191st Train Station

191st Street is a station on the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and 191st Street in Manhattan, it is served by the 1 train at all times.

At approximately 180 feet (55 m) below street level, this is the deepest station in the New York City Subway system. It has two tracks and two side platforms. This section of the line opened on March 12, 1906, but the elevators and other work had not yet been completed, and 191st Street did not open to the public until January 14, 1911. Despite this station’s depth, though, the next station north, Dyckman Street, is just above ground level. This is because 191st Street is at nearly the highest point on the island of Manhattan and this station is deep in the Washington Heights Mine Tunnel, while Dyckman Street runs along a deep valley almost at sea level and its station is at the tunnel portal. This is despite the fact that both stations are at the same elevation.

There are two exits from this station via the same fare control. The main entrance at 191st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue is at the summit of a hill and accessible only by a set of four elevators. The other exit, at 190th Street and Broadway, is at a hillside and accessed via a three-block long passageway which passes under Wadsworth Terrace and Avenue, and is maintained by the Parks Department rather than the MTA. The elevators to the platforms still utilize elevator operators, and the station is one of the only stations in the system to do so.

This station was completely renovated in 2003–2004 by the New York City Transit Authority. All of the deteriorating tiles and mosaics were replaced with exact reproductions of the originals made by Serpentile, a company that does reproductions of original subway motifs. The tiles are all unglazed porcelain a half inch wide. Each of the 72 columns had to be plastered and prepared for four-sided mosaics that wrap around each one. There are 72 vertical panels, and over 3500 linear feet of mosaics. New York City Transit construction crews did all of the tile and installation work.

n 2008, a mural was painted on the passageway leading up from Broadway to the station, as part of the Groundswell Community Mural Project. The mural was called “New York is a Rollercoaster”.It was later vandalized, and in May 2015, it was painted over.

In September 2014, improvements started on the formerly dark, 900-foot-long (270 m) tunnel, which area residents had complained about. The tunnel, which had graffiti and illegal bicycle riding, was slated to get several murals and some new LED lighting.

Since May 2015, the passageway’s artwork consists of five murals. As part of a tunnel beautification program, the New York City Department of Transportation chose four artists and one team of artists, out of an applicant pool of 150. Each were chosen to paint a 200 feet (61 m) section of the tunnel. From the Broadway entrance to the station fare control, the artworks are Queen Andrea’s “Prismatic Power Phrases”; Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn’s “Caterpeillar Time Travel”; Cekis’s “It’s Like A Jungle/Aveces Es Como Una Jungle”; Nick Kuszy]’s “Warp Zone”; and Cope2’s “Art is Life”. For $15,000 each, the artists worked for over a week on their art.