61st Street–Woodside station


61st Street–Woodside is an express station on the IRT Flushing Line of the New York City Subway located at 61st Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, Queens. It is served by the 7 train, with additional peak-direction <7> service during rush hours.

History

61st Street–Woodside opened on April 21, 1917 as Woodside, as part of an extension of the IRT Flushing Line to Alburtis Avenue. The Long Island Rail Road station predates the station, as it originally opened in 1869.
The platforms at 61st Street were extended in 1955–1956 to accommodate 11-car trains.
In 1981, the MTA listed the station among the 69 most deteriorated stations in the subway system.
As part of the 2015–2019 Capital Program, the MTA would renovate the 52nd, 61st, 69th, 82nd, 103rd and 111th Streets stations, a project that has been delayed for several years but is slated to begin in mid-2020. Conditions at these stations were among the worst of all stations in the subway system.

Station layout

This station has two island platforms and three tracks. The two outer tracks are used for the full-time local service while the bidirectional center track is used for rush hour peak-direction <7> express service. There is a mezzanine located at the center, underneath the platforms, with an ADA-accessible elevator to each platform, as well as another to each Long Island Rail Road platform. The elevator from the mezzanine to the street stops at the LIRR's eastbound Main Line platform.
Artwork includes John Cavanagh's Commuting/Community, located near the stairway down to LIRR Track 4, and Dimitri Gerakaris' Woodside Continuum, which forms part of the steel-grating fare-control separation.

Exits

Entrance and exit are provided by long stairs down to street level on the northern curb of Roosevelt Avenue at 61st Street, as well as to other nearby locations via the LIRR platforms. An ADA-compliant elevator provides access to street level at the northeast corner of 61st Street and Roosevelt Avenue, while a long escalator at the southeast corner provides entrance only. The Woodside station of the Long Island Rail Road is located directly beneath the Flushing Line station; any of the three LIRR platforms can be accessed directly from the mezzanine.

In popular culture

This station was used for a scene in John Cassavetes's 1980 film Gloria. The station was depicted in a scene in the Coen brothers' 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis, though actual filming occurred elsewhere.