# Queensboro Plaza

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**Borough:** Queens  
**URL:** https://standing-on-history.com/queensboro-plaza

The gateway that gave Queens its subway.

## 1. Queensboro Plaza rose from an empty field.

Developers built neighborhoods around the tracks. Transit helped shape the Queens we know today.

**Why it matters:** Transit helped shape the Queens we know today.

**Source:** Lynch, Andrew. "Post Navigation." Vanshnookenraggen, 28 Nov. 2023, www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2023/11/the-last-train-to-jamaica-how-nyc-almost-replaced-its-els/.

## 2. This station was once twice as large.

Half was demolished in the 1940s to make room for street traffic. Today's platform is just a portion of the original.

**Why it matters:** Today's platform is just a portion of the original.

**Source:** Lynch, Andrew. "Post Navigation." Vanshnookenraggen, 28 Nov. 2023, www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2023/11/the-last-train-to-jamaica-how-nyc-almost-replaced-its-els/.

## 3. This is the only station where a numbered train and lettered trains share the same platform.

It happens here because this spot once marked the meeting point of two competing subway companies—one built trains a little narrower, the other a little wider.

**Why it matters:** The station was engineered with separate tracks side-by-side so riders could switch between the two in a single step.

**Source:** Lynch, Andrew. "NYC_FULL_TRACKMAP.PDF." Vanshnookenraggen, www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/docs/NYC_full_trackmap.pdf. Accessed 10 Jun. 2025.

## 4. Before the Queens Boulevard line, every train into Queens came through here.

It was the borough's only subway link to the city. Queensboro Plaza once funneled thousands into Manhattan.

**Why it matters:** For a time, an entire borough's commute depended on a single stop.

**Source:** "City's Growth Discounted in Plans for Adding 830 Miles of Track onto Rapid Transit Systems." New York Times Machine, New York Times, 3 Oct. 1920, timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/10/03/109800180.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0.

## 5. In the 90s sitcom Seinfeld, Kramer tries, and fails, to grab a $3 gyro between train doors.

The real joke? The episode shows the station underground, though it's really elevated. Riding through, you can spot the view TV left out.

**Why it matters:** Riding through, you can spot the view TV left out.

**Source:** "Elaine Takes Frank's TV Guide On The Subway | The Cigar Store Indian | Seinfeld." YouTube, YouTube, 12 Apr. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDmXuBAC0so.