81st Street – Museum of Natural History (IND Eighth Avenue Line)

81st Street – Museum of Natural History
New York City Subway rapid transit station
300px
Station statistics
Address	West 81st Street & Central Park West New York, NY 10024
Borough	Manhattan
Locale	Upper West Side
Coordinates
Division	B (IND)
Line	IND Eighth Avenue Line
Services	A  (late nights)       B  (weekdays until 11:00 p.m.)       C  (all except late nights)
Transit connections	NYCT Bus: M10, M79 MTA Bus: BxM2
Structure	Underground
Levels	2
Platforms	2 side platforms (1 on each level)
Tracks	4 (2 on each level)
Other information
Opened	September 10, 1932  (1932-09-10)
Wireless service
Traffic
Passengers (2014)	4,561,347  1.9%
Rank	106 out of 421
Station succession
Next north	86th Street: A  B  C
Next south	72nd Street: A  B  C
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times except late nights Stops late nights only Stops weekdays only

81st Street – Museum of Natural History is a local station on the IND Eighth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is served by the C train at all times except nights, when the A train takes over service. The B train provides additional service here on weekdays except nights.

Station layout

G	Street Level	Exit / Entrance
B1	Northbound express	← do not stop here
	Northbound local	← toward Bedford Park Boulevard rush hours, 145th Street other times (86th Street) ← toward 168th Street ( toward 207th Street late nights) (86th Street)
	Side platform, doors will open on the left
	Mezzanine	Fare control, station agent, MetroCard vending machines, entrance to American Museum of Natural History
B2	Southbound express	→ do not stop here →
	Southbound local	→ toward Brighton Beach (72nd Street) → → toward Euclid Avenue ( toward Far Rockaway late nights) (72nd Street) →
	Side platform, doors will open on the right

The station has four tracks and two side platforms. On this section of the line, the local tracks are stacked, uptown above downtown, and the express tracks are stacked in the same order to the east of them, so both platforms are on the west side, one above the other. The station is at Central Park West and 81st Street, rather than the major crosstown 79th Street (although an entrance also exists at this street) to accommodate the American Museum of Natural History, which largely fills the area of what was once called the Manhattan Square. The 79th Street Transverse Road, through Central Park, exits the park here. An underground entrance directly into the museum's lowest level is at the south end of the uptown (northbound or upper) platform.

South of this station are storage/lay up tracks between the local and express tracks on each level. Both ends of the tracks merge with the express tracks, with switches to the local tracks.

Artwork

File:81 Street wall vc.jpg

Dinosaur artwork on one of the station walls

When the station was renovated in the 1990s, in coordination with building the new Hayden Planetarium, within the Rose Center for Earth and Space, a program of tile mosaics was undertaken, covering the stairs and platforms, extending to floor inlays. Stairwells evoke descending into the geological strata of the Earth (at 81st Street) or into the Ocean (79th Street). Many creatures are evoked in mosaic vignettes that punctuate the stretches of white tiled wall. Fossil casts seem to emerge from the tiles as though the subway platform itself were an excavation, which indeed it is.

Under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) Arts and Design program, a mixed-media installation was created in 2000. Entitled "For Want of a Nail", named after the old proverb, it addresses the interconnections of entities that are as vast as a galaxy and as small as a single cell. Using ceramic tile, glass tile, glass mosaic, bronze relief, and granite as primary materials, the design team depicted the evolution of extinct, existing and endangered life forms, from single celled organisms to the towering T. rex dinosaur. It shows images and symbols ranging from the Earth's core, to the sea, the sky and the cosmos beyond. No artist has been identified in this group project.

External links

• nycsubway.org—81st Street — Museum of Natural History (8th Avenue)
• nycsubway.org—"For Want of a Nail" Artwork (MTA Arts for Transit) (1999)
• Station Reporter — B Train
• Station Reporter — C Train
• The Subway Nut—81st Street – Museum of Natural History Pictures
• MTA's Arts For Transit—81st Street – Museum of Natural History (IND Eighth Avenue Line)
• Corner of 81st Street and Central Park West subway entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Central Park West subway entrance in front of the American Museum of Natural History from Google Maps Street View
• Platform from Google Maps Street View