The Best Subway Stations In NYC

New Yorkers spend a lot of time tweeting at Mayor Tall (erroneously) and Governor Cuomo (correctly) to fix a subway system that still manages to gets paralyzed by a little bit of drizzle, thanks to rampant underfunding in Albany. But even if you've wasted half your adult life bitching about the F train, there are still some stations in the system you just can't help but love. Whether these stations have cool art, good design, interesting history, or a platform full of Mets fans, here are some of the best in the city:

(David Colon / Gothamist)

Hoyt-Schermerhorn—A/C, G
For starters, "Hoyt-Schermerhorn" is kind of fun to say, whether you're pronouncing it correctly or keep mumbling the Schermerhorn half as if you're some kind of mush-mouthed improv comic doing a bit. The station's also a useful transfer point for a Brooklyn resident, since both lines that service it are able to take you to completely different parts of the city. Best of all, the station's played a big role in film history, in part thanks to its famed ghost platform. Just a few notable film facts about the station: The music video for "Bad" was filmed there (as was the parody "Fat," by that master of detail Weird Al), The Warriors used it to fill in for Union Square, Crocodile Dundee II's "Clint Eastwood" scene was filmed there, and the somewhat problematically-named but Cynthia Nixon starring Law & Order episode "Subterranean Homeboy Blues" started at Hoyt-Schermerhorn.

(David Colon / Gothamist)

23rd Street—N/R
Some people pine for the old New York, the New York where Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo had manly fistfights in Forest Hills and the West Village to determine who would be mayor. Fewer people, it seems, pine for the even older New York, where men and women couldn't leave their apartments without their finest piece of millinery. But if you do miss that dapper town, you can revisit it at the 23rd Street N/R station, where the famous hats of famous old New Yorkers are built right into the wall as part of Keith Godard's "Memories of 23rd Street." The hats belong to New Yorkers known to frequent 23rd and Broadway back in the day, including Houdini, Trial of the Century murder inspiration Evelyn Nesbit, and AFL founder Samuel Gompers, among others. The downside here, unfortunately, is that you can't switch between the uptown and downtown tracks here without getting off the subway, but still, hats!

181st Street—A
If you don't mind going a little deeper underground than usual (though not as deep as the 140-foot-below-ground 190th Street A station), the 181st Street station has some cool details to take in. First, there's the rounded ceiling; there are also the window-like cut outs on the wall on top of the mosaics. Due to the station's low ceiling, the thin bridge above the tracks gives you a unique feeling of being right on top of the trains as they pass underneath you (just don't touch the handrails, which are full of soot). And finally, if you want to be fancy, the station's elevators have attendants, giving you a doorman-building feeling for just $2.75 a trip.

(David Colon / Gothamist)

Coney Island—D/F, N/Q
If you're on a Q or F train, there's nothing quite like the view that you get when you're pulling into the Coney Island station as you ride parallel to Surf Avenue, with the Cyclone, the Parachute Jump, the Wonder Wheel, Bump Your Ass Off/El Dorado Arcade, and Nathan's all beckoning to you with the promise of summer fun. The station itself is housed in a gorgeous terra cotta terminal with throwback signage on it to the original BMT line that once ran there. Not to mention that if you get off the train here on a summer weekend, the beach-going crowd is full of life, a far cry from the soul-sucking sadness you'll find on the Union Square 4,5,6 platform come Monday morning.

(David Colon / Gothamist)

Smith and 9th Street—F/G
This is the highest subway platform in the system, looming 87.5 feet above street-level. So, if you get bored staring at your phone, why not take in the view? On the south-bound platform, you can get a good look at Red Hook and the New York Harbor. On the Manhattan-bound side the view's even better, with downtown Manhattan's skyscrapers peeking out just above the wall.

Citi Field-Willets Point—7
Like the Coney Island stop, the Willets Point stop gets extra points for bringing a lively crowd. 81 times a year (and if you're really lucky, a few more), the 7 train pulls into that station packed to the brim with bodies clad in Mets gear, and they all spill out of the train cars shouting and clapping. The terminal's got a little shop where vendors hawk slightly less expensive Mets gear than the stuff you'll find and Citi Field, and scalpers hang out at the bottom of the station's steps, calling out, "Who needs tickets? Who's selling tickets?"

Miraculously, the station is also big enough to fit everyone fleeing Citi Field after a game is over, which is nice both in terms of convenience and because you don't have to spend much time jostling drunk angry people after a tough loss. As a bonus, like Coney Island, the station boasts an excellent view as you pull in to the station.

(David Colon / Gothamist)

Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center—2/3, 4/5, B/D, N/Q/R
Are you in Brooklyn and have somewhere you need to be? Atlantic-Pacific (it'll always be Atlantic-Pacific to me, damn it) can get you there. Nearly 14 million people came through this giant transit hub in 2015, but thanks to its wide avenues and decent wayfaring signs, things don't get too clogged up here, even during peak commuting hours. In addition to the station's utility as a conduit to so many different subway lines, the pavilion entrance on Flatbush and Atlantic has a grand staircase that makes something as mundane as commuting to work feel kind of elegant and rich. Except that rich people helicopter everywhere, of course.

(David Colon / Gothamist)

West 4th—A/C/E, B/D/F/M
Greenwich Village might belong to NYU and Liquiteria now, but its main subway station is still seriously useful. You've got an easy transfer between the A/C/E and B/D/F/M if you're in a hurry, and a visit on a weekday afternoon found a man jamming away on a drum set to the delight of some kids on a camp field trip. Entertainment! Plus, as a friend summed up in arguing its merits, "it's still a diverse bastion of shitshows. Lotta musicians, lotta kids, lotta personal drama, and it's pretty much everyday that they got subway workers just chilling on the tracks. Good day or night. People are always eating pizza on the platform."

(David Colon / Gothamist)

14th Street—A/C/E/, LM
Is this station's placement on the list entirely due to its Tom Otterness sculptures? For the most part, yeah, but what can I say, whatever their shortcomings, I'm never not entertained by a sculpture of a sewer alligator eating a man. Beyond that though, this 14th Street stop is brightly lit, has a big ramp on the L section that's a release valve for people crowding the stairs, and also has wi-fi, so it's awesome. At least while the L exists, anyway.

Broadway Junction—A/C, L, J/M/Z
Even before East New York's rezoning plans and the looming L-pocalypse put the transit hub at the center of so many political plans, Broadway Junction managed to be both useful and interesting. The tangle of the L and J/M/Z tracks going in and bursting out of the station's above-ground section make the tracks look kind of like a roller coaster. If you walk through the terminal connecting the L and J/M/Z to the A/C, there's almost always a subway preacher shouting about Jesus. And finally, on a personal note, I always seem to see pigeons inside the station, on the A/C platform. I know pigeons are supposed to be gross, but they don't much bother me and I can't say I see them bopping around on any other indoor platforms.