Mass transit in general and some of the unusual things that can be seen on any ordinary day, from Lower Manhattan to the high Himalayas

New York’s Secret Subway Station

Almost nobody knows about the No. 6 train that runs to the historic City Hall station in Lower Manhattan. The station’s there, but you can’t get off, as the train makes its loop back uptown. You can, however, view its beautiful arched ceilings and ceramic tile walls from inside the train. It’s on the subway map, but not on the signs directing riders to the different trains. Weird. And hands over ears… scre-e-e-echy.

City Hall station was designed by architects of the City Beautiful movement in the late 1800s, who believed that if you made the city beautiful it would influence city dwellers to behave more beautifully.

Several times a year, the New York Transit Museum conducts a tour of the station (they do birthday parties, too). When the city’s first subway ride departed from here in 1904, 150,000 people showed up. The station was closed in 1945 because it’s only big enough for five-car trains, and since then the system uses ten-car trains.

Of course, that’s not the only station worth a look-see. Like under the New Yorker Hotel at Eighth Avenue and 34th Street, by Penn Station.

Through the basement, on the other side of a sealed door, is a tunnel filled with antique chairs and carpets, and zippy Art Deco tiling. The tunnel runs underneath 34th Street in a zigzag that leads to a brass door that would open onto the E line, if the MTA hadn’t blocked it off in the 1960s.

But you can see the collection of choice objects from the hotel’s glitzy past, on display in the lobby, where old-time big band music plays again.