The abandoned City Hall station

TRUE: a real abandoned 1904 station, still intact underground

The City Hall station lies under City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan, next to New York City Hall, the southern terminal of the city's first subway line and its showpiece. A formal groundbreaking was held at City Hall on 24 March 1900, and the station was dug by cut and cover, trees lifted out of the park with derricks; one worker was killed when a derrick boom came loose. On New Year's Day 1904 Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. and a party of wealthy New Yorkers rode handcars from here 6 miles to 125th Street. On 27 October 1904 the subway opened, its first train leaving City Hall at 2:34 p.m. with McClellan at the controls, and 27,000 people rode free before 6 p.m.

The station was designed by Heins & LaFarge with vaulted ceilings by the master tile artisan Rafael Guastavino, the only Romanesque Revival station in the system. A single curved platform and mezzanine are finished in Guastavino tile, leaded skylights and coloured glass tilework, under brass chandeliers.

It never suited growing traffic. Its curved platform could not be lengthened for ten-car trains, it was served only by locals, and most riders used Brooklyn Bridge station about 600 feet away, with express service and connections. In its last years it was closed at night and on Sundays and its skylights were blacked out with tar. It closed on 31 December 1945. The track still serves as the turning loop for the 6 train, and the platform has been used since only for occasional tours and events, among them the subway's 75th anniversary in 1979, the year the Landmarks Preservation Commission made it a city landmark. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places.

There are two ways to see it. Riders who stay aboard a southbound 6 past Brooklyn Bridge glimpse it as the train swings round the loop; MTA policy says everyone should get off there, but by the 2010s the authority was letting riders stay on. To step onto the platform you need to join the New York Transit Museum, which sells tours to members three times a year, about $50 each with a background check, lasting some 90 minutes with about 20 underground, and children must be at least 10.