MTA Boasts About $30M Times Square Stairway, Then Gets Roasted

New York City NY

17 May, 2022

3:52 PM

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NEW YORK CITY — First class. Stunning. Amazing. A design that evokes Waterford crystals. Those are all words MTA officials used to describe a $30 million project they unveiled Monday during a news conference in Times Square station. And what extravagant feat of transit construction warranted this eight-figure outlay of taxpayer money? Drumroll, please: a stairwell. "I assume it's handmade by artisans in a remote village in the Alps using literal gold," the popular blog Second Ave. Sagas tweeted sarcastically. A man and a $30 million stairwell project on Monday. (MTA video) To be fair, the price tag first reported by the New York Daily News isn't just stairs. The new entrance opens directly into Times Square, allows people to enter and exit Broadway plaza and includes an accessible elevator, officials said. It also includes 10 new turnstiles, 18 cameras and a massive mosaic project by artist Nick Cave. But, still, a significant chunk of the project is a stairway. Janno Lieber, MTA's chair and CEO, took time to rhapsodize about the stairwell during the Monday news conference. He said the new 15-foot staircase offers 450 square feet more of extra space over its "tiny, old" predecessor. Tourists would become "disoriented" in the old stairwell, Lieber claimed. "Now, we have a really first-class entrance from the center of Broadway Plaza,"he said. "The new canopy over those stairs was designed to evoke the Waterford crystals that are that ball that drops on New Year's Eve." Not all New Yorkers were buying it. They took to Twitter — the home of publicly-minded kvetching — to complain of money spent on a flight of stairs as the MTA cracks down on turnstile jumpers who can face arrest over a $2.75 fare. They also noted Times Square is a prime tourist spot and said they wished the money had gone toward repairing stations frequented by commuters. "Janno sounds disoriented himself trying to justify spending 30 million dollars on f------ stairs," tweeted @ImpunityCity. "The MTA spent 30 million on a staircase but you wanna convince me fare evasion is breaking the budget?!" tweeted @by3art. The new Times Square-42nd Street entrance includes a stairwell and a canopy. (Photo courtesy of Marc A. Hermann / MTA)A mosaic artwork by Nick Cave is seen next to a new accessible elevator at Times Square station. (Marc A. Hermann / MTA)