Historic preservation and the MTA
It’s an interesting time to live in New York City. After decades of suburban flight, a huge influx of new residents is well underway. Movement has brought changes, to be sure, but it has also shined a new light on old infrastructure. For those who have been here long enough to remember the days when the NYC subway was a grimy, crime-ridden hole in the ground thundering with the clatter of graffiti-covered train cars, the final vestiges of those days are being stamped out. The city is restoring the system to its early glory, or as close as modern standards and funding will allow.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority hosted a presentation at the Transit Museum Tuesday evening to talk about MTA’s historic preservation efforts in recent years. Part of the museum’s AfterHours program, the lecture — A Lasting Legacy: Historic Preservation and the MTA — was given as part of an exhibit the agency opened March 14 at the museum’s annex at Grand Central Terminal. The exhibit and the presentation are part of the city’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of its landmarks law.
Hollie Wells, an MTA project administrator, and Sara McIvor, a historic preservationist for MTA, rattled off an impressive list of transit landmarks that had been rehabilitated, or were going through the process. Among them were recognizable buildings like the 72nd Street Station entranceway, the Columbus Circle station, the steel viaduct that arches over the Manhattan Valley in Harlem and the Atlantic Avenue Station head house in Brooklyn. The list also included lesser-known structures, such as a substation and ventilation facility disguised in a rowhouse in Brooklyn Heights, and the ornate metal stair covers that shelter stairways at Wall Street and Borough Hall.