When it was created in 1968, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority inherited from the New York City Transit Authority, from when it was created in 1953, the subway system as created by two private companies (the IRT and BMT) and the city-owned IND. All three parts of the system had various forms of retail space scattered throughout. The most well-known are newsstands on the platforms, but there are small store spaces on the mezzanines and in some cases off landings on the entrance stairs. I’m not sure that the MTA, as a state agency, has been as enthusiastic as its predecessors about the tradeoff between rental income and having to provide services to the tenants; I am sure that the Covid-triggered retail apocalypse which is slowly fading above ground was worse underground.
In that context, this seems like a great idea: “In the depths of the Jackson Heights subway station, a cultural center emerges”. An empty retail space at the huge transfer station at Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street has been turned into a community center, rent-free. The linked article by Arun Venugopal says that the MTA’s “Vacant Unit Activation Program” is intended to “make currently unused spaces more vibrant.” With retail tenants in place for only about a quarter of the 194 retail spaces in the system, there’s nowhere to go but up. Occupied spaces are an amenity in the subway, providing human contact and activity other than people hustling from place to place. I have no doubt that losing the rent is better than having an empty space.
I used to buy papers at this place on the mezzanine at Times Square:
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