The wait for accessibility at one of The Bronx’s busiest subway stations is over. After a $123 million upgrade, elevators are up and running at the 149th Street-Grand Concourse Station on the 2, 4, and 5 subway lines in the South Bronx.
For years, community residents and advocates had been pushing for the MTA to commit to bringing the station into ADA compliance. Due to the complexity of the multi-line station layout and expense it would incur, it never made the yearly list of stations to receive such upgrades.
Now, as of Friday, September 11, three new elevators at the station are finally open, accessible via a new entrance located at the historic headhouse.
The elevator brings passengers down to the mezzanine where, once the fare is paid, commuters can access two other elevators that leading to the 2, 4, 5 uptown or downtown platforms.
Along the way are three new mosaic art installations; however, the placards have yet to be installed at the time of this writing so the artist remains unknown for the time being.
The station, which is now officially known as 149th Street-Hostos (longtime Bronxites will have a hard time calling it by its new name), is the fourth busiest in The Bronx and saw 2.5 million riders last year alone. However, that is a far cry from the almost 4 million riders that used the station in 2019 right before the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the station first opened in 1905, it had elevators but by 1975, they were closed at the height of city’s fiscal crisis when New York almost went bankrupt leaving local residents with accessibility issues unable to being able to use the station for over half a century.
While the long wait for accessibility at this station is over, we hope that the MTA (and local residents) keep this important connection for residents clean and that the MTA doesn’t skimp on cleaning and basic maintenance otherwise why spend hundreds of millions to only let it fall into disrepair again.
Afterall, with all that congestion pricing money, it’s the least the MTA can do.
