After eight rounds over two weeks, Twitter users have officially crowned Smith-9th Street as New York City’s favorite subway station.
Smith-9th narrowly prevailed over Broadway Junction in the final round of voting, winning 51.6% of the nearly 1,600 votes. Queensboro Plaza took third place in the plebiscite.
The contest was launched earlier this month by Sunny Ng, a software engineer from Williamsburg and longtime railfan, who decided to host a decisive referendum among Twitter’s bustling transit-oriented community to once and for all determine a winner as the fate of the Bird App stands in flux, owing to its new ownership by Elon Musk.
“In the last few weeks people have been leaving Twitter,” Ng told amNewYork Metro in an interview. “I figured it’s now or never.”
New Yorkers are famous for having opinions on everything, and gauging public opinion on hundreds of subway stations was a momentous undertaking. With 472 stations and only a maximum possible bracket slots of 256, Ng — developer of the Weekendest, an interactive, real-time subway service map, and Subwaydle, a transit-focused twist on Wordle — got creative.
The 200 stations with the highest ridership the week of Dec. 5 got a first-round bye, with the remaining 56 slots determined in a qualifying round to enter the head-to-head bracket. Ng counted station complexes with internal transfers as single stations; for instance, 42nd St-Times Square and 42nd St-Port Authority Bus Terminal were considered one station for the purposes of voting, though the Metropolitan Transportation Authority officially deems them separate.
The ensuing rounds saw significant campaign activity by railfans, who cheered when their favorites won and jeered when they lost. Vote tallies increased with each passing round until individual contests were registering hundreds of votes each. Major transit hubs like Times Square, Grand Central, Union Square, Atlantic Ave-Barclays Center, and Coney Island were unable to withstand the competition.
By round eight, only two stations remained, Smith-9th St and Broadway Junction, both in Brooklyn and both with loyal partisans sporting distinct justifications for their choice.
“I think it’s kind of interesting that the people of New York have such an interesting relationship with the subway system and subway stations, and have different reasons to vote for different stations,” said Ng. “And it’s interesting to see why people vote a certain way.”
Smith-9th, which serves the F and G lines in Gowanus, is the world’s tallest metro station, situated nearly 9 stories above the Gowanus Canal, and sports some of the best views of the city’s skyline anywhere in the transit system.
Broadway Junction, in East New York, is a major transfer point serving the A, C, J, L, and Z lines, with both underground and above-ground segments. Sitting next to a train yard in an industrial setting, the station is one of the best to observe the complex infrastructural song-and-dance that keeps New Yorkers moving.
Votes were also cast throughout the tournament based on factors like station architecture, layout, ease of use, or just whatever stop is closest to one’s house, along with many other variables, tangible or otherwise.
Asked for comment, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said he was not in the business of picking favorites among his many “children.”
“472 children, we love all of them,” said Lieber at an unrelated news conference in the Bronx on Tuesday. “They’re all great stations, and really, I defer to the wise men and women of Twitter to decide which is the #1 station.”
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