By Gus Saltonstall
The elevators at a major Upper West Side train station reopened this week.
The two elevators at the West 72nd Street and Broadway 1, 2, and 3 train station are back up and running after more than a year of repair work.
The Rag witnessed multiple people ride the elevators Wednesday morning, and a Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker standing nearby confirmed they were back in service.
The 72nd Street elevators had been closed for replacement work since August 2025. The repairs were connected to “better reliability,” adding “modernized equipment,” creating a “smoother ride,” and “upgrading the security systems,” the MTA said at the time.
Initially, the MTA said the elevators would reopen by March of 2026, which was then pushed back to the summer of 2026, with the work actually concluding at the end of September 2026.
A 90-foot construction staging area was erected outside the West 72nd Street station within Verdi Square for the elevator work, which is still up as of Wednesday morning.
With the elevators back up and running, the staging equipment should come down in the near future.
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HALLELUJAH!
I’m excited, shall rush there to use the elevator before it breaks down.
Did they ever finish the elevators on the A, C, E line in the W 80’s?
They were installing the outside case for it yesterday so should be soon.
At 81st Street and Central Park West, they’re still digging. I understand that they need to blast through bedrock, which is why it’s taking so long. What I don’t understand is why it took a full year to get the 72nd Street elevators up and running.
good news, go figure!
Imagine running a business where you make a capital expenditure of about $25Million in todays dollars for a bread and butter system like elevators and then need to spend at least another $25Million only 20 years later to replace them.
Yay! I saw them testing the uptown one Monday night. Let’s hope they used a different contractor than TJ’s.
“The Rag witnessed multiple people ride the elevators Wednesday morning” but didn’t get on themselves. The Trader Joe’s experience has taught us to wait a while until the kinks are out.
The budget for reporting did not include the cost of a subway fare, so actual verification was skipped.
I’m so glad they just didn’t repurpose the Trader Joe’s escalator.
I miss taking a pee in this elevator. Glad its open again
Hope fully this was not the same contractor that did the 149 street elevator contract
That was 32 months behind sch when the elevators opened about a week ago.
And guess what two of them are already down for repairs
Name one project the MTA has completed on time.
Time for someone else to run the MTA….
For sure!
Betting pool for when you know what happens first. I say 2 weeks.
I just rode in one of the elevators at the 72nd street subway station. So nice to use one that’s not smelly or dirty! Hope it stays that way.
Finally
Took it this evening from the platform to the street. It works, but it is sloooow!
A job that should have taken less than a month has finally been completed after 14 months and who knows HOW many gobs of cash. Kudos, MTA!
I took the elevator on the uptown side last night to exit the station. it was slow moving and when we finally arrived at the ground level it stopped a full foot below the station floor and then slowly inched up to the floor. After a one-year plus renovation, this was really shoddy work.