Clark Street Elevators Get Citywide Attention

By on April 30, 2007 9:23 am in News, Transportation

A front page article in today's New York Sun tells of the chronic problems with the elevators at the Clark Street subway station.  Brooklyn Heights Association Executive Director Judy Stanton is quoted as saying, "one working elevator out of three is about par".

An odd and interesting fact, gleaned from former City Councilman Ken Fisher, is that the original elevators at Clark Street came from an aircraft carrier.  These were replaced in 2000, when the station was closed for four months.   

UPDATE: As mentioned below in comments, channel 5 covered this story last night. City Councilman John Liu, chairperson of the Transportation Committee (and next Mayor?) took the opportunity to get some airtime and beat David Yassky to the punch on the transit elevator crisis.

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  • nabeguy

    Aircraft carrier? Probably the Intrepid. Now if only the elevators could get the same overhaul as it’s getting!

  • yo

    As terrible as those elevators are…..nothing is worse than the stairs at the clark st. station….i made that mistake once. Now i’ll just wait for the slow, single elevator.

  • nabeguy

    Yeah, the stairs are definitely Freddy-Kruger-land.

  • JL

    When they finally update the elevators, I hope they continue to update the rest of the station, especially the Clark and Henry St. entrances. (I actually think they could be beautiful)

    As stated in the article, most people are just happy that one elevator actually functions.

  • os

    for sure JL – Glad to know there are others who share the same sentiment…the station has been in need of a serious facelift for a very long time!

  • spm

    Who can we contact about this? Lightbulbs are blown and it’s truly a miserable looking station compared to Wall Street, Fulton Street and others.

  • nabeguy

    It would be great if the neighborhood could “adopt” the station as it’s own, along the lines of what was done at the Christopher St. and Franklin St stations. The current murals in the lobby were actually one of the first attempts at that kind of program, but they’re pretty outdated now. Looks like bad 1970’s clip art.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Good idea, nabeguy. The only issue I can see is that the Heights is served by three (four if you count Court Street on the R/M lines as separate) stations, so different people have different ideas about which one is theirs. Still, just about everyone uses Clark Street, even if it is not on their regular commute. Also, it connects the Heights to the two Manhattan neighborhoods with which it is most kindred: the West Village and the Upper West Side, as well as to Park Slope.

    Was there such a thing as good 1970s clip art?

  • JL

    BTW, there was a story about this last night on Fox 5 News at 10. Pretty much same story, but it was the second story of the evening. (Hope the link works, otherwise just search “Clark Street” on the main site)
    http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=AC295C6FCB609143844611C27F1409E1?contentId=3074157&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

  • nabeguy

    Wait a second. I thought Yassky was going to be our next mayor? Or was that a different blog? In any case, the Clark Street station is really more of an arcade than a subway station. It’s mixture of commmerce/transportation is what sets it apart from the all the other stations in the Heights and thus, in my opinion, qualifies it for an immediate upgrade. The Ring floor mural on the lower level has deteriorated to the point of being hazardous for foot traffic and the ceilings throughout the station are going to come down any second, by the looks of things.