MTA to Install Raised Subway Vents, Bike Racks in Tribeca

By Matt Dunning
POSTED AUGUST 21, 2008

A dramatic change along some of Tribeca's sidewalks is coming.

Hoping to avoid a redux of the catastrophic flooding that shut down several of the city’s subway lines last summer, the NYC Transit recently revealed plans to install raised ventilation grates along four blocks of West Broadway and one block of Varick Street.

And above each grate?

A bicycle rack capable of holding up to eight bikes with stainless steel benches jutting out from either end.

The 16 raised grates, ranging from 16 to 26 feet long, will be placed on West Broadway between Chambers and Leonard and Varick Street between Leonard and Franklin.

In order to prevent rain water from spilling through to the subway lines and platforms below, the new grates, designed by Grimshaw Architects, will rise six inches above the sidewalk.

Since most of the grates that the MTA plans to replace are within the Tribeca Historic District, the design came before Community Board 1’s Landmarks Committee this summer. Although the committee was asked to opine only on the appropriateness of the design to the historic district—the city’s Landmarks Pre­s­ervation Commission and Public Design Commission had already approved the design—the committee took aim at the entire proposal.

In its advisory resolution, it rejected the grates as “totally inappropriate for the Historic District” and said they would further clog the area’s already crowded streets. (All told, pedestrians stand to lose more than 1,500 square feet of sidewalk space on West Broadway.)

“I think it’s absurd for the MTA, while it’s struggling with a deficit, to mitigate for a ‘hundred-year storm,’” said committee co-chairman, Bruce Ehrmann.

The stretch of track between the Franklin Street and Chambers Street stations, NYC Transit design manager Stephen Petrillo told the committee, was one of the worst-affected sections of the subway system during the freak thunderstorms on Aug. 8, 2007 that brought train and bus service to a near standstill.

“It was unprecedented within our system,” Petrillo said. “After that event a commitment was made to the Governor...to mitigate these problems so they don’t happen again.”

Similar programs are planned for other trouble spots identified after the 2007 flood, including sections of upper Broadway and Queens.

“The grates are more than capable of dealing with falling rainwater,” Petrillo said, adding that the problems start when water collects on the sidewalk and streets, and then pours down the ventilation shafts.

Next month, a prototype of the new grate is scheduled to be installed on the east side of West Broadway between Thomas and Worth. Petrillo said the entire project should be completed in March.

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