NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has completed a five-year revamp of the Grand Central-42nd Street station, the second busiest in the New York City Transit subway system, and says the extensive remodeling was finished on time and approximately $46.5 million under budget.
The project — for a station served by the 4, 5, 6, and 7 lines, as well as the shuttle to the Times Square-42nd Street station — featured extensive changes to improve traffic flow, which the MTA says will make the station more accessible for an estimated 400,000 daily riders.
“We took many different projects and put them together to a single, aggressively managed package,” MTA CEO Janno Lieber said in a press release. “We are thrilled to celebrate that all this work was done on time and well ahead of budget.” Said Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development, “We’ve made generational improvements to the region’s crown jewel of public transportation, all while keeping subway service fast and reliable.”
The work included 14 new staircases, widening of 24 existing stairways, replacement of 10 escalators, installation of a new street-to-mezzanine elevator, replacement of another street-to-mezzanine elevator, and replacement of three elevators between the mezzanine and station platforms. Public floor space in the mezzanine level was increased by 20%. A new $75 million passageway between the mezzanine and 7 Line platform opened earlier this year.
“This extraordinary project greatly improves how customers can navigate one of the busiest stations in our system,” New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said. The station handled approximately 33.5 million passengers in 2024, second only to Times Square-42nd Street (57.7 million) among the subway system’s 472 stations. It also ranked second in 2023 with 30.5 million riders.
Other aspects of the renovation included 30 new turnstiles, increasing the total to 92; upgrades to fire and security systems; more than 266,000 square feet of new paint and 436 square feet of new tiling and concrete, new wayfinding signs and 143 new public address speakers. A new customer service center, open 24 hours a day, opened in September.
The project is part of a $750 million plan announced in 2020 to improve the three stations along the 42nd Street corridor — at Grand Central, Bryant Park, and Times Square. That project also included a major rebuild of the 42nd Street Shuttle, completed in 2021.
Those black walls and the black flooring certainly must have brightened things up quite a bit.
Best news all year. This station was the worst of the worst. Should have been rebuilt in the middle of the last century, but, whatever, better late than never.