nyc subway | west 50th street and broadway

by sam on 05/28/2015

The West 50th Street 1 train station appears to be half renovated. Half of the station has what looks like the original tiling, along with the companion water damage and staining, and the other half of the station has shiny new tiling, which is somewhat decorative but nowhere near as intrinsically beautiful as the original. Although as we’ll see in some stations down the line, this is still miles better than any renovations performed in the 1970s, in that they at least attempted to inject some decorative elements into the design work. According to Wikipedia, this was actually the first west side station constructed under the original contract with the city.

The other feature of this station are some large mosaics depicting scenes from Alice in Wonderland. I tried to do some research to find out why there was an Alice in Wonderland theme to this station in particular, and the only thing I could find were some references on Forgotten NY and Wikipedia to the fact that it somehow ties to the fact that this station is near the theater district. Which still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, as I don’t recall any major Alice in Wonderland Broadway productions. Maybe more research is in order – feel free to add knowledge in the comments!

Station opened: October 27, 1904 (Alice in Wonderland mosaics installed in 1994)
Original system: IRT
Trains: 1
Source: Wikipedia