Home Asides Quiz: Name the subway stations in Manhattan

Quiz: Name the subway stations in Manhattan

by Benjamin Kabak

Try this one on for size if you’re looking to kill some time on Friday afternoon. Someone has written an online quiz at Sporcle challenging users to name all 127 Manhattan subway stops in 15 minutes or less. It took me seven minutes, and the last one was a C-only stop that I’ve probably been to twice in my life. If you take the quiz, let me know how you do in the comments. [Sporcle: Can you name the subway stations of Manhattan?]

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30 comments

Alon Levy October 23, 2009 - 4:35 pm

I did all but 1 in 5 minutes, and eventually gave up (that was Prince Street on the N/R/W).

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Kid Twist October 23, 2009 - 4:53 pm

For some reason, I couldn’t get it to register 8th Street on the Broadway BMT. I got 126 of 127 with seven-plus minutes to spare but 8th would not fill in. Frustrating.

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Kid Twist October 23, 2009 - 5:14 pm

Anyway Ben, thanks for passing this on. It was fun and it got me eight minutes closer to quitting time. I’ll be sliding down the dinosaur’s tail in 5, 4, 3 …

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Eric October 23, 2009 - 4:53 pm

I got 110 out 127. My brain froze up on some downtown and far uptown stops on the 1/2/3 and A, and a couple of the East Village/Lower East Side stops on the F. Basically places I don’t go.

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Eric October 23, 2009 - 4:54 pm

Kid Twist, I had that problem too, then remember that the MTA styles that station “8th St-NYU” so I tried just “NYU” and it took it. A bit weird if you ask me.

Also, isn’t it missing a couple of stops on the L (6th and 8th Aves?)

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Jerrold October 23, 2009 - 5:11 pm

Maybe every station is only “counted once”.
In that case, those two L stops would be taken care of by 14 St. on the F and 14 St. on the A,C,E.

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Jerrold October 23, 2009 - 5:08 pm

I got 109, which was actually a lot more than I expected I would get.

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Josh October 23, 2009 - 5:09 pm

A little disappointed with my 122. Probably would’ve been fewer if I couldn’t just keep typing in numbers in sequence to get the uptown stops, but for some reason I’m more disappointed at myself for forgetting about the station at 53rd and 7th.

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Gary October 23, 2009 - 5:23 pm

I finished it in 8 minutes, 26 seconds. I got a whole bunch done in the first 5 minutes (~100) but totally blanked on a few in Lower Manhattan (south of 14th Street) and above 125th St.

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Alon Levy October 23, 2009 - 5:28 pm

By the way, the quiz is missing one station, Marble Hill.

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Benjamin Kabak October 23, 2009 - 5:30 pm

Yes it is. I noticed that too when I typed in 225th St. and nothing happened.

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Jerrold October 23, 2009 - 8:21 pm

When I typed “Roosevelt Island”, nothing happened either.
I believe that Roosevelt Island is legally part of the Borough of Manhattan, just like Marble Hill is.
Therefore, THAT station on the F should have been included.

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AK October 25, 2009 - 4:03 pm

Neat that you guys pointed this out. While Roosevelt Island and Marble Hill are part of “New York County,” they are not in Manhattan, which refers only to the island. People talk about the “borough of Manhattan,” but that is really a misnomer. New York County includes most of the ancillary NYC islands (Roosevelt, Governors, Ellis, Liberty, the Brother Islands, Randalls, Wards, U Thant, and (Rikers/the Brother Islands are in Bronx Cty). Thus, if the test was “name all the stations in NY County,” you wouldnt have been right on 🙂 Gotta love NYC geography.

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AK October 25, 2009 - 4:05 pm

One more thing: there is, to my knowledge, only one office that is named for Manhattan but actually encompasses the whole County–> that of Scott Stringer. The DA’s office, for instance, is for the county.

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Alon Levy October 25, 2009 - 7:58 pm

No, the MTA divides boroughs based on counties, not islands. It considers Marble Hill and Roosevelt Island to be in Manhattan.

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AK October 26, 2009 - 9:14 am

Alon, that’s my whole point. It is a misnomer to call Manhattan a county. It is an island which is part of a larger county, New York County. So, if one was to do a quiz of the subway stations in Manhattan, it is more than reasonably to limit the stations to the island. I have noticed the MTA sign that Marble Hill is in Manhattan also, but that is simply incorrect. It is in New York County, but is on the North American mainland (i.e. the Bronx).

Jerrold October 26, 2009 - 5:02 pm

The Borough of Manhattan is a subdivision of the City of New York. New York County is a subdivision of the State of New York. The Borough of Manhattan includes Manhattan Island, some smaller islands including Roosevelt Island, and Marble Hill (geographically part of the mainland).

Flooey October 23, 2009 - 5:38 pm

I got 118, which I think is pretty respectable. All the stations I missed were downtown stations that I doubt I’ve ever stopped at, though I definitely should have gotten Bleecker and Houston.

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Tomás October 23, 2009 - 6:46 pm

Very fun game 🙂 I got only 105 correct answers. Most of the ones I left behind are the ones located on downtown 4-5-6 and J-M-Z. And I also tried to type 225th. St./Marble Hill without success 🙁

Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

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Jehiah October 23, 2009 - 6:47 pm

96 out of 127. i need to make it to the west side more often.

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Lawrence Velazquez October 23, 2009 - 6:52 pm

127/127 in 6:42. Those long hours editing Wikipedia have paid off handsomely.

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rhywun October 23, 2009 - 8:48 pm

Wow. You guys are nerds 🙂
I’m not even going to attempt this–and I stare at maps for recreational purposes.

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AK October 23, 2009 - 11:54 pm

This was awesome. I got 126 within about 8 minutes. Then gave up and didn’t get East Broadway on the F, which is sad, given that I once lived at Pitt and Riv and took the F uptown to my GF’s pad in UES. Guess I slept through East Broadway 🙂

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JP October 24, 2009 - 9:36 am

a brooklyn map would be a much better challenge for all of fifteen minutes.

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AlexB October 25, 2009 - 11:37 am

I got them all in 10 min 9 sec, but I was reviewing what I’d done in the chart as I progressed. If there is a blank space on the 6 train between bleecker and union square, it makes astor place infinitely easier to remember. I also had a tendency to just type in numbers in the one hundred _______ range because I can’t remember for the life of me where the 1 and A stop above 125th. There’s no way I could remember them all on my own.

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Josh K October 25, 2009 - 5:13 pm

I managed all of them in 11:49, though the last 5 mins were spent trying to figure out the 8th street (typing ‘nyu’ is what got it for me) and then the southernmost stop on the 4/5…

Great quiz!

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Nathan October 26, 2009 - 9:08 am

I got 123/127. I couldn’t remember what was near South Ferry, and I couldn’t spell Delancey. Also, I agree with Alon that on the MTA maps, the little dotted line up by Marble Hill clearly says “Bronx” on one side and “Manhattan” on the other. (This would make for an confusing game for the general public: Name all the Metro North stops in Manhattan, and then have 3 blank spaces.)

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Bill Reese October 26, 2009 - 10:17 am

Marble Hill is part of the County of New York, Borough of Manhattan. It was originally a part of the island before the Army widened and straightened the Harlem River. It’s only “in the Bronx,” by man, not by nature.

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AK October 26, 2009 - 11:53 am

Bill, that is true, but once again, you use the phrase “Borough of Manhattan.” That isn’t what the quiz is about. The quiz says: “Can you name the subway stations of Manhattan?” The typical use of “Manhattan” is not as the borough of Manhattan (which again, only applies to Stringer’s Office, essentially), but rather the ISLAND of Manhattan. For example, if you tell the average person (heck, even the average New Yorker), that you live in Manhattan, and then you follow up and say you live on Roosevelt Island, they will roll their eyes and say, “That’s not Manhattan.” Sure, you vote for Scott Stringer, but that water between you and the island of Manhattan means something.

Perhaps the developer of the quiz should insert the word “island” into the phrase above and put of all out of our misery 🙂

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R2 October 26, 2009 - 6:18 pm

Got them all w/ 7:01 remaining. I do take issue w/ the naming which was the part that slowed me down.

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