This station is a rather high-up elevated station ….in the West Side? Huh, interesting. Well, meet 125th on the #1 subway line.
Located over Broadway at 125th Street, this station is a local stop on the #1 line with a few bus connections. The station is a pretty standard IRT local station, with the usual amenities, and a station agent in the underside of the tracks. There’s also escalators going down to street level, along with (if memory serves) an OMNY machine. There really isn’t much to remark about this elevated station, as it’s rather similar to many other IRT elevateds. Yeah, sorry. Now, the station IS still rather unique – both stations adjacent are underground yet the tracks are level. It was done this way for a good reason, owing to Manhattanville’s weird topography (it’s in a rather large valley). You can’t really dig beneath the streets without issues here.
The good: It exists to serve the local neighborhood and has bus connections! It also sees pretty decent usage.
The bad: It’s not really accessible, and the nearest accessible stations in each direction are 96th Street and Dyckman Street – both of which are a ways away. However, if you’re willing to use a local bus to get here, the A/B/C/D stop at 125th and St. Nicholas is accessible, though! (albeit via the M125, which is kinda bad).
Nearby points of interest: There’s a memorial honoring President Grant nearby, a few housing developments, the southernmost sections of City College, and (for those who are bus enjoyers) the Manhattanville bus depot.
Transit connections:
7th Ave. (Line #1)
MTA bus (M4, M60-SBS, M104, M125)
Overall, it’s not terrible, and the topography makes the station kinda cool! But, it’s really annoying when the nearest accessible station is either 96th Street or 3 miles away to the north (in the Bronx, barely!). Yuck.
Rating: 6/10
