34th Street–Herald Square station connecting service <F>
The 34th Street–Herald Square station (also signed as 34th Street) is an underground station complex on the BMT Broadway Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan where 34th Street, Broadway and Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) intersect, and is served by the D, F, N, and Q trains at all times; the R train at all times except late nights; the B, M, and W trains on weekdays; and the <F> train during rush hours in the peak direction.
The Broadway Line platforms opened on January 5, 1918, as part of the Broadway Line, which was built for the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) as part of the Dual Contracts. The Sixth Avenue Line platforms opened in 1940, completing construction of the first phase of the Independent Subway System (IND). The IND platforms functioned as a terminal for some trains until 1968, when the Chrystie Street Connection opened. The station complex was renovated in the 1990s.
The BMT and IND stations both have two island platforms and four tracks, and there is a mezzanine above both sets of platforms. The station complex contains elevators, which make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. There is an out-of-system connection to the PATH's 33rd Street station, as well as closed passageways to the adjacent 42nd Street–Bryant Park station and to 34th Street–Penn Station on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. The 34th Street–Herald Square station is the third-busiest station in the system as of 2019, with over 39 million passengers entering the station that year.IND expansion
New York City mayor John Francis Hylan's original plans for the Independent Subway System (IND), proposed in 1922, included building over 100 miles (160 km) of new lines and taking over nearly 100 miles (160 km) of existing lines. The lines were designed to compete with the existing underground, surface, and elevated lines operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). The IND Sixth Avenue Line was designed to replace the elevated IRT Sixth Avenue Line. In 1924, the IND submitted its list of proposed subway routes to the New York City Board of Transportation (NYCBOT), which approved the program. One of the routes was a segment of tunnel from Fourth Street to 53rd Street. Part of this stretch was already occupied by the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (H&M)'s Uptown Hudson Tubes. As a result, negotiations between the city and the H&M continued for several years. The IND and H&M finally came to an agreement in 1930. The city had decided to build the IND Sixth Avenue Line's local tracks around the pre-existing H&M tubes, and add express tracks for the IND underneath the H&M tubes at a later date. The IND started advertising bids for the section of the Sixth Avenue Line between 43rd and 53rd Streets in April 1931.In April 1935, engineers started planning in earnest for the Midtown portion of the Sixth Avenue Line. The city government issued corporate stock to pay for the $53 million cost of the project, since the line was not eligible for federal Public Works Administration funds. The first contract, for the section between 40th and 47th Streets, was awarded to Rosoff-Brader Construction in October 1935. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia broke ground for the Sixth Avenue subway at Bryant Park on March 23, 1936. The Carleton Company was hired in September 1936 to construct the section from 27th to 33rd Streets, and Rosoff-Brader was hired that October to build the segment from 33rd to 40th Streets.The line was built as a four-track tunnel north of 33rd Street, but there were only two tracks south of that street. The work largely involved cut-and-cover excavations, although portions of the subway had to be tunneled through solid rock. The builders also had to avoid disrupting the Sixth Avenue elevated or the various utility lines on the avenue. The line had to be built below the H&M and BMT tunnels, but it also had to pass above the East River Tubes at 32nd and 33rd Streets. Excavation work was conducted 24 hours a day, with most of the blasting work being conducted at night. Workers had to use small charges of dynamite to avoid damaging nearby buildings or the parallel Catskill Aqueduct. The section north of 33rd Street had mostly been excavated by November 1937. The H&M's old 33rd Street terminal closed on December 26, 1937, and a rebuilt terminal opened on September 24, 1939. The IRT's Sixth Avenue elevated closed in December 1938, just before the Sixth Avenue subway was completed. Otis Elevator received a contract to install 16 escalators at the station.The IND's 34th Street–Herald Square station opened on December 15, 1940, as part of the opening of the IND Sixth Avenue Line from 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center to West Fourth Street. The opening of the Sixth Avenue Line relieved train traffic on the Eighth Avenue Line, which was used by all services except for the G Brooklyn–Queens Crosstown service. The line was initially served by the rush-hour BB, the D, and the F; the BB and D terminated at 34th Street.
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