169th Street is a local station on the IND Queens Boulevard Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of 169th Street and Hillside Avenue in Queens, it is served by the F train at all times. This is the closest subway station to the 165th Street Bus Terminal as well as the demolished station at 168th Street (BMT Jamaica Line) and Jamaica Avenue.
This station has four tracks and two side platforms. The wall tile trims are orange with black borders while the platform and mezzanine columns are lime green. The name tablets have "169TH ST." in white lettering on a black background with an orange border. The wall tiles also have small "169" in white lettering on a black background.
The station has a full length mezzanine above the platforms. There are two fare control areas at either ends, each having four street stairs. The full-time side is at 169th Street while the part time side is at 168th Street. Until the 1990s, it was the other way around.
There are seven sets of stairs to the 179th Street-bound platform and five to the Manhattan-bound platform as the mezzanine gets narrower on that side. Due to low clearance, a "DO NOT JUMP" message in black letters is painted on the white tiles of the ceiling above one of the 179th Street-bound staircases.
Before the IND Archer Avenue Line opened in 1988, all Queens Boulevard express trains (E and F trains) ran to 179th Street, with the E running local along Hillside Avenue and the F running express (except late nights and weekends). At that time, this station was considered to be the most congested due to the numerous bus lines that either terminated just outside or at the nearby 165th Street Bus Terminal. The station was ill-equipped to handle the high passenger traffic transferring between the bus and subway as a result, bars were installed to each of the seven 179th Street-bound staircases at platform level to "feed" the passengers into the staircase instead of crowding around it.
This station was the terminal for the Queens Boulevard Line from 1937 to 1950, when the line was extended to Jamaica – 179th Street.
Famous quotes containing the words street, queens and/or boulevard:
“Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
““Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind,
It might call up a new age, calling to mind
The queens that were imagined long ago,
Is but half yours....””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)