14 Street Subway Station – Union Square

First, a history lesson: the NYC subway was originally built by several private companies that competed against each other for ridership. (That’s why trains on the lines with numbers are narrower than the ones with letters and never run on the same track.) So this station used to be more than one station – one for the NRQ and another totally separate station for the 4÷5÷6. I am not sure if the L part of the station was its own thing entirely or part of the NRQ. But I digress.
When the government took over the subways and eliminated the incentive to make it hard for people to switch lines, they knocked down a couple of walls and called it one station. The result was that the layout makes no fucking sense whatsoever. To get from the NRQ to the 4÷5÷6 you have to go through this corridor that’s just long enough to make people feel that they have to sprint if they want to make their connection. And it’s fucking chaos.
1) Nobody walks on the right side of the corridor at a normal pace. The slowest people, naturally, walk right down the goddamn middle, in clusters, laughing to themselves and oblivious. But the majority of people just dart from side to side like drunkenly putted balls on a mini-​golf course, pushing people out of the way and always finding people trying to walk like civilized humans in their way. This is the case no matter what time of day it is. Rush hour, 11:00 at night, 7:00 AM on a Sunday, whatever – it’s a fucking NFL training camp in there. This proliferation of everybody running, despite half of them not looking, causes me to get «Gangster’s Paradise» stuck in my head literally every single time I switch trains at this station. This is not a joke. It’s a serious problem.
2) The northernmost stairs to the uptown 4÷5÷6 platform are probably one of the most dangerous places in the entire MTA system. They’re fairly narrow, but you can see if a train is on the tracks from about 30 feet away from the top. This leads people to see trains on the platform and build up a pretty good head of steam and BARREL down the stairs like the train on the platform is THE LAST TRAIN that will ever come through the station. That’s bullshit of course; the 4÷5÷6 trains run pretty frequently. But God help the poor schmuck getting OFF the train and trying to get up the stairs.
3) A very, very smart man built the 4÷5÷6 platforms on a curve. Meaning every time a downtown 4÷5÷6 stops, it has to wait 10 seconds for the «moving platform» to lock in place before the doors open, and another 5 seconds after the doors close for it to move back. That’s why there are ALWAYS delays into Union Square going south. It also means that any time any train goes through the station there’s wheel screech, which is probably terrible for your health on its own, but is compounded by the fact that the platforms are offset, so if you’re standing at the northern part of the downtown platform, an uptown express train leaving the station sounds like a chorus of tortured cats from the front row at a Trans-​Siberian Orchestra concert.
4) There is always some asshole playing some kind of music on every platform. The L platform is practically a Live Jazz bar. Some people like this shit. Tourists LOVE It. It’s culture, or something, or so they think. Until you’ve heard it a thousand times and you’re exhausted and just want to get home from work. At some point it suddenly dawns on you that these «street musicians» are mostly just bums who got a hold of a large bucket. Or, worse, hipsters who bought some real drums with their trust fund money (or as they told their parents, «LSAT tutors»), and spend all day playing them in the subway station BECAUSE THEY CAN. Because their lives don’t matter.
Some terrorists a few years back were arrested for plotting to blow up the Union Square station. I must admit that it was a pretty shrewd plan. If anything ever went wrong in that place, nobody would have any fucking clue what to do. They wouldn’t even need to kill anyone with the bomb itself. Everyone would just kill each other. If the MTA ever had the money, and could figure out how to do it without fucking up the entire city’s commute, they should just tear it down and start over. But instead, we’re stuck with a clusterfuck that would, were it an EPCOT Center exhibit, be called Assaultive Cacophonies, Needless Safety Hazards, and Comically Poor Planning Through the Centuries.

14^th Street Union Square is a major hub in the subway system. It connects R, N, Q, L, 4, 5, and 6 trains. Underground artist Tom Otterness’s «Life Underground» series features bronze figures of men working and pulling money bags which are very intriguing statutes. Connecting from the L train to the 4 or 5 trains is always a hike up the long steep ramp or long stairs. People street busk by the mezzanine near the R, N, Q stairway.

There really isn’t much to say about the station. Best thing about 1, 2 and 3 lines at the station is that there is a clock to inform you when each train is coming. Also there is a transfer to the F/​M as well as the L train. L train has a Clock also. F/​M do not. The trains are relatively speedy Monday through Friday but sometimes it’s a pain in the ass on the weekend but that’s most trains on the weekend, wouldn’t you say? Stay classy