page_title: Lexington Avenue/51st Street station
section_title: IRT Lexington Avenue Line platforms
hierarchical_section_title: Lexington Avenue/51st Street station / IRT Lexington Avenue Line platforms
caption_attribution_description: 51st Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)
context_page_description: Lexington Avenue/51st Street is a New York City Subway station complex on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and IND Queens Boulevard Line. Located on Lexington Avenue and stretching from 51st Street to 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, it is served by the:
  6 and E trains at all times
  M trains during weekdays
  <6> trains during weekdays in the peak direction
  4 trains during late nights
  The complex comprises two separate stations: 51st Street and Lexington Avenue–53rd Street.
  In 2017, the station complex had an annual ridership of 18,940,774, making it the ninth-busiest in the system.
  Originally two separate stations, the Lexington Avenue–53rd Street IND station and 51st Street IRT station are now connected via a transfer passage, which was opened in 1988 upon the completion of 599 Lexington Avenue. Approximately 50,000 riders transfer between the Lexington Avenue and Queens Boulevard Lines each weekday.
context_section_description: 51st Street on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, opened on July 17, 1918, is a local station with two local tracks and two side platforms. The two express tracks, used by the 4 and 5 trains during daytime hours, pass through a lower level and are not visible from the platforms. Both platforms have emergency exits from the lower level express tracks.
  The station features modern beige bricks over the original tiles, but the standard IRT-style mosaics remain intact. There is a crossunder at the extreme north end of the platforms with an elevator on each side and an up-only escalator on the Brooklyn Bridge-bound side. A ceramic artwork called Tunnel Vision by Nina Yankowitz was installed here in 1989.
  The passageway to the IND Queens Boulevard Line is on the extreme north end of the northbound platform, with a crossunder to the southbound side. This crossunder features stairs, elevators and up-only escalators.
  The platforms are approximately 25 feet below street level and the station's full-time fare control areas are at the center of each. A staircase of seven steps goes up to a turnstile bank, with a token booth and two exits to each corner on each side outside fare control.
  This station is the southernmost station on the Lexington Avenue Line to be directly under Lexington Avenue itself. South of here, the line shifts slightly westward to Park Avenue.
caption: Downtown local platform
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