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Earlier this week, the MTA unveiled a brand new subway entrance by Times Square, found within the pedestrian plaza near the corner of 43rd Street.
The update is an exciting one, part of the MTA's $300 million 42nd Street Connector project, whose aim is to quite simply improve the busiest station in the city's system. Adjacent projects include upgrades to the Grand Central and Bryant Park stations that focused on, according to an official press release, "redesigning passageways and platforms, adding new elevators, expanding stairways and transforming the 42nd Street Shuttle train into a fully accessible service."
Specifically, the new entrance boasts a 15-foot-wide staircase, 18 surveillance cameras, a new ADA-accessible elevator, LED information screens, a new turnstile, mezzanine level and canopy over stairs. The latter portion of the update will also display 238 triangular glass frames meant to replicate the sparkling Waterford Crystals that make up the instantly-recognizable New Year's Eve Ball.
Perhaps most exciting, though, is the massive new mosaic by artist Nick Cave that commuters can now fully glance at. Commissioned by the MTA's public arts program, the work is called Every One, Each One, Equal All and it is made up of three separate art pieces. Until this week, New Yorkers were only able to see a third of the work, which, at 3,200 square feet, is actually the largest such installation within the subway system.
"Times Square is one of the busiest, most diverse and fabulously kinetic places on the planet," Cave said in an official statement. "For this project I took the above ground color, movement and cross-pollination of humanity, bundled it into a powerful and compact energy mass that is taken underground."
The new entrance will grant travelers access to the N, Q, R, W, 1, 2, 3 and 7 lines.
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