Where: The south end of the downtown 6 platform at Bleecker St.
When: Wednesday morning shortly after 11:15 a.m.
Earlier this week, the Bowery Boogie excitedly heralded the arrival of countdown clocks on the Bleecker St. platforms at the Broadway/Lafayette station complex. The clocks along the 6 line, long covered by the MTA, were turned on at the entrances this past week, and I found myself at the station heading down to the City Hall area on Wednesday morning. While most of the countdown clocks were functional, one seemed out of place, and I snapped the above photo.
As you can see from the picture, the customer information board toward the south end of the downtown platform is aligned in a rather amusing direction. Instead of facing the platform so that folks at either end can see it, the clock is facing out toward the track and in toward a blue plywood wall. Unless you’re standing in the few feet of space in between the board and the track, the clock is all but invisible to the rest of the station. In other words, this particular countdown clock isn’t particularly useful.
The MTA has struggled with these clocks at certain stations. A few at 72nd St. and Broadway were obscured by emergency exit signs and low-hanging pipes. Others have faced walls while some have been placed awkwardly near station entrances. By and large, the new system is a success, but now and then, something wrong sticks out like a sore thumb. Why this board was installed in such a strange fashion when the blue plywood has a cutout for it in the first place will remain a mystery until someone comes to realign it.
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