Early plans In February 1963, the
New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) proposed a two-track East River subway tunnel under 76th Street with unspecified connections to the rest of the transit network, at a cost of $139 million. In a May 2, 1963, report, the proposed site of the tunnel was switched to 59th Street. On May 24,
Mayor Wagner suggested that a tunnel around 61st Street "be built with all deliberate speed". On October 17, 1963, the
Board of Estimate approved a new East River tunnel sited at 64th Street, noting that it would cost $30 million and take seven years to build. The 64th Street site was said to be $5.3 million less expensive, "because of easier grades and smaller curves". The lack of specificity about how the tunnel would be used was criticized at an early date. In December 1964, the Citizens Budget Committee said that the project, now shifted to 63rd Street, was "leading nowhere-to-nowhere". The Committee went on to propose three connections that were eventually adopted (connections to the
BMT Broadway Line and
IND Sixth Avenue Line, both at 57th Street, and to the
IND Queens Boulevard Line near Queens Plaza), and one that was not adopted (a connection to the
IRT Lexington Avenue Line). The route was changed to 63rd Street because officials at
Rockefeller Institute at 64th Street feared that heavy construction and later train movements so close to the institute's buildings might have adversely affected delicate instruments at the Institute and change the accuracy of the research being conducted. The Board of Estimate approved the revised 63rd Street route on January 14, 1965, at a budget of $28.1 million and a four-year timetable, with the connections to the rest of the transit network awaiting a study that was then scheduled for completion in mid-1966.
The New York Times noted that "A variety of possible connections...are under study," including possible new lines under Madison and Second Avenues. The NYCTA's chairman, Joseph E. O'Grady, said that the tunnel and the subway connections would eventually be completed at about the same time, "since construction of the tunnel takes at least a year longer than the connections". In 1966, Mayor
John Lindsay gave his approval for the 63rd Street option, preferring it over the 61st Street option. Lindsay's administration proposed a new station at 63rd Street to connect with the
Lexington Avenue/59th Street station via an underground
arcade surrounded by retail areas. Communities along the route of the proposed crosstown tunnel disagreed on the exact routing. Advocacy groups such as the Citizens Budget Commission,
Citizens Union, and the
Commerce and Industry Association preferred a 61st Street routing for easier interchange with the Lexington Avenue/59th Street station. Queens civic leaders supported the 63rd Street proposal, saying that a transfer station at 61st Street would worsen congestion on the already busy Lexington Avenue Line. That August, a fourth track was added to the plans after it was determined that LIRR trains would be too large to run on subway tracks. This amendment increased the number of LIRR tracks to two, and provided dedicated tracks for the LIRR and the subway. In November 1967, voters approved a $2.5 billion transportation bond issue, and in early 1968, under the
Program for Action, officials provided detailed plans for how it would be used. Among many other projects, the proposal included: • Three portions of a new 63rd Street–Southeast Queens line. This included a bi-level 63rd Street tunnel for both subway and Long Island Rail Road service; a super-express bypass for the IND Queens Boulevard Line running along the
LIRR Main Line between
Northern Boulevard and
Forest Hills–71st Avenue; and an IND Queens Boulevard branch line running along the LIRR Atlantic Branch right-of-way. • A new Long Island Expressway line for northeastern Queens, running to
Queens College and
Kissena Boulevard with a later extension to
Springfield Boulevard • A new
Archer Avenue subway line for eastern Queens, running to 188th Street in
Hollis • A
Second Avenue Subway line, with multiple connections to the 63rd Street line This proposal, with some modifications, received approval from the Board of Estimate on September 21, 1968.
Construction station Plans for the 63rd Street Line were approved by the
New York City Board of Estimate on June 3, 1969. Groundbreaking ceremonies for the line took place on November 24, 1969, at Vernon Boulevard and 21st Street in
Queensbridge Park, Long Island City. Workers tunneled westward from Queens, as well as in both directions under
Roosevelt Island. Four prefabricated sections of the 63rd Street Tunnel were constructed at
Port Deposit, Maryland, then towed to New York and sunk under the East River. The first of the tunnel segments was delivered in May 1971 and was lowered into place on August 29, 1971; The double-deck, One section of the line that ran through Central Park was controversial because it called for of
cut-and-cover tunneling, which would require digging an open trench through Central Park. In May 1970,
Manhattan Community Board 8 held a meeting so constituents could voice concerns about the project's impact. The next month, Mayor
John Lindsay told city engineers to write a report that studied ways to reduce the project's impact. In February 1971, the NYCTA published advertisements in newspapers, seeking construction bids for the tunnels under Central Park. After the advertisements had run for three days, the NYCTA withdrew them after community and conservation groups objected. Later that month, the NYCTA finally agreed to halve the width of the proposed -wide cut, which resulted in a proportionate decrease in the area of affected parkland. The NYCTA also agreed to reduce disruption to the
Heckscher Playground, located above the proposed subway tunnel's path, by cutting construction time from three years to two years and by constructing a temporary playground nearby. In March, the NYCTA again sought construction bids. The sections that connected to the existing Broadway and Sixth Avenue Lines were holed through on October 11, 1973. Construction on the section between 5th Avenue and Park Avenue began in August 1974. The project involved digging a -high cavern underneath the street. On March 20, 1975, New York mayor
Abraham Beame announced significant cutbacks to the plan. Construction of the Southeastern Queens extension was deferred until 1981, and the Long Island Rail Road extension through the lower level of the 63rd Street tunnel was canceled for the foreseeable future. However, it was still anticipated that the Queens Boulevard super-express and the Archer Avenue Line up to Parsons/Archer would still be completed. The Queens project, although curtailed, was given priority because it was "more advanced in construction". By January 1976, the tunnel was 95% complete. A US federal judge issued a stop-work order on May 13, but issued another verdict five days later that allowed construction to proceed. Construction resumed on May 25, after three weeks of protests, and the trees were cut down anyway. In summer 1976, the NYCTA announced that "it will take an extra five or six years—until 1987 or 1988—to complete the new Manhattan–Queens trunk subway line from Central Park to Jamaica via the new 63rd Street tunnel." The main cause of the delay was the 5.8-mile "super express", although it was expected that the three new Archer Avenue line stations could be ready sooner. As an interim measure, the NYCTA proposed a new station at Northern Boulevard, adjacent to Queens Plaza, which could possibly open by 1983 or 1984. However, there were also a lack of federal funds, so this could not be completed immediately. By this time, there were only going to be seven stations on the 63rd Street and Archer Avenue Lines combined. At the time, these two lines were part of the same route, the 63rd Street–Southeast Queens line. The name came about because the Central Park Zoo at that time was a classical 19th-century
menagerie, populated by wild animals displayed in open-air cages, who paced the bars back and forth
neurotically—always hoping for an escape, yet paradoxically blind to the world beyond their cramped quarters. ALI noted that by contrast, here were these feral teenagers, himself included, living in a free society, who sought nothing more wholeheartedly than to crowd together in a deep, dark hole in the ground. Marvelling at their perverse urban psychologies, ALI decided that all city people were insane for seeking imprisonment in tiny apartments, offices, subway cars and the like, and declared that New York City itself was "not
New, but a
Zoo!" He named the tunnel itself "Zoo York". In 1979, the New York City Department of Transportation and a steering committee started reexamining the New Routes program. The Queens Transit Alternatives Study was undertaken, evaluated 18 transit plans, and recommended that 5 be further evaluated. The MTA unveiled five proposals to local communities in the spring of 1983. The proposals ranged from leaving it as-is, with the line's terminus in Long Island City, to the original 1960s plan to connect the 63rd Street Line to the LIRR Main Line, the cost of which was now estimated at $1 billion. At
21st Street–Queensbridge, usage estimates for that station in 1984 were 220 passengers per hour unless a connection was made to the rest of the system. These options were formally evaluated by an Alternative Analysis/Draft Environmental Impact Statement completed by the Federal Transit Administration and the MTA in May 1984. while the 63rd Street line would run at only of its total capacity, in addition to reducing the viability of future extensions to the line. It would also require the service to terminate at
Court Square instead of operating local on the Queens Boulevard Line. • Extending the line through the
Sunnyside Yard and onto the LIRR Montauk Branch, running directly to the lower level of the
Archer Avenue Line in Jamaica. The Montauk Branch in Queens is currently used for freight service, last seeing passenger service in 1998, and would have been rebuilt and electrified. The Montauk line would merge with the
BMT Jamaica elevated at Lefferts Boulevard just west of
121st Street, then use the BMT approach to the Archer Avenue subway. The Jamaica El would be truncated to
Crescent Street in Brooklyn and replaced by
bus service. New stations would be built at Thomson Avenue within the Sunnyside Yard, and at Fresh Pond Road (the site of the former
Fresh Pond station) and
Woodhaven Boulevard (at the former
Ridgewood station site) along the Montauk Branch. The now-closed
Richmond Hill station on the Montauk Branch would be renovated and lengthened for subway service. The LIRR would have exclusive use of the tracks during overnight hours for freight service. This $594 million option would be open by 1997, but people living around the Montauk Branch opposed the proposal due to fears of increased traffic and danger from the Montauk Branch's multiple
grade crossings, though plans called for new overpasses and access roads to eliminate these crossings. The section of the line up to Long Island City was projected to open by the end of 1985. By June 1985, the project was again delayed indefinitely. According to
The New York Times, the tunnel had originally been planned to open that year, but then inspectors found that the tube was not ready for service. The tunnels had been inundated with of water, and several girders and electrical equipment had also deteriorated. Two contractors were hired to assess the structural integrity of the tunnel, and the delay was estimated at two years. In August 1985, at the instigation of Senator
Al D'Amato, the federal government suspended funding on both the 63rd Street and Archer Avenue projects over "concerns with the construction management practices". The two projects had cost nearly $1 billion between them, of which the federal government had provided $530 million for 63rd Street and $295 million for Archer Avenue.
Opening By February 1987, the MTA's contractors had concluded that the tunnel was structurally sound, although federal funding had not yet been released. The MTA approved a new plan to have the tunnel open by October 1989. The agency also proposed a $550 million, 1,500-foot connector to both the express and local tracks of the IND Queens Boulevard Line. Under the plan, the Queens Boulevard Line would be "reverse-signaled", which would accommodate Manhattan-bound trains on three out of the line's four tracks in the morning rush, and the opposite for the evening rush. This part of the plan was not projected to begin before the 1990s. In June 1987, the federal government completed its own review of the project. "A little light appeared at the end of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's 63rd Street 'tunnel to nowhere' last week", the
Times reported, as the government's own inspector found the tunnel sound, and released the final installment of $60 million for both the 63rd Street and Archer Avenue projects. The first train to use the extension was the "rail polisher train", a non-revenue move that occurred on August 1, 1989. The 63rd Street lines went into service on October 29, 1989, twenty years after construction began, with new stations at Lexington Avenue, Roosevelt Island, and 21st Street/41st Avenue in Queens. The IND line was served by trains on weekdays and trains on weekends. The connector to the Queens Boulevard Line had not yet started construction. The BMT line was not in use at that time. It was built for future service options, including a connection to the Second Avenue Subway for service from the
Upper East Side to
Lower Manhattan. From May to November 1995, the north side of the
Manhattan Bridge was closed for reconstruction during middays and weekends and the
Q train was routed via Broadway at this time. It used the BMT 63rd Street Line to connect to the IND 63rd Street Line and serve Lexington Avenue,
Roosevelt Island, and
21st Street–Queensbridge stations. The 57th Street/Sixth Avenue station was closed from 12:30 to 6 a.m. daily during the project. The project had initially been slated to be completed in fall 1999, but normal service resumed in May 1999, ahead of schedule. File:E63d St Ventilating Tower jeh.JPG|Ventilating tower in Manhattan (2nd Avenue & E 63rd Street) File:63 tunnel Rooselvelt Island jeh.JPG|
Roosevelt Island ventilation building File:63rd Tunnel 41st Av 4547 jeh.JPG|Queens ventilation structure
Connection to the Queens Boulevard Line Planning for the connection to the
IND Queens Boulevard Line began in December 1990, with the final design contract awarded in December 1992. Two build alternatives were evaluated: a connection to the local tracks of the Queens Boulevard Line, and a connection to the local and express tracks. The goal of the project was to increase capacity on Queens Boulevard by 33% and to eliminate the dead-end terminal at 21st Street–Queensbridge. Bellmouths were constructed to allow for a future bypass line through Sunnyside Yard. In December 2000, the 63rd Street Connector was made available for off-peak construction reroutes, but the first revenue in-service train did not use the connector until one month later. Regular service was expected to begin by August or September of that year. However, the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks delayed the commencement of regular service. The connector came into regular use on December 16, 2001, with the rerouting of F service at all times to 63rd Street. This service was discontinued on June 25, 2010, and replaced with a reroute of the .
Connections to the Second Avenue Subway Tunnel Boring Machine reaches the BMT 63rd Street Line. The 63rd Street Lines were envisioned to connect the
Second Avenue Subway to the
BMT Broadway Line, the
IND Sixth Avenue Line, and
Queens. The BMT 63rd Street Line would directly connect the upper Second Avenue Line to the Broadway Line. Construction on the IND Second Avenue Line began in 1972, but was halted in 1975 due to the
New York City fiscal crisis. As a result, the BMT 63rd Street Line was not finished and instead ended abruptly at Lexington Avenue-63rd Street station. In 2007, construction on the Second Avenue line recommenced and in 2011, construction started at Lexington Avenue-63rd Street to expand and renovate the station, and to complete the connection to the Second Avenue Line. This renovation removed the walls on the platforms and opened new entrances on the Third Avenue side of the station. The
tunnel boring machine being used to create the tunnels for the first phase of Second Avenue Line broke through the wall into the lower level of the BMT 63rd Street Line on September 22, 2011. On January 1, 2017, the first phase of the Second Avenue Line opened, extending the
Q and
N services under Central Park and eastward to the stop at Lexington Avenue–63rd Street before turning north at Second Avenue to merge with the Second Avenue Line. The double-decked
Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station provides
cross-platform interchange between the two 63rd Street lines. Northbound trains use the lower level; southbound trains use the upper level. is proposed to include a separate connection between the IND 63rd Street Line and the Second Avenue Line, turning southwest from 63rd Street onto Second Avenue. This connection would allow trains coming from the
IND Queens Boulevard Line to run on the Second Avenue Line to
Midtown Manhattan and
Lower Manhattan. Garbage piled up within the unused bellmouths for this connection; when the trash was cleaned up in 2021, MTA officials estimated that the rubbish piles might have been accumulating in the bellmouths since the 1980s.
2020s to present As part of a $107 million project, the tunnels experienced numerous service disruptions in 2023 to accommodate replacement of direct fixation track and cables, installation of new signal equipment, leak remediation, and repairs to concrete surfaces. Much of the concrete track was installed in 1981, eight years before the line opened. Regular service via 63rd Street resumed on April 1, 2024. ==Station listing==