Roosevelt Island is a station on the IND 63rd Street Line of the New York City Subway. Located in Manhattan on Roosevelt Island in the East River, it is served by the F train at all times and the <F> train during rush hours in the peak direction. The Roosevelt Island station was first proposed in 1965, when the New York City Transit Authority announced that it would build a subway station to encourage transit-oriented development on Roosevelt Island. The station and the rest of the 63rd Street Line were built as part of the Program for Action, a wide-ranging subway expansion program, starting in the late 1960s. When construction of the line was delayed, the Roosevelt Island Tram was built in 1973. The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation was formed in 1984 to develop the island, but was not successful until October 1989 when the subway station opened along with the rest of the 63rd Street Line. The opening encouraged the development of the island, which has made the station busier. Until December 2001, this was the second-to-last stop of the line, which terminated one stop east at 21st Street–Queensbridge. In 2001 the 63rd Street Tunnel Connection opened, allowing trains from the IND Queens Boulevard Line to use the line. Since the opening of the connection, the line has been served by F trains, and the subway then became the second means for direct travel between the island and Queens, supplementing the buses that had been operating over the Roosevelt Island Bridge. The station is one of the system's deepest, at below ground. The depth of the station is required because the line has to pass under the West and East Channels of the East River.
History
Background
Roosevelt Island was once home to a penitentiary and some asylums, as well as being home to numerous hospitals. It was originally called Blackwell's Island, but in 1921 it became known as Welfare Island because of the numerous hospitals on the island. The island became neglected once the hospitals started closing and their buildings were left abandoned to decay. During the 1960s, some groups started proposing uses for the island. On February 16, 1965, the New York City Transit Authority announced plans to construct a subway station on the island along the planned 63rd Street Line, as part of the island's proposed transit-oriented development. TOD tries to increase the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. With this announcements, more suggestions for what to do with the island were made. The construction of a station was viewed to be vital for the development of the island, which was still known as Welfare Island. At that point, it was decided to build a shell for the station, to allow for the station to open after the opening of the rest of the line, with a projected savings of $4 million compared to building the station as an infill station after the rest of the line opened. The projected cost of the station was $3.3 million. It was soon decided to build the station with the rest of the line. The 63rd Street Line was the final version of proposals for a northern midtown tunnel from the IND Queens Boulevard Line to the Second and Sixth Avenue lines, which dated back to the IND Second System of the 1920s and 1930s. The current plans were drawn up in the 1960s under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Program For Action, where the 63rd Street subway line was to be built in the upper portion of the bi-level 63rd Street Tunnel. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Roosevelt Island was redeveloped to accommodate low- to mid-income housing projects. However, there was no direct transit connection to Manhattan. The subway was delayed and still under construction; trolley tracks that formerly served Roosevelt Island via the Queensboro Bridge were unusable; and the only way on and off the island was via the Roosevelt Island Bridge to Queens. A tram route, the Roosevelt Island Tramway, was opened in May 1976 as a "temporary" connection to Manhattan. The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation was formed in 1984 to develop the island, but was not successful until October 1989 when the subway station opened along with the rest of the 63rd Street Line. After that, a high-rise luxury apartment building with some subsidized housing opened.
Opening
This station opened on October 29, 1989 along with the entire IND 63rd Street Line. The opening of the subway resulted in a steep decline in Roosevelt Island Tramway ridership. The train served the station on weekdays and the train stopped there on the weekends; both services used the Sixth Avenue Line. For the first couple of months after the station opened, the JFK Express to Kennedy Airport ran on the line, but did not serve the station, until it was discontinued in 1990. The 63rd Street Tunnel had gained notoriety as the "tunnel to nowhere" both during its planning and after its opening, as the line's northern terminus at 21st Street–Queensbridge, one stop after Roosevelt Island, was not connected to any other subway station or line in Queens. This changed in 2001 when the connection to the Queens Boulevard Line was completed and opened. Thereafter, the station began being served by the F train, which serves Roosevelt Island to this day. At an April 14, 2008, news conference, Governor David Paterson announced that the MTA would power a substantial portion of the station using tidal energy generated by turbines located in the East River, which are part of the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project. This was part of a larger MTA initiative to use sustainable energy resources within the subway system; however, the initiative later stalled.
Station layout
The station has two tracks and two side platforms. It is the fourth-deepest station in the New York City Subway at about below street level behind 34th Street–Hudson Yards, 190th Street, and 191st Street stations, also in Manhattan. Due to its depth, the station contains several features not common in the rest of the system. Similar to stations of the Paris Metro and Washington Metro, the Roosevelt Island station was built with a high vaulted ceiling and a mezzanine directly visible above the tracks. The station is fully ADA-accessible, with elevators to street level. West of this station, there is a diamond crossover and two bellmouths that curve southward toward an unbuilt portion of the Second Avenue Subway. The currently unused lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel contains an emergency exit to this station. The lower level will be used by Long Island Rail Road trains once East Side Access is completed. The Roosevelt Island station is one of two subway stations in Manhattan that are not located on Manhattan Island itself, the other being the Marble Hill–225th Street station on the. It is also one of two New York City Subway stations located on its own island, the other being the Broad Channel station in Queens, serving the.
Exit
is in a glass-enclosed headhouse building off of Main Street. The headhouse has a feature that is unusual to the subway system: it uses recordings of birds to try to scare away city pigeons, and these bird recordings play every few minutes or so. The system was installed because of problems with pigeons entering the headhouse and leaving feathers and droppings both inside and around the building. Previous efforts, like spiked ledges, had been ineffective in curbing the pigeon population of the area immediately next to the station.
Ridership
When the station opened in 1989, daily ridership on the Roosevelt Island Tramway, an aerial tramway that also connects Roosevelt Island to Manhattan, decreased sharply, from 5,500 daily riders in 1989 to 3,000 by 1993. In 2008, the subway station saw about 5,900 daily riders, compared to 3,000 for the tram, which had maintained steady ridership. Over the next eight years, the station experienced additional ridership growth. In 2016, an average of 6,630 daily riders used the station on an average weekday. This amounted to 2,110,471 total riders entering the station in 2016.
The station serves several destinations on Roosevelt Island. On the northern part of the island is the Bird S. Coler Hospital, a large city-owned facility. On the southern portion of the island, Cornell University and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology opened their new Cornell Tech campus, which will focus on new applied science and technology, in September 2017. On Main Street is the Good Shepherd Church, which was built in 1888 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. A ballfield on the island is named Firefighters Field in honor of three firefighters that died while trying to save lives in the September 11 attacks. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which was intended to be replaced by the subway, is still in service with a terminal just south of the subway entrance. It is used by commuters and tourists alike.
