Built in 1904, this key transfer station serves one of Manhattan’s most densely populated neighborhoods and required dramatic improvements to its circulation, accessibility, aesthetics, and systems. While the initial project brief called for excavation to construct an under-track mezzanine, Urbahn’s team proposed an alternative solution that created a new station house within the Broadway median. This approach minimized vertical travel and dramatically reduced construction costs, while elegantly announcing the city’s transit system.
The architecture is a reinterpretation of the archetypal 19th Century train shed, featuring a vaulted titanium-clad roof with curved glass skylights above the stair and canopies. The extensive use of glass creates visual transparency and allows light to flood into the station. Urbahn collaborated with artists Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger to integrate the hanging flowers installation. In contrast to the modern intervention at street level, the design of the platform level lovingly restored the station’s historic fabric.