance on stainless steel for railings and paneling to cut down on glare, and air-conditioning throughout the station, rather than only in the entrance pavilion and the shops.
The MTA says discussions are continuing.
For now, the beautification group is anticipating the station's rebirth by planning to produce dozens of street placards describing historical details and architectural facets of the landmarked neighborhood, which has buildings dating back to the 1920s. These are slated for July. An array of other sprucing-up projects include discussions with a private property owner about creating a community park off 72nd Street and a plan to get merchants to bag the trash in city litter baskets before it overflows.
"The station's renovation is going to be significant," said Karatzas, the Jackson Heights historian. "It can only be an improvement, actually, considering that what it is replacing was nothing less than depressing."
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.foxfowle.com/roosave.htm