Bowling Green is a small park located at the end of Broadway in Lower Manhattan, built in 1733. As the name suggested, it had an actual bowling green (used for lawn bowling) at one point, however I’m unsure if it still exists. This also happens to be the last station on the 4 and 5 lines before going into Brooklyn via the Joralemon Street tunnel. Let’s look at the station, though.
The station very much has been renovated at one point, as aside from a headhouse, there’s zero traces of IRT stuff here aside from an abandoned platform. Now, what was it used for? Well, the IRT used to run a shuttle from here to …South Ferry. What? Why would you run a shuttle 300 FEET?! Anyways, the platforms are more similar to State Street on the Orange Line in Boston, where doors open on the left one way and right in the other way. The platforms have your usual amenities, and you have a station agent and an OMNY machine. Furthermore, you have accessibility by way of elevators, and there’s two very different headhouses. In the Battery, you have the original IRT headhouse (which looks quite beautiful, by the way!), while another, more modern, house exists outside the Hamilton Customhouse (which also looks nice, but somehow I missed it). Being in lower Manhattan, your primary bus connections are to express buses and you’re stupidly close to a bunch of other stations.
The good: It exists! Furthermore, it’s the other IRT line’s access to the southernmost bits of Manhattan. It also has a headhouse in the Battery itself, along with a station agent. It’s also accessible! It’s also definitely been renovated and doesn’t seem to need that much a facelift.
The bad: No, this isn’t to be confused with Bowling Green, KY, or Ohio. Yeah, I can’t really think of much against this station.
Nearby points of interest: The Bowling Green, the Battery, the Alexander Hamilton customhouse, and a bunch of skyscrapers! This is also the closest station on the 4/5 lines to the Whitehall Street ferry terminal.
Transit connections:
Lexington Ave. (Lines #s 4/5)
MTA bus (M20, M55, BM1, BM2, BM3, BM4, QM7, QM8, QM11, QM25, QM65, SIM1C, SIM3C, SIM4, SIM4C, SIM4X, SIM5, SIM15, SIM33C, SIM35)
NJ Transit bus (120)
Rating: 8.5/10
Overall, it’s a rather very decent station. It’s got a lot of bus connections, looks nice, is functionally very usable, and overall just has nothing offensive going against it. Also, the headhouses look nice and not overbuilt.
