Workers have been clearing rubble from the tracks of the station 12 stories below ground.
Subway ceiling collapses
181st St. station
> Opened on March 16, 1906
> Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
> It lies 121 feet below ground. Along with 168th and 191st streets, this station was created through “round bored tunnel construction.”
> It had an average weekday ridership of 11,132 in 2008.
Transit officials could not say yesterday when service on the No. 1 train in Upper Manhattan would be restored after a section of the 181st St. station’s brick ceiling collapsed as a train was in the station.
No injuries were reported in the Sunday night scare, said transit officials, who are still investigating the cause of the collapse. Before the incident, a scaffold had been erected close to the ruined section of the 35-foot-high ceiling for an expected renovation.
Riders expressed concern over safety and delays yesterday, as buses shuttled them between 168th and Dyckman streets.
“It’s old,” said Luz Contreras, 46. “The station at 191st looks old, too. I’m worried if something happens here, it could happen at the other one next.”
“I’m very frustrated,” said Patrick Horner, 63, who lives near the line’s northern terminus in the Bronx. A trip he thought would take an hour stretched into three. “All I know is I’m paying more for this as of last month.”
NYC Transit plans to inspect the 168th and 191st street stations, but didn’t have a timeline since it would require more closures, spokesman Paul Fleuranges said.
Kevin Fraser, 53, wasn’t surprised. “It was always in more or less disrepair,” he said of the station. “Maybe four years ago they fixed up the sides, but not the ceiling. They just wanted it to look pretty for a minute.”