The South Ferry/Whitehall Street station is a New York City Subway station complex in the Financial District neighborhood of Manhattan, under Battery Park. The complex is shared by the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and the BMT Broadway Line. It is served by the 1 and R trains at all times, the W train on weekdays during the day, and the N train at night. The station is the southern terminal for all 1 and W trains and the northern terminal for late night R trains. This station replaced the Old South Ferry station loop that was originally supposed to close in 2009. However, due to the destruction of the new station by Hurricane Sandy, the old station reopened in 2013 and closed again in 2017 after the new station was repaired.
The complex originally consisted of three separate stations. In 1905, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) opened a balloon loop at South Ferry, serving the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue and IRT Lexington Avenue Lines. The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) opened its station at Whitehall Street in 1918. The same year, the IRT opened a second loop for the IRT Lexington Avenue Line on the inside of the existing loop; the two loop stations were not connected to each other nor to the BMT station. Despite their proximity, the stations remained separate for 91 years.
In the early 2000s, as part of the recovery effort from the September 11, 2001, attacks, a new South Ferry terminal for the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line was proposed. That station opened in 2009, replacing the loop station and providing a connection between the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line's 1 train and the Broadway Line's N, R, and W trains. The new terminal for the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line was severely damaged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and the MTA temporarily re-opened the loop station between 2013 and 2017, adding a temporary connection between the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line's loop and the BMT Broadway Line's platforms. The newer terminal reopened in June 2017 following extensive renovations and waterproofing work.
This station complex is the third on the site to bear the name South Ferry. The first was an elevated station located nearby, which was open from 1877 to 1950 and served the former IRT Ninth, Sixth, Third, and Second Avenue elevated lines. The second was the old South Ferry loop station, located above the existing station complex.
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History Original IRT station Construction and opening Planning for a subway line in New York City dates to 1864. However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature authorized the Rapid Transit Act. The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, chief engineer of the Rapid Transit Commission. The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations. Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway.
Several days after Contract 1 was signed, the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners instructed Parsons to evaluate the feasibility of extending the subway south to South Ferry, and then to Brooklyn. On January 24, 1901, the Board adopted a route that would extend the subway from City Hall to the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s Flatbush Avenue terminal station (now known as Atlantic Terminal) in Brooklyn, via the Joralemon Street Tunnel under the East River. Contract 2, giving a lease of 35 years, was executed between the commission and the Rapid Transit Construction Company on September 11, 1902. Construction began at State Street in Manhattan on November 8, 1902.
The South Ferry loop was built as part of subsection 2 of Contract 2 and was largely constructed as an open trench. Contractors installed a waterproof membrane and operated pumps continuously to prevent the loop from being inundated by water from New York Harbor. Battery Park was only above mean high water, while the South Ferry station, below, was as much as beneath mean high water. Because Battery Park had been created largely through land reclamation, workers found skulls, copper coins, logs, and remnants of brick piers when they were excavating the station's site. A temporary trestle was built to allow workers to remove dirt onto barges.
On July 10, 1905, the outer South Ferry platform opened; the inner track existed when the station was built, but only as a storage track. There was as yet no IRT service to Brooklyn, and all trains terminated at South Ferry's outer-loop platform. The Joralemon Street Tunnel opened in 1908, and all rush-hour trains started operating to Brooklyn the next year. To address overcrowding, in 1909, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts, made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. The South Ferry station was not lengthened, but the platforms at other stations were extended, and six-car local trains began operating in October 1910. On January 23, 1911, ten-car express trains began running on the Lenox Avenue Line, and the following day, ten-car express trains were inaugurated on the West Side Line.
Dual System The Dual Contracts were formalized in March 1913, specifying new lines or expansions to be built by the IRT and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT). As part of the Dual Contracts, the New York City Public Service Commission planned to split the original IRT system into three segments: two north–south lines, carrying through trains over the Lexington Avenue and Broadway–Seventh Avenue Lines, and a west–east shuttle under 42nd Street. This would form a roughly H-shaped system. Construction started on a southward extension of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line in 1914. South of Chambers Street, there were to be two branches: one running south to the Battery and the other running east to Brooklyn via the Clark Street Tunnel. In order for the line to continue down Varick Street and West Broadway, these streets needed to be widened, and two new streets were built, the Seventh Avenue Extension and the Varick Street Extension. It was predicted that the subway extension would lead to the growth of the Lower West Side, and to neighborhoods such as Chelsea and Greenwich Village. The entire line, consisting of eight sections, was expected to cost $14,793,419.
Before the Dual Contracts were signed, the Public Service Commission had tentatively planned a subway line under Seventh Avenue. Because the route had not yet been assigned to the IRT, the plans for the Seventh Avenue subway had called for a second loop under Battery Park, stretching under Pier A and Castle Clinton, as well as a subway yard beneath Battery Park. When the Dual Contracts were finalized, the IRT revised the plans so the Seventh Avenue Line instead connected with the existing line's outer loop. The tunnel slightly underpinned a structure owned by the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, which in July 1914 sued to prevent the tunnel from being built. During the line's construction, the contractor discovered an ancient cannon and two cannon balls under Battery Park. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line extension was nearly complete by late 1917, but the line did not have signals or electricity because of World War I-related delays.
The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line was extended to South Ferry on July 1, 1918. The inner-loop platform opened the same year, serving trains on the Lexington Avenue Line. The IRT operated the South Ferry station until June 12, 1940, when the city government took over the IRT's operations.
Originally, only the end doors of each car of a five-car train could platform at the station, because of the large gap between the middle doors and the platform, owing to the severe curve of the station. This problem was remedied in January 1959 when gap fillers were installed. On February 10, 1959, the New York City Transit Authority approved a $185,000 project to renovate the station. The project would take a year to be completed. The project would remove change booths and turnstiles from platform level to provide more space on the platform and reduce congestion. They would be relocated to a new street-level station house that would be built out of terra cotta, aluminum, glass, and stainless steel. The doors of the new entrance would be connected with the ferry house ramp with a wide stairway. The structure would be designed to fit in with the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Work got underway on the project later in 1959.
BMT station Also planned under the Dual Contracts was the Broadway Line of the BRT (which later became the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT). Contractors started constructing the tunnel under Whitehall Street in 1914. The first section of the Broadway Line, between 14th Street–Union Square and Canal Street, opened in 1917. Although the line was extended north to Times Square–42nd Street and south to Rector Street in January 1918, the short extension from Rector Street to Whitehall Street was delayed by several months. The BRT attributed the delays to "inadequate turnback facilities" at Whitehall Street and, in August 1918, announced that they would revise the track configuration of the station.
When the Whitehall Street station opened on September 20, 1918, it was the southern terminal of the Broadway Line. An additional entrance at the southern end of the station opened in November 1919, providing a direct connection to the Whitehall Terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. The line was extended south in 1920 when the Montague Street Tunnel opened. The station's platforms originally could only fit six cars. In 1926, the New York City Board of Transportation received bids for the lengthening of platforms at nine stations on the Broadway Line, including the Whitehall Street station, to accommodate eight-car trains. Edwards & Flood submitted a low bid of $101,775 for the project. The platform-lengthening project was completed in 1927, bringing the length of the platforms to .
The city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940. On January 6, 1994, Automated Fare Collection turnstiles went into service at the Whitehall Street BMT and Wall Street stations.
Transfer and new IRT station
Planning On September 11, 2001, a terrorist attack destroyed the World Trade Center, located slightly to the north of South Ferry and the Battery. The segment of the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line that ran through the WTC, including the Cortlandt Street station two stops north of South Ferry, was also destroyed; the line reopened in September 2002, bypassing Cortlandt Street. Concurrent with the rebuilding of that section of the line, MTA officials recognized the need to build a more efficient terminal for the 1 and 9 trains at South Ferry, since it was anticipated that the line would be heavily used in the long-term aftermath of the attacks. This also coincided with the renovation of Battery Park. The new station would also allow easier transfers for travelers to the Staten Island Ferry or the tour ferries to Liberty and Ellis islands. New York governor George Pataki presented plans in February 2003 for a $400 million South Ferry terminal with three tracks and two platforms.