What: A new subway entrance for the Times Square complex.
Where: The southeast corner of West 42nd St. and 8th Ave. on the ground level of the new 11 Times Square building.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself at opposites ends of the block that spans from 7th to 8th Avenues on 42nd Street. Usually thronged with tourists, it’s not one of my favorite areas of the city, but as I got out of the subway last week at 7th Ave., I stared at the Times Square subway entrance. It used to have many bullets welcoming riders to the subway, but over the years, various letters and numbers have disappeared. The 9 train went first in the late 2005, and the W followed suit last June. Now, the bullets are bright white beacons of trains that no longer run.
A few days later, I had to go to the Port Authority area and happened upon the scene above. The developers at 11 Times Square had used the same bullet motif, but this time, they weren’t so static. It’s easy to remove and add train lines as they come and go from the subway landscape. The current map always seems static enough, but over the years, we’ve lost and gained some trains. Today, this entrance features 11 subway bullets. What will it have next year?
14 comments
Unless I’ve gone nuts, that’s the southeast corner, not the southwest (which is the Port Authority).
He SAID southeast.
I love that entrance signage.
Hmm I was just wandering around Times Square yesterday and didn’t happen upon that corner. I do like it though.
If I’m not mistaken that entrance is by tk1 on the Shuttle.
Diamond Q in Feb 2004 as well.
GIANT LEGO BRICKS
Addresses like “11 Times Square” are silly, because they are very hard to find if you don’t already know where it is. If that building were 2XX West 42nd St., it would be easy to find. Even if it were 6XX Eighth Ave., it would stil be a hell of a lot easier to find than 11 Times Square is. Coming to think of it, that building is not even IN Times Square! It’s like if they gave the Empire State Building an address of 22 Herald Square.
I can’t tell you what a hard time I had finding a particular building downtown with a “Hanover Square” address. It wasn’t even on any of the four blocks that form Hanover Square, but a half a block away.
And there are also the “corporate ego” addresses like “1 Chase Manhattan Plaza”.
Assuming this is by 8th and not by 7th, entering here is a really bad way to get to the shuttle and N/Q/R, and arguably to the 1/2/3 as well. It’s a lot quicker to walk one block east and enter there. This is a good entrance for the A/C/E and 7, though.
It’s not such a bad route if it’s cold/raining/snowing out – or 42nd Street is packed with tourists (which it occasionally is, you know).
The odd thing from a signage perspective is that the MTA is totally inconsistent from entrance to entrance in identifying services available at the Times Sq complex. This entrance lists the complete lineup of trains, but a block away at 42nd and 7th the ACE is not mentioned – http://www.flickr.com/photos/m.....297786194/ – even though it’s no more difficult to get to the ACE from there than it is to access the 123NQR from 8th Ave.
If anything, it’s easier.
Biggest problem with all these Times Square entrances is that a bunch of them close at different hours and I never remember which close when. Late at night I’m always scrambling around looking for an open entrance. Is this one 24 hours?