A few weeks ago, we looked at some of America’s great train stations lost to the wrecking ball. In long hours of photo research on that story, we happened across quite a few pictures of abandoned subway stations and were impressed by their poignant beauty. Bringing together a small collection of them here is not meant to suggest that they necessarily represent a great loss to their local transit networks–in many cases, they were redundant or underused facilities. But, vital or not, they remain interesting artifacts of how our transit networks evolve and abide.
One notable exception is Rochester’s subway system, which was shut down entirely in the 1950s. It was a full and functional small city network and might be sorely missed at some future date–if it isn’t already. Another is Cincinnati’s, which was nearly completed in the 20s and would have been a great asset to the city.
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The Botanic Gardens station in Glasgow was closed in 1939, converted into a nightclub, and partially destroyed by fire in 1970.
[Flickr: Flash Brian]
The Botanic Gardens station from above.
The 18th Street station in Manhattan was closed 60 years ago. It lies only two blocks from the bustling Union Square station and is visible from passing 4/5/6 trains.
[Flickr user Hawkeye Pierce]
The city of Rochester, New York, built a subway in the early part of the 20th century–at the time, the smallest US city to have one. The system was shut down in the 1950s, however.
[Flickr: FionaLui]
An unidentified “secret” station under New York City:
[Flickr: Logan Hicks]
The Belmont Tunnel in Los Angeles was originally a mile-long commuter route between Westlake and downtown. During the Cold War it was used to store emergency rations in case of nuclear war. The last segment of it was demolished for a condo development several years ago.
[Flickr: Eyetwist]
Inside the Belmont Tunnel, a mecca for graffiti artists:
[Photo: Julia Solis - Abandoned Los Angeles]
An old station in Leeds, England, that has been abandoned since the ’60s.
[Flickr Phill.D]
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Lower Bay Station in Toronto was open only briefly for service in the 1960s. More recently it has been used as a set for filming commercials and movies.
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The grand old City Hall station on the IRT line in Manhattan was opened in 1904 and closed in1945. It is maintained and occasionally open for tours:
[Flickr VTshep1]
An abandoned station in Yorkshire, England.
Cincinnati built a subway system in the 1920s. It was nearly complete when the Depression hit. The city couldn’t secure the necessary funding to complete it during the 30s or WWII — and by the then the infrastructure was falling into disrepair and the country was investing in highways.
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[Photos]
The Croix Rouge station in Paris was closed during World War II.
[Photo by S. Marshall -- whose Pridian.net site features some very cool photo explorations of abandoned places]
See Also:
Beyond the Cloverleaf: “The Butt” and 21 Other Crazy Highway Interchanges You’ve Never Heard of
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Highways to Nowhere: America’s 7 Most Ridiculous New Road Building Projects
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HA! AMUSINGLY DEFACED STREET SIGNS
August 11th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Cincinnati has an abandoned subway with four complete stations.
More info: http://www.cincinnati-transit.net/subway.html
August 11th, 2009 at 11:10 am
paris has several abandoned stations, including croix-rouge, st martin, champs-de-mars, and arsenal. a bit of background here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070304/ai_n18721354/
August 11th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
[...] The Infrastructurist has a photo gallery post of some abandoned subway stations around the world. [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Thanks, LIG — had heard of this, but hadn’t come across any photos. Just added to the piece. And thanks, David. Added a pic of Croix Rouge station.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Philadelphia probably has some cool ones, I know there’s an old Franklin Square stop on the PATCO line that they’re actually trying to open back up.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I suspect that the “secret” station is one of the abandoned proto-stations on the now-finally-under-construction-again Second Avenue Subway.
There are actually quite a few abandoned subway stations in the NYC system; you can find pictures of most of them here.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
theres an abandoned station in SF in the castro as part of the twin peaks tunnel
August 11th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
@Living in Gin - my family are from Dayton and lived in Texas, and when I was young we’d take frequent car trips back to Ohio to see the family. Every time we went through Cincy my Mom would say something like, “Did you know Cincinnati used to have a subway?” (It became a running joke in my family, because it seems like she always said it as if we had never heard that before.)
And you could see the portals from the freeway, which always intrigued me as a kid. I wanted to explore them so badly. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when there was the interwebs, when I could finally explore them, albeit virtually. Thanks for that link.
August 12th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Chicago has some “ghost” rapid transit stations on the “Congress” line to DesPlaines at California, Kostner and Central. They are intact, but closed to passenger service. Someone from Chi-town could confirm this–I think they’re in “derelict” neighborhoods where nobody with a sense of self-preservation would want to stop.
August 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
During the Cold War, there were about a dozen East Berlin station closed on several West Berlin U- & S- Bahn lines. Trains still had to reduce speed going through these stations. Google “Ghost Stations of East Berlin.”
(Hat Tip: KK)
August 12th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Bob Davis @ 1 a.m.,
You’re right, there are some closed stations along the Blue Line. My sense is that they were closed because they were so close to other, still operating stations that they were superfluous.
A great site for further information about our L system is http://www.chicago-l.org. Enjoy.
And this is a great post. Thanks, Infrastructurist.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
You have the Belmont Tunnel, which was NOT a subway station, yet you don’t have the Subway Terminal (the other end of the Belmont Tunnel) which was a station. http://www.westworld.com/~elson/larail/PE/terminal.html
August 12th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
[...] Logan Hicks has some really great subterranean photography going on. (Via Infrastructurist) [...]
August 13th, 2009 at 4:49 am
It’s a good thing we’re leaving fascinating, graceful, architecturally interesting and epic Wal-Marts and Home Depots behind for future generations.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:29 am
I have several books about the Cincinnati Subway. Originally, the Miami-Erie canal ran through Cincinnati, but by the early 20th century, and fallen into disuse and stagnation. In an effort to both boost the local transit (and eliminate what had become quite an eyesore), Cincinnati drained the canal and built the subway tunnels into the canal bed.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:51 am
It would be a shame to miss out on the biggest Metro system in the world and all its abandoned stations…. London Underground
http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/
August 13th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Are you sure the Croix Rouge was closed in WWII? Those look like plastic benches with a 60’s style.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Lukus,
Yeah, that’s interesting…. but I found a couple of sources that both give the 1939 date, including this AP story.
Design ahead of its time, perhaps?
JR
August 13th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Yeah, well, only if Rochester starts growing in population again instead of shrinking. As you note, Rochester was already the smallest city to have a subway system when it was built (around 300,000), but the city is down to around 200,000 people now.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Remember the abandoned station from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III ? Why no picture?
August 13th, 2009 at 11:18 am
[...] Photos of abandoned subway stations (Matrix fans will recognize one) [...]
August 13th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Englands Ghost station of Manchester story here
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=265602590&blogId=494800841
August 13th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
FYI, Belmont Tunnel was also recognizable as the setting for countless movies and TV, like “V” and Predator 2.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Love the pictures of the abandoned subway stations, very cool and fascinating. Thanks!
August 13th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Detroit started building one too and then abandoned it. From what I’ve heard, a single segment of tube and part of a station was excavated before it was shut down.
http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Detroit-Subway-t18781.html
August 14th, 2009 at 10:38 am
[...] From The Infrastructurist, beautiful photos of abandoned subway stations of the world. [...]
August 14th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I think the “unidentified ’secret’ station under New York City” might be part of the West Side Light Rail Easement built into/around the West Side rail tunnels currently used by Amtrak.
I can’t tell for sure, but the design in the pic posted here looks very similar to the pics in this link:
http://www.hopetunnel.org/subway/wslrt/index.html
August 14th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
More on poncho’s comment :
The Market St. Subway begins just East of the abandoned station. That station was just before the Twin Peaks Tunnel’s (TPT’s) East Portal. If you are riding on the SF Muni’s Metro heading downtown from the West Portal station watch carefully as you approach the Castro St. station. You can see three things : graffiti, the old platform (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Station ), and the exit ramps for the pre-LRV service through the TPT. I remember reading an article many years ago that said that the TPT had been built with a hump at the East end so as to make it easier to tie into a future subway tunnel.
P.S. Hair-splitting - the Market Street Subway tunnel ends just West of the Castro St. station. The TPT takes over at that point. Its course veers from Market St.’s SW to almost WSW. If one were to look at a map one would be looking at a three part bow - Portola Dr. (upper staff), Market St. (lower staff), and the tracks (string).
August 15th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Check this out about was recently done to the TTC’s lower Bay station: http://www.blogto.com/arts/2009/08/absolut_lower_bay_subway_station/ which was turned into an “interactive installation and party venue on Thursday by local multidisciplinary artist Justin Broadbent”.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
While the Cincinnati subway has never seen track. It’s far from being abandoned. It is still maintained as a utility tunnel for water and communitation lines. It is still Cincinnati’s longest highway bridge supporting Central Parkway for two miles above. Many of us in the Cincinnati area would still love to see the subway completed for it’s intended purpose.
The Cincinnati Musuem Center at Union Terminal offers annual tours of the Race (Canal) Street subway station and it’s tunnels annually as part of thier Heritage programs. The tours generally takes place in April.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Prague has one downtown just a block away from Tesco (and towards the Vltava River). I forget the name of it….but when I was there 10 years ago, it was basically used as a hang out for skateboarders and the occasional band. It’s right off a well-trafficked street, is known to everyone, and is basically nothing but a concrete cavern that acts as an “underground park”.
August 18th, 2009 at 5:02 am
Thanks for this. There’s something completely fascinating about abandoned stations. I visited the station my grandfather was born on recently. It is now a private house that has been turned into something of a museum. Very cool
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/kateday/10022737/down_the_line_to_burgh_le_marsh/
August 18th, 2009 at 5:12 am
[...] Good choice RT @kate_day: RT @Gdaapelin: RT @petapixel Abandoned subway stations around the world: http://bit.ly/3oXk5f #photog <– Beautiful @Noot54 On its way back to you [...]
August 26th, 2009 at 1:18 am
crazy, thanks for the photos..
September 28th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
[...] http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/08/11/abandoned-subway-stations-around-the-world-photo-gallery/ – Photo gallery of abandoned subway stations from around the world [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
[...] always loved the underground, so I had to make note of these beautiful photographs from abandoned subway stations around the world. [...]
October 9th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
The one in Toronto is interesting as a Modern era contrast to virtually all the others on the list.
October 10th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I used to exit the Belmont tunnel everyday when I went to school. The Terminal building was beautiful.
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
[...] Abandoned Subway Stations Around The World (Photo Gallery) [...]
January 24th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Thats horrible…so beautiful of structures and they have gone to waste….