The other is the subway system’s forgotten shame, cast in blue spray paint and corrugated metal, then suspended in disrepair since the grime-and-graffiti era of the 1970s, when it served a neighborhood in Brooklyn that bears little resemblance to today’s.
There are more than a few stations hidden in the city’s underground thickets, but none offer more contrasting images of New York’s past than these two: Old City Hall Station, the flagship of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, and the lower level at Bergen Street, last seen widely as the backdrop of a horror film.
Now, for equally divergent reasons involving train turnarounds and the vicissitudes of repair, both can be glimpsed for those who know where to look.
The first case is deliberate: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has in recent years begun allowing riders to stay on the No. 6 train as it turns around at the southern end of its run.
The second is not. In the last several months, planned and unplanned work on the Culver Line in Brooklyn has often rerouted F trains to the old express tracks that pass below Cobble Hill.
Among history-minded riders, the stations have for decades stood as emblems of the transit system’s dueling legacies. They are the impossible standard and the indelible blight — the reason today’s wistful older riders can be sorted into two camps: those for whom hindsight has softened the edges of the subway’s darkest days, and the dwindling few with memories long enough to include its most regal beginnings.
The stations are particularly striking because they can be glimpsed almost accidentally, by a straggler who overslept on the Lexington Avenue line, waking to discover a turn-of-the-century gem on the loop track at Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall, or by a commuter aboard a surprise express to Manhattan.
For such F train riders, there is the dash past the outdoor stations at Fourth Avenue and Smith-Ninth Street, then the telltale dip at Carroll Street, as the platform recedes overhead.
And then it appears, faintly at first, followed by two surges of light: the moldering columns, a staircase leading to a dim concourse, and walls of graffiti — some fresh, some apparently decades old. The station was closed to passengers in 1976.
“It’s sort of a window back into that time when the subway system was different, and not nearly as safe,” said Benjamin Kabak, the publisher of the website Second Ave. Sagas, who recently passed the old station during a spell of weekend work on the F. “It looked like the train could stop and let people on right now.”
But few chapters from the system’s past so rankle the transportation authority, which declined to discuss the station in detail. For one, the authority is mindful of persistent calls to restore F express service in Brooklyn, fearing that any mention of the station might convince riders that it could be renovated adequately with due care. Officials also noted security concerns and a desire to “discourage urban explorers” from venturing underground.
At City Hall, though, a sense of adventure is celebrated. On the authority’s website, members of the New York Transit Museum are encouraged to buy $ 40 tickets for a tour of the station, referred to by its nickname, “The Jewel in the Crown.” There are two sessions in December.
For the 100th anniversary of the subway system in 2004, the station, which was closed in 1945 because its platforms could not accommodate 10-car trains, was reopened for a ceremony with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Workers dressed in turn-of-the-century outfits, as Mr. Bloomberg helped maneuver a vintage four-car train.
Less elaborate outings have also been condoned. Though conductors were in the past known to expel passengers at the end of the No. 6 line, announcements on many trains have been adjusted to reflect a change. “The next stop on this train will be Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall, on the uptown platform,” the message now says, in a nod to riders who might remain on board. The cost for them, of course, is that of a single ride.
Even the pace of the train is cooperative, at least compared with the express-powered blur past Bergen Street. A recent, unhurried rumble through the loop revealed the skylights, the faience signs, the arched entryway illuminated by six temporary bulbs.
“It’s a salute to an era when subways were meant to enhance the quality of life in the city,” said Gene Russianoff, a longtime transit advocate for the Straphangers Campaign. “I guess they do now, but not with beautiful stations.”
On a recent afternoon, Bersio Pupo, 46, and Yara Noronha, 31, visiting from Brazil, said they had come to the station after seeing images of it in a book of photographs. It reminded them of Estação da Luz in São Paulo.
It is quite possible that today’s Bergen Street guests have the stronger grasp of the system’s past. One veteran graffiti writer, who requested anonymity because he is not allowed to traverse the tunnels, said he had visited the lower level three times in recent years to take in the art and add his own.
“The people who end up there are usually people who know their history,” he said.
The Brooklyn station received perhaps its widest exposure in 1990, as the setting of a scene in “Jacob’s Ladder,” starring Tim Robbins as a troubled Vietnam War veteran. That is thought to be perhaps the last time the station was opened for anyone besides transit personnel.
Adrian Lyne, the film’s director, said in a phone interview that the hub had thrived in its supporting role.
“It worked very well for me,” he recalled. “It’s a rather ghostly place.”
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