Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Interactive Map: Which Subway Station Is Most Likely To Trap You In An Elevator
By
Aaron Marks
Published Apr 15, 2013
Modified Apr 15, 2013
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Aaron Marks
Published Apr 15, 2013
Modified Apr 15, 2013
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
If the scourge of rats and homicidal maniacs on the platform weren't doing it for you in the Subway Nightmares department, today we're adding a new item to your list of straphanger worries: Getting trapped in the elevator. The MTA maintains about 200 elevators throughout the subway system, but some perform better than others. So we put together the interactive chart below based on last year's MTA reports to show you which subway elevators are the most cursed.
The map pins all subway stations which had at least one elevator entrapment in 2012. The worst offenders are in Washington Heights, where four of five stations saw over 10 elevator entrapments. This little Pocket of Terror likely comes from Washington Heights', er, height — as the highest neighborhood in Manhattan, the Heights's subway tunnels run far below street level, forcing straphangers to rely more on elevators, which elevators themselves have to travel further distances.
Yankee Stadium also saw a high number of elevator entrapments, at 19. So next time you decide to go get drunk and yell for two hours with 50,000 strangers, consider taking the stairs to the train, unless you want to be drunk, yelling and packed into a 50-sq-ft glass chamber of doom with those strangers. Roosevelt Island — another deep subway — fared relatively well, with only five entrapments. Still, even one entrapment in a subway elevator is no walk in the park, as the following video demonstrates:
Naturally, some stations get more traffic than others. But differences in ridership don't seem to account for more elevator entrapments. Times Square, which gets 20 million more riders than any other station in the system, for example, had zero elevator entrapments last year. Whereas a station like Clark St., which has fewer than 2 million riders—about 3% of Times Square's ridership—had 10 entrapments.
Tagged
elevators
fear
Interactive
interactive map
subway
original
Aaron Marks
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Deer are all over New Jersey roads looking for sex, state officials warn
Mid-October through mid-December is deer mating season, which can be a danger to drivers as the sex-seeking creatures cross roadways throughout the Garden State.
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Oct 16, 2026 at 4:22 p.m. ET
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
News
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
A transcript from an April court hearing sheds new light on what transpired at Fashion Institute of Technology.
By
Samantha Max
Inside the plan to fix the nearly collapsed Pfizer Building, 1/64th of an inch at a time
By
David Brand
School bus carrying autistic students got lost in Brooklyn for 4 hours last year
By
Jessica Gould
NYC’s bridges can last 'forever,' if we take care of them
By
Clayton Guse
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .