After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, in-person tours of New York City’s abandoned City Hall subway station will resume this spring. The station, from which the first subway ride ever left in 1904, has been decommissioned since the 1940s. The New York Transit Museum has exclusive access to the station and provides 90-minute tours of its ornate vaulted Guastavino tiled ceilings, chandeliers, and skylights. Tickets will be available to museum members only and will go on sale in March.
The tour begins at the station’s above-ground entrance, where guides will share the fascinating history of City Hall and the subway system. Visitors will then descend underground to explore the magnificent station.
To sign up for a tour of the historic station, you must first become a museum member. Tickets are $50 per person, go on sale three times a year, and sell out quickly. More information on the tours can be found here.
On October 27, 1904, the City Hall station welcomed New Yorkers, the same day the subway officially opened.
The IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit Subway) was the city’s first subway line, running from City Hall to 145th Street and boasting 28 stations and the slogan “City Hall to Harlem in 15 minutes.”
The station shut down on December 31, 1945, nearly 40 years after it first opened. The curved tracks at the station could no longer accommodate the longer train cars, which had recently been increased from five to ten.
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine was designed by architects George Heins and Christopher LaFarge, who incorporated Spanish architect and builder Rafael Guastavino’s striking vaulted tiled ceilings.
“The expertly engineered and architecturally beautiful vaults were lightweight, fireproof, load-bearing, cost-efficient, and able to span large interior areas,” explained 6sqft.
The tour also included the station’s glass skylights, brass chandeliers, and commemorative bronze plaques commemorating the first subway ride.
Another way to see City Hall is to stay on the downtown 6 train after it leaves the Brooklyn Bridge station and passes through City Hall on its way back uptown.