Chambers Street
01/27/04
Chambers Street is, without a doubt, the creepiest and most neglected New York subway station. It was built as a grand downtown terminal for the BMT -- some might say a cathedral of transit -- with five platforms and four tracks. Today only two platforms are open and two tracks are used; the decline of Downtown and the rise of Midtown after World War II doomed this line, which only serves Downtown.
As yucky as this once-grand station is now, it was even worse a few months ago, before bad publicity shamed the MTA into cleaning up some of the low-hanging fruit (litter and graffiti):
More on Chambers Street at Forgotten NY and nycsubway.org
10:17 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack (1)
Comments
beautifully disgusting. or is that disgustingly beautiful?
Posted by: jw at January 28, 2004 02:22 PM
I just love these disused substations, found an site covering all (all? yes I think so=)) disused stations on the London underground and thanks to you I now have a site for NY. Two schooldays to the freedom of weekends, darn.
Posted by: brother at January 28, 2004 07:12 PM
Seeing these last two shots, I hallucinated, and thought I smelled urine.
Posted by: Frank at January 28, 2004 09:10 PM
gotta love decaying buildings. i used to think decaying industrial spaces were fairly cool but understood why people thought they were horrible. nowadays i cant understand why they think that at all.
Posted by: James at January 28, 2004 09:51 PM
brother --
The canonical abandoned-stations site is here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/
Forgotten NY is absolutely wonderful, but it's more for neighborhoods than for subway stations.
I wonder how accessible the abandoned London stations are...
Posted by: Mike at January 28, 2004 10:44 PM
I am so jealous! It looks like my kind of place! It seems that you living in NY have access to more interesting and decrepit places. Probally because NY is older than Chi-town. Who knows..
Posted by: Chris at January 29, 2004 12:59 AM
I've been trying to take a couple subways shots but i've been having alot of trouble at first i couldn't get enough light and then tried using a flash but that only caused a glar in the picture from reflections off the tiles. I was wondering how you managed to capture these shots. i'm just starting to really get into photography so it would be great if you or anyone could help me out. Thanks
Posted by: Daoine at January 29, 2004 12:59 PM
I'd like to recommend the following link for more info Re: Chambers St. The URL is http://www.nycsubway.org/bmt/jamaica/bmt-jamaica-chambers.html
This page on the NYC Subway Resources Site gives a terrific overview of the station past, present and possible future.
I had hoped that the MTA would find an incentive to give the station a good fixer upper when it floated an idea a few years ago to route the 2nd Ave Subway into the J/Z lines from about Delancey St down to Broad Steet. Alas, that came to nothing.
Posted by: SilentBob316 at February 1, 2004 02:01 PM
Mike: The site Imentioned but didn't link (why is that?) covers much of the history and provides many pictures of tours in the subways.
It do seems like the disused stations is pretty sealed of thougt.
http://www.starfury.demon.co.uk/uground/
Posted by: brother at February 1, 2004 08:50 PM
The thing I've always found creepiest about the Chambers Street station is all those mosaic eyes everywhere. Watching you. Brrr.
Posted by: Nausikaa314 at February 24, 2004 01:03 PM
The mosaic eyes are in the other Chambers Street (IND A/C), not this one (BMT J/M/Z).
Posted by: Mike at February 24, 2004 01:06 PM
Is that grotty platform corner with the electrical boxes and beer bottles perchance where the disasterous fire started yesterday? I guess some folks could have seen it coming! (I used "grotty" because I was looking at London Tube ghost stations just before I heard news of fire at Chambers street yesterday, I'm not a Brit., I live in Maine.)
Posted by: Mark at January 25, 2005 02:36 PM
No, this is an entirely separate station on an entirely separate line. The fire was at the other Chambers Street (IND A/C), not this one (BMT J/M/Z).
Posted by: Mike at January 25, 2005 02:43 PM
I don't know what it is about dark, creepy abandoned subway stations that is so exciting. Just knowing that such a place is connected to miles and miles of tunnels joining all of NYC is just too cool.
Posted by: Rod at April 2, 2005 03:21 PM
I like to call Chambers Street a "magnificent dungeon." I hope they never fix it.
Posted by: Mitch45 at January 9, 2006 03:39 PM
You have a nice site.
Been to it before.
Always like shots of Chambers St. station - impressive even in its neglected condition.
Would love it if you could research around and find the following: on a railfan trip through Chambers st. during the mid 60's on the most northbound pillars (tunnel facing side of them) of the northbound track I saw two real old fashioned pre-war BMT signs. The enamel ones we grew up with (black lettering white background) were probably put in place by the Board of Transportation during the 40's. Because what I saw was real old - and real cool and impressive:
The lettering was close to Times Roman style, letters slightly bowed out in the middle, serifs at the tops of the letters. But the cool thing was the first letter "C" was huge, while the rest of the letters "HAMBERS" were upper case but smaller. On the left, they began by being nested inside the large "C" and spelled out across the rest of the sign.
On that same trip I saw the identically styled signs, at Lawrence St. Pacific St. and Dekalb Ave. , Times Roman style lettering, with the "L", "P", and "D" being larger than the rest, also on out of the way platform pillars - most northbound ones, on the tunnel facing sides.
I have heard that the Lawrence St. signs were there until the early 90's.
I always meant to go back and photograph them but never did. Even older BMT enthusiasts I've spoken to only have vague memories of these kinds of signs. I've never seen photos of them on any 'net site.
Anyone you can talk to, find them and photograph them and put them on your site - that'd be cool and a real scoop for you.
again this is a great site. Thanks!
- Transit History enthusiast
Posted by: 74th and Roos'velt at April 13, 2006 08:04 PM
It is hard to believe that the most disgusting station in NYC sits below City Hall, Police Plaza, and the Municipal Building and courthouses. The J/M/Z side of the station is much worse than the City Hall station side on the 4,5,6 train where Mayor Bloomberg pulls into every morning.
Does anyone know if this station is in some MTA capital reconstruction list?
Posted by: Senor Subway at May 13, 2006 11:49 AM
I agree with ''JW'' It is beutiful and artistic yet so un-sanitary and gross.
Posted by: Derrick at July 11, 2006 11:49 AM
I always wondered why the station looked as if it had been turned inside out!
Posted by: Jay at July 20, 2006 02:35 PM
To answer Senor Subway...Yes. The bid for this project went out and was awarded on July 27, 2006. A complete rehab and installation of elevators will finally begin. From the pictures, this station really needs it! Hope this helped.
Posted by: Lola at August 3, 2006 01:10 PM
Love this station. It's what remains from the 80s in the subway station. NEVER RENOVATE THIS STATION MTA OR ELSE....
Posted by: Samuel at October 1, 2007 05:21 PM
this train station needs a lot of work. it's fucked up 2 the point where nobody want 2 get on the train from this fucking station.
Posted by: Jashon Rogers at October 21, 2007 08:40 PM
I Love going to Chambers street to see this awesome station decaying. I love seeing abandoned train stations for some reason. I hope MTA never touches the abandoned side, it looks great the way it is.
Posted by: 890 at November 23, 2007 03:48 PM
what ever happened to the old lighted route signs that used to be on this station that showed
manhattan bridge, williamsburgh bridge,
jamaica, myrtle avenue line and so forth?
would you know if they even exist anymore?
it is a shame it looks so dingy