The 34th Street Hudson Boulevard subway station finally opened, extending the 7 train from 42nd Street at Times Square. It’s the first new station stop in over 25 years. The station is nothing if not shiny and new,  and on this Friday at the start of rush hour it was almost completely deserted. This, we are told, will change in the coming years, as the far West Side becomes a new destination in its own right.

 

The most jarring reality of this new station is that the 7 train no longer begins and ends at Times Square, as it has for generations. The culture of Queens-bound subway riders who have reverse-commuted a few stops to Times Square so they could get a seat on the 7 train for the long ride home will now have to make it this much farther if they want to be bulletproof certain about getting that seat.

As these photos show those folks probably don’t have to worry about this just yet. But as usage of the station increases so too will the likelihood that getting a seat on the Queens-bound 7 Train at Times Square becomes less of a sure thing.

 

4:02pm on a Friday afternoon and all is quiet at 34th Street Hudson Boulevard. Things will almost certainly pick up over time but for now this station is a cool place to experience in solitude.

I don’t know if I’ve seen a timepiece quite like this one anywhere else in the system.

 

THE 7 MEETS THE HUDSON!

 

“SUPERGIRL” star Melissa Benoist looks an awful lot to me like the young Jodie Foster.

 

There are no payphones and my cell phone had no signal on the lower level subway platform. For now it appears there would be no way to make a phone call in an emergency, though there are several of these Help Points which, at the too-easy touch of a button, instantly connect you with live MTA personnel should one need it.

I accidentally pressed the button on one of these Help Points, thinking it would provide a service similar to “511”, the free phone call that provides pre-recorded updates on subway and bus delays within the MTA, Metro-North, and other lines. 511 still exists but I’d be surprised if a lot of people know about it. At present there is no access to 511 from the 34th Street Hudson Blvd. station.

Signs all over the station reference the AREA OF RESCUE ASSISTANCE. That’s an ADA-compliant space where individuals unable to use stairs can, in an emergency situation, safely wait for assistance.

 

The abundance of display advertising LED screens seems to assume a future in which eyeballs will be plentiful. At present the screens only serve up advertising and MTA service alerts. None of the MTA’s On-the-Go screens, which provide interactive trip planning and service updates, are present yet.

 

This passageway looks like a giant claw machine.

 

Leaving the station feels something like rising up out of a canyon. This is said to be the lengthiest escalator ride anywhere in the MTA system, and at the end of it one finds yet another escalator. It’s possible the escalator at the Metro Mall in Middle Village beats this one, but either way I bet it’s close.

Leaving the station one is surrounded by cranes and the noise of relentless construction of much-needed luxury housing, activities which should fill the area with cacophonous clangor for years to come.

 

For now, though, once can experience a profound, eerie silence well below ground inside the new 34th Street Hudson yard subway station.