181st Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line)

181st Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line)

181st Street is a station on the IND Eighth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located on Fort Washington Avenue and 181st Street, one of the main shopping districts of the Hudson Heights neighborhood of Washington Heights, and served by the A train at all times.

This underground station, opened on September 10, 1932, has two tracks and two side platforms and is deep below the surface due to the area's hills. In fact, the highest natural point on Manhattan is in Bennett Park, adjacent to the station exit on Fort Washington Avenue between West 183rd and 185th Streets (there is no street called "West 184th Street" on the hill).

Because of the station's depth, elevators at the north end of the station carry passengers to the Bennett Park exit and escalators lead to 181st Street from the south end of the station. There is an additional exit through the side of the hill leading to Overlook Terrace at the north end, at West 184th Street (the street exists at lower elevations). The elevators can be used by pedestrians going between Overlook Terrace and Fort Washington Avenue without paying a fare; a similar situation exists at 191st Street on the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line.

The station is mentioned in the title song of the Broadway musical In the Heights, where Usnavi says to take the A train "even farther than Harlem to Northern Manhattan and maintain, get off at 181st and take the escalator. I hope you're writing this down I'm gonna test ya later".

On September 13, 1980, aspiring pianist Eric Kaminsky was robbed and stabbed to death in the station. His murder became the basis for his mother's book The Victim's Song.