3 Avenue
Southbound platform with L train in the distance
Station statistics
Address	Third Avenue & East 14th Street New York, New York
Borough	Manhattan
Locale	East Village,Stuyvesant Square
Coordinates	40°44′00″N73°59′14″W / 40.733243°N 73.987212°W /40.733243; -73.987212
Division	B (BMT)[1]
Line	BMT Canarsie Line
Services	L  (all times)
Transit	NYCT Bus:M14A SBS,M14D SBS,M101,M102,M103
Structure	Underground
Platforms	2side platforms
Tracks	2
Other information
Opened	June 30, 1924; 101 years ago (1924-06-30)
Traffic
2024	1,721,718[2]  10.1%
Rank	187 out of 423[2]
Services Preceding station New York City Subway Following station Union Square towardEighth Avenue First Avenue towardCanarsie–Rockaway Parkway
Location Show map of New York City Subway Show map of New York City Show map of New York
Track layout Legend toUnion Square toFirst Avenue
Street map
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times

TheThird Avenue station is astation on theBMT Canarsie Line of theNew York City Subway. Located at the intersection ofThird Avenue andEast 14th Street inEast Village, Manhattan,^[3][4] it is served by theL train at all times.

Contract 4 of theDual Contracts, adopted on March 4, 1913 between New York City and theBrooklyn Rapid Transit Company, included a subway route under 14th Street, to run toCanarsie in Brooklyn; this became the BMT'sCanarsie Line.^{[5]: 203–219 [6]}

Booth and Flinn was awarded the first contract for the line, namely a tunnel under theEast River, in January 1916.^[7] At the time, the Public Service Commission was completing plans for the rest of the line;^[8] the commission began accepting bids for two parts of the line within Manhattan, sections 1 and 2. in April 1916.^[9] The next month, Booth and Flinn won the contract for section 1, which was to cost $2.528 million (equivalent to $73.049 million in 2024).^[10] By early 1919, the section of the line under 14th Street was about 20 percent completed.^[11]

In 1922, the Charles H. Brown & Son Corporation was contracted to build out the Canarsie Line's stations in Manhattan, including the Third Avenue station.^[12] Track-laying in the tunnels between Sixth andMontrose Avenues started in the last week of October 1922.^[13][14] The Third Avenue station at Union Square opened on June 30, 1924, as part of the 14th Street–Eastern Line, which ran fromSixth Avenue under theEast River and throughWilliamsburg to Montrose and Bushwick Avenues.^[15][16]

Ground	Street level	Exit/entrance
Platform level	Side platform
	Westbound	← towardEighth Avenue(Union Square)
	Eastbound	→ towardCanarsie–Rockaway Parkway(First Avenue) →
	Side platform

This station has twoside platforms, which are 500 feet (150 m) long, and two tracks. West of the station, there is a double crossover.^[17] The platforms are column-less and have the standard BMT style trim-line and name tablets. The former contains "3" tablets in standard intervals, while the latter consists of "THIRD AVE" in seriffed lettering.

There are also directions signs to the station's only entrances/exits saying "TO STREET" in the same style as the name tablets. Each platform has its own same-levelfare control at the extreme west (railroad north) end. As a result, there is no free transfer between directions.

Third Avenue is one of only two stations along the Canarsie Line in Manhattan that does not contain a transfer to another line. The other station is the nearbyFirst Avenue Subway station. However, a transfer station is planned to the14th Street station of theSecond Avenue Subway, as part of Phase 3 ofthe line's construction from55th Street toHouston Street.^[18]

Each platform-level fare control area has a bank ofturnstiles, token booth, and two street stairs apiece—one to the east side of Third Avenue and East 14th Street, the other to East 14th Street just east of Third Avenue. The stairs on the Eighth Avenue-bound side lead to the northeast corner, while the ones on the Brooklyn-bound side lead to the southeast corner.^[4]

As part of apilot program, each platform at the Third Avenue station was supposed to be refitted with 32 half-heightplatform screen doors (PSDs) whilethe 14th Street Tunnel was being rebuilt from April 2019 to March 2020. This had been possible as a result of the L train'sautomated train operation, as well as the route's exclusive use of 60-foot-long (18 m) subway cars with four doors, which allow trains to stop at the same part of the platform every time. The MTA would have used the results of the pilot in order to determine the feasibility of adding such doors citywide.^[19] The PSDs would have been approximately 54 inches (140 cm) high and would have been coordinated with the location of the subway car doors when a train was in the station.^[20]

To ensure that the subway car is precisely lined up with the doors, a wayside-only berthing system would be installed. Emergency egress gates would be installed in between the regular doors to allow people to exit in the case of an emergency. The platform edges and topping would be removed and replaced so that they align with the sills of the train doors and to be in compliance with theAmericans with Disabilities Act of 1990. To ensure that people do not get trapped in between the subway car doors and the PSDs, sensors and CCTV cameras would be installed with monitors at the center and front of the platforms visible to the train operator and conductor.^[21]

In June 2018, the $30 million for the platform edge door pilot program was diverted to another project along the Canarsie Line: the installation of elevators at theSixth Avenue station. The pilot program was postponed until sufficient funding could be found.^[22] In February 2022, the MTA announced that the PSD installation at Third Avenue would proceed as part of a pilot program involving three stations.^[23][24] The announcement came after several people had been shoved onto tracks, including one incident that led toa woman's death at another station.^[24] The MTA started soliciting bids from platform-door manufacturers in mid-2022;^[25] the doors are planned to be installed starting in December 2023 at a cost of $6 million.^[26] Designs for the platform doors were being finalized by June 2023.^[27][28]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to3rd Avenue (BMT Canarsie Line).

• nycsubway.org –BMT Canarsie Line: 3rd Avenue
• Station Reporter —L Train
• The Subway Nut —3rd Avenue Pictures
• Third Avenue entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Platforms from Google Maps Street View

• BMT Canarsie Line stations
• New York City Subway stations in Manhattan
• Railway stations in the United States opened in 1924
• Gramercy Park
• East Village, Manhattan
• Proposed IND Second Avenue Line stations
• 14th Street (Manhattan)

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
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• Use American English from June 2023
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• Use mdy dates from June 2023
• Coordinates on Wikidata
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• Pages using the Kartographer extension