‘A catastrophe waiting to happen’
Locals demand second entrance to ‘dangerous’ York Street subway station
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Citing hazardous overcrowding
at the York Street subway
station, frustrated neighbors
are sounding the alarm on
the need for a second entrance
to the F train depot — which
sees frequent bottlenecks on its
single staircase amid the area’s
growing population.
The MTA promised in
March to study the feasibility
of adding a second entrance to
the station, which sits on the
border of Dumbo and Downtown
Brooklyn, but they blew
past a June 30 deadline to provide
results for that study, and
the agency has declined to announce
a new timeline.
Meanwhile, the station at
the corner of York and Jay
streets continues to pose a
hazard to straphangers, especially
in the event of an emergency,
said the local assemblymember.
“If there’s anything that
goes wrong, it could be a
very dangerous situation,”
said Jo Anne Simon at a
Thursday press conference
outside the station.
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The MTA’s commitment
to a feasibility study came after
the city received a $17 million
windfall from selling the
government-owned air rights
to a private company looking
to build a new development at
nearby 69 Adams St.
Local Councilmember
Steve Levin helped greenlight
that proposal after receiving
assurances the money would go
back into Dumbo, including $7
million earmarked specifi cally
for York Street — which included
$1.5 million for the feasibility
study, and $5.5 million as
a “down payment” if the transit
authority determines a second
entrance is feasible.
But the MTA has not yet
produced such a study, saying
that the “complex nature of the
station,” which is deeper than
most, since it is so close to the
waterfront, has inhibited the
ability to quickly make a determination.
The York Street station,
built in the 1930s, hasn’t been
upgraded in tandem to handle
the increased demand from an
infl ux of buildings in Dumbo
and Downtown Brooklyn,
causing substantial amounts
of gridlock upon its narrow island
platform and at its lone entrance,
especially at rush hour.
“This is a station that was
built at a very different time,
when the patterns of use were
very different, and a lot fewer
people needed to come and go
through this station,” state
Sen. Brian Kavanagh said.
MTA data shows the station’s
average weekday ridership
increased by 35 percent
between 2015 and 2019, from
9,328 to 12,638, before ridership
crashed in 2020, as it did
across the system, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2003 fi re showed exactly
how the station’s layout can
lead to disaster. When a Coney
Island-bound F train pulling
into the station went ablaze in
July of that year, 140 stranded
passengers were led by police
to the south end of the platform
when the singular entrance,
at the north end, was
engulfed in smoke; the cops
were apparently unaware
that the station had only the
single egress. Cops then led
passengers to an emergency
exit 1,000 feet into the tunnel,
according to the New York
Times, and several straphangers
were subsequently treated
for smoke inhalation.
A similar catastrophe
could be averted if a second
entrance was added, electeds
and advocates argue.
“This is a catastrophe waiting
to happen,” said Lincoln
Restler, the Democratic nominee
to replace Levin. “This is
a matter of literally life and
death.”
The single entrance to the York Street station. Photo by Ben Brachfeld
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