The Chambers St J/Z subway station — one of the oldest and most notoriously dilapidated stations in the entire system — will finally get the overhaul it sorely needs.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA on Friday announced they are on the hunt for contractors to rehabilitate the crumbling stop steps away from City Hall in Lower Manhattan, which first opened over a century ago in 1913.
The unsightly and cavernous station is one of the most urgently in need of upgrades following decades of water damage and structural deterioration, Hochul’s office and the MTA said in a news release. It is infamous for its missing and dirty tiles, chipped paint, pools of water from persistent leaks, and damaged staircases.
Top state and city officials agree that Chambers St has come to represent the worst of what can happen when they allow parts of the subway system to fall into disrepair.
Hochul, in a statement, said the station has “stood for decades as a living monument of generations of underinvestment in our transit system.” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber called it the “poster child for dilapidated subway stations.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani went as far as to say that the station is “unbecoming of our city.”
“New Yorkers deserve a transit system they aren’t forced to endure, but one they eagerly embrace and that keeps our city moving, including the thousands of hardworking city employees who rely on this stop when commuting to and from work,” he added, referring to the station’s proximity to City Hall and several other government office buildings in Lower Manhattan.
Congestion pricing to fund Chambers St renovation
The coming remodel is part of the MTA’s prior capital plan, which covers the years 2020 to 2024, according to the agency. Like several other capital projects in the system, it is funded by revenue raised from the city’s congestion pricing program — a tolling scheme that hits drivers headed into Manhattan below 60th Street with a $9 base toll during peak hours.
“I promised New Yorkers that congestion pricing would not just clean our air and speed up traffic, it would unleash billions in investments to improve the lifeblood of our city,” said Hochul, who has become one of congestion pricing’s fiercest defenders. “Advancing this project and giving Chambers St the rehabilitation it so desperately needs will show New Yorkers what is possible when we invest in transit.”
The MTA will award the contract for reconstructing the station by the end of this year, according to the agency.
The redesign work will include repainting, adding new floor finishes in some areas of the mezzanines, replacing or fixing stairs and doors, and conducting repairs to prevent water leaks. It will seek to restore and preserve historic design elements, such as ceramic tiles and mosaics, as the station is on the U.S. Department of the Interior’s register of National Historic Places.