Original IRT station Construction and opening Planning for a
subway line in New York City dates to 1864. However, development of what would become the
city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the
New York State Legislature authorized the Rapid Transit Act. The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by
John B. McDonald and funded by
August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. Contract 2, giving a lease of 35 years, was executed between the commission and the Rapid Transit Construction Company on September 11, 1902. The South Ferry loop was built as part of subsection 2 of Contract 2 and was largely constructed as an open trench. Contractors installed a waterproof membrane and operated pumps continuously to prevent the loop from being inundated by water from
New York Harbor. Battery Park was only above mean high water, while the South Ferry station, below, was as much as beneath mean high water. Because Battery Park had been created largely through
land reclamation, workers found skulls, copper coins, logs, and remnants of brick piers when they were excavating the station's site. The Joralemon Street Tunnel opened in 1908, and all rush-hour trains started operating to Brooklyn the next year. To address overcrowding, in 1909, the
New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts, made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. The South Ferry station was not lengthened, but the platforms at other stations were extended,
Dual System The
Dual Contracts were formalized in March 1913, specifying new lines or expansions to be built by the IRT and the
Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT). Construction started on a southward extension of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line in 1914. In order for the line to continue down Varick Street and West Broadway, these streets needed to be widened, and two new streets were built, the Seventh Avenue Extension and the Varick Street Extension. It was predicted that the subway extension would lead to the growth of the Lower West Side, and to neighborhoods such as
Chelsea and
Greenwich Village. When the Dual Contracts were finalized, the IRT revised the plans so the Seventh Avenue Line instead connected with the existing line's outer loop. The tunnel slightly underpinned a structure owned by the
Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, which in July 1914 sued to prevent the tunnel from being built. During the line's construction, the contractor discovered an ancient cannon and two cannon balls under Battery Park. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line extension was nearly complete by late 1917, but the line did not have signals or electricity because of World War I-related delays. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line was extended to South Ferry on July 1, 1918. The inner-loop platform opened the same year, serving trains on the Lexington Avenue Line. The IRT operated the South Ferry station until June 12, 1940, when the city government took over the IRT's operations. Originally, only the end doors of each car of a five-car train could platform at the station, because of the large gap between the middle doors and the platform, owing to the severe curve of the station. This problem was remedied in January 1959 when gap fillers were installed. On February 10, 1959, the
New York City Transit Authority approved a $185,000 project to renovate the station. The project would take a year to be completed. The project would remove change booths and turnstiles from platform level to provide more space on the platform and reduce congestion. They would be relocated to a new street-level station house that would be built out of terra cotta, aluminum, glass, and stainless steel. The doors of the new entrance would be connected with the ferry house ramp with a wide stairway. The structure would be designed to fit in with the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Work got underway on the project later in 1959.
BMT station Also planned under the Dual Contracts was the
Broadway Line of the BRT (which later became the
Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT). The first section of the Broadway Line, between
14th Street–Union Square and
Canal Street, opened in 1917. Although the line was extended north to
Times Square–42nd Street and south to
Rector Street in January 1918, the short extension from Rector Street to Whitehall Street was delayed by several months. The BRT attributed the delays to "inadequate turnback facilities" at Whitehall Street and, in August 1918, announced that they would revise the track configuration of the station. When the Whitehall Street station opened on September 20, 1918, it was the southern terminal of the Broadway Line. An additional entrance at the southern end of the station opened in November 1919, providing a direct connection to the Whitehall Terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. The line was extended south in 1920 when the
Montague Street Tunnel opened. The platform-lengthening project was completed in 1927, bringing the length of the platforms to . The city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940. On January 6, 1994, Automated Fare Collection turnstiles went into service at the Whitehall Street BMT station and at the
Wall Street station.
Transfer and new IRT station Planning On September 11, 2001,
a terrorist attack destroyed the
World Trade Center, located slightly to the north of South Ferry and the Battery. The segment of the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line that ran through the WTC, including the
Cortlandt Street station two stops north of South Ferry, was also destroyed; the line reopened in September 2002, bypassing Cortlandt Street. Concurrent with the rebuilding of that section of the line, MTA officials recognized the need to build a more efficient terminal for the 1 and 9 trains at South Ferry, since it was anticipated that the line would be heavily used in the long-term aftermath of the attacks. This also coincided with the renovation of Battery Park. Money was allocated for the new station's construction in 2003. The station was originally budgeted at $400 million, most of which came from a
Federal Transit Administration grant that had been earmarked for the
World Trade Center's reconstruction. Initially, neighborhood groups opposed the station's construction because of the high cost and low perceived time savings. The MTA contemplated extending the existing outer loop to fit 10-car trains. Community leaders acquiesced after being told that some of the money was going to be used to renovate Battery Park, and the South Ferry Terminal Project was allowed to proceed.
New York State Assembly speaker
Sheldon Silver expressed opposition to the new South Ferry station, prompting U.S. representative
Vito Fossella to announce that he would block funding for the
Second Avenue Subway (which Silver supported) unless Silver dropped his opposition to the new terminal. Silver eventually agreed to drop his opposition if funding was provided for Battery Park's renovation, and federal, state, and city officials reached an agreement in June 2004. The FTA issued a
Finding of No Significant Impact on August 30, 2004. The project was split up into three parts: construction of
bellmouths, a fan plant, and track junctions from the existing line; approach tunnels to the station; and a new
deep-level station. After archaeological analysis, it was widely reported to be the oldest man-made structure still in place in Manhattan. Four walls and over 250,000 individual artifacts were found in the excavation of the subway station. The work involved excavating over of rock, almost all of which was then recycled. By September 2007,
MTA Capital Construction president Mysore Nagaraja predicted that the station would be completed by the following August. The following month, MTA officials found that the tracks were too far from the edge of the platform to comply with the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The error cost $200,000 to fix, forcing the opening to be postponed by several weeks. which were caused by the station's high
water table. The station opened on March 16, 2009, a year after it was originally set to open. At $530 million, the new South Ferry station ended up being $130 million over budget. which reopened in 2011.
Post–Hurricane Sandy On October 29, 2012, the new IRT station suffered extensive flood damage during
Hurricane Sandy. The subway system had been flooded during the hurricane, and water ultimately collected in the lowest parts of the system, including the new South Ferry IRT station and many tunnels across the
East River. As a result, the IRT section of the complex was closed until further notice, and riders had to either use the Whitehall Street station or walk several blocks north to catch a 1 train at
Rector Street. The Whitehall Street BMT station was less severely damaged, and full service to that station was restored by December 2012. The MTA initially did not consider reopening the old IRT outer loop, saying that it no longer owned the station, that the platform was inaccessible, and that the only exits had been "halved to allow for an employee facility". the MTA indicated it would reopen the old outer loop. In March 2013, the MTA confirmed that the outer loop would be reopened. The 1 train's terminal was moved back to Rector Street until the old loop station could be put back into service. The outer loop was the first permanently-closed subway station in the MTA's history to have been reopened. and the new IRT station underwent extensive reconstruction, including the sealing of vents, manholes, hatches, conduits, and ducts, and the cleaning up of the station. These improvements necessitated the closure of the station complex's main entrance for nine months starting in October 2015. The signage and lighting fixtures were also modified, and the "South Ferry" signs on the trackside walls were enlarged. The renovation cost $345 million.
Service history IRT stations The South Ferry outer loop was the first to open. When it was completed in 1905, the outer loop was served by local and express trains along both the West Side (now the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to
Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street) and East Side (now the
Lenox Avenue Line). West Side local trains had their southern terminus at
City Hall during rush hours and South Ferry at other times, and had their northern terminus at 242nd Street. East Side local trains ran from City Hall to
Lenox Avenue (145th Street). Express trains had their southern terminus at South Ferry or
Atlantic Avenue and had their northern terminus at 242nd Street, Lenox Avenue (145th Street), or
West Farms (
180th Street). After the Joralemon Street Tunnel opened in 1908, some trains continued to terminate at South Ferry during
rush hours, while others went to Brooklyn. This service pattern was soon found to be inadequate for the high volume of Brooklyn riders. As a result, a third track and second platform were added at the
Bowling Green station, the next stop north. The Lexington Avenue Line opened north of
Grand Central–42nd Street on August 1, 1918, thereby dividing the original line into an H-shaped system. Lexington Avenue express trains and Bowling Green shuttles typically used the inner loop, while Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line trains could only use the outer loop. The IRT routes at the station were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of
"R-type" rolling stock, which contained
rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The Broadway route to 242nd Street became known as the
1, the Broadway Avenue route to Lenox Avenue became the
3, and the Lexington Avenue express became the
5. After 1959, all 1 trains became local, while 3 trains stopped serving the station, instead making express stops on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and using the
Clark Street Tunnel south of
Chambers Street. Because of the sharp curve of the inner loop, only the center doors of a train opened there; however, the "R"-type cars could not open only their middle doors. As a result, Lexington Avenue trains were rerouted to the outer loop. Specially modified
R12 cars were used starting in the late 1960s until the service ended. These cars had two different door controls; the first opened the outer two sets of doors while the second opened the center set of doors only. The inner loop closed permanently on February 13, 1977, the NYCTA unveiled plans to speed up service on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line through the implementation of a
skip-stop service: the
9 train. When skip-stop service started in 1989, it was only implemented north of
137th Street–City College on weekdays, and South Ferry was served by both the 1 and the 9. The station was closed from September 2001 and September 2002, as the section of the line south of Chambers Street was impassable after the September 11 attacks. All 1 trains were shifted from the outer loop to the new island-platform station in April 2009, though that station was closed in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy. The outer loop was used as a temporary terminal for 1 trains from April 2013 to June 2017, when the island platform reopened.
BMT station The Whitehall Street station opened in 1918 as the southern terminal for Broadway Line local trains. Broadway Line trains to Brooklyn could either use the tunnel, stopping at Whitehall Street and five other stations in
Lower Manhattan and
Downtown Brooklyn, or use the
Manhattan Bridge, which skipped all of these stations. Brighton express trains were later rerouted to the Manhattan Bridge, while Brighton locals started using the tunnel. After the
BMT Nassau Street Line was completed in 1931, West End trains via the Montague Street Tunnel started using the Nassau Street Line instead. The EE route was absorbed into the N in 1976, and N trains alternately began running to Whitehall Street or to Brooklyn. After the
Manhattan Bridge was closed for repairs in 1986, all off-peak N trains began running through the Montague Street Tunnel, stopping at Whitehall Street. Starting in December 1988, N and R trains ran through the tunnel and the Whitehall Street station at all times. When the Manhattan Bridge reopened in February 2004, the R train began serving the station at all times except late nights, while the N train only served the station at night. until that route was discontinued in June 2010. When the Montague Street Tunnel closed for repairs in August 2013, weekday R service was divided into two segments; the Whitehall Street station was the southern terminus of the Manhattan-Queens segment. The R train did not serve the station on weekends, and the N train did not stop there at all, until regular service resumed in September 2014. The W train was restored in 2016, ==Station layout==