abstract
| - Fifth Avenue–59th Street is a station on the BMT Broadway Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan, it is served by the N train (all times), the R train (all times except late nights), and the W train (weekdays). The full time side of the station at the north end by 60th Street has three street staircases, one carved into the outer perimeter of Central Park and the other two across Fifth Avenue. Replicas of BMT directional mosaics “QUEENS TRAINS” and “BROOKLYN TRAINS” are found on this side. The part time side at Central Park South, just by the Plaza Hotel, formerly had a booth (closed in 2003) and three street staircases as well. Each mezzanine has one stair to each platform. Mosaics “5”, “Fifth Ave,” and the directional signs on each platform, are fully preserved with new tiles encircling around them. This station was overhauled in the late 1970s. MTA fixed the station's structure and the overall appearance. It replaced the original wall tiles, old signs, and incandescent lighting with the 70's modern look wall tile band and tablet mosaics, signs and fluorescent lights. It also fixed staircases and platform edges. In 2002, the station received a major overhaul. It received state-of-art repairs as well as an upgrade to the station for ADA compliance and restoration of the original late 1910s tiling. MTA repaired the staircases, re-tiled the walls, installed new tiling on the floors, upgraded the station's lights and the public address system, and installed ADA yellow safety threads along the platform edge, new signs, and new trackbeds in both directions. Artwork here was made in 1997 by Ann Schaumburger and is called Urban Oasis. It uses glass mosaic murals to depict families of different types of animals.
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