Chambers St
Chambers Street is a recently renovated IRT 7 Avenue Subway Station and is now ADA compliant. It is the stop where the local tracks from South Ferry and the express tracks from Brooklyn join up. The track layout means all switching must be done north of the station, meaning the middle express tracks are to and from Brooklyn, and the local tracks are to and from South Ferry. There are two island platforms that facilitate lots of transferring. This extreme operational constraint was clearly exhibited for the year after 9/11/2001 when the tunnel to South Ferry was destroyed, but this station was fine. 3 trains had to terminate at 14 Street and 1 and 2 trains, 1 trains diverted to New Lots Avenue, stopped on the middle normal express tracks before switching onto the local tracks north of the station. There is a crossover switch north of the station only on the express tracks. There is no way to terminate a train at the station without severely delaying service to Brooklyn.
The station has blue columns along each of the tracks and a hard to see trimline along the local track walls above their blue columns. The depiction in this trimline of the first building of Kings College (now Columbia University) where it existed from its founding until 1857. The station's ceiling are quite high with beams directly up directly beneath the street except where the mezzanine with the stations exit is in the middle of the platforms. The two ends of this mezzanine offer a nice view below with just a low fence at its ends.
Towards the south end of the platform two staircases lead up from each followed by the platform elevators (with short ramps down to them from the mezzanines away from the station entrance in order to fit the required ventilation equipment above the shafts beneath the street), this leads to one bank of turnstiles and a middle area where the token booth is. Across from it is another bank of turnstiles that leads to another small mezzanine with two staircases down to each platform and also has public restrooms (open 5 AM to midnight). The exits from the single central corridor lead to a combination streetstair (it leads directly down next to the shaft) elevator at the NW corner of Chambers Street and Hudson Street (where it begins branching off of the regular intersection of Chambers Street and West Broadway). With two streetstairs at the SW corner of what becomes West Broadway and Chambers Street, and one streetstair each at the SE and NE corners of Chambers Street and West Broadway
Photos 1: November 4, 2003; 2-7: June 20, 2008; 8-32: May 28, 2010; 33-37: November 5, 2012; 38: November 15, 2012; 39 & 40: August 20, 2015; 41-43: November 27, 2023; 44-47: November 28, 2023;
Station Subway Lines (1989-2005)
