96th Street station (Second Avenue Subway)
The 96th Street station is a station on the IND Second Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Second Avenue and 96th Street on the border of the Upper East Side/Yorkville and East Harlem neighborhoods in Manhattan, it is the northern terminus for the Q train at all times. It is also served by limited rush hour N trains and one northbound morning rush hour R train. The station is the terminus for the first phase of the Second Avenue Line.
96 Street 
The station was not originally proposed as part of the Program for Action in 1968, but a later revision to that plan entailed building a Second Avenue Subway with one of its stops located at 96th Street. Construction on that project started in 1972, but stalled in 1975 due to lack of funding. In 2007, a separate measure authorized a first phase of the Second Avenue Line to be built between 65th and 105th Streets, with stations at 72nd Street, 86th Street and 96th Street. The station opened on January 1, 2017, as a terminal station, with provisions to extend the line north to Harlem–125th Street in Phase 2. Since opening, the presence of the Second Avenue Subway's three Phase 1 stations has improved real estate prices along the corridor. The 96th Street station was used by approximately 6.2 million passengers in 2019.[6]
The station, along with the other Phase 1 stations along the Second Avenue Subway, contains features not found in most New York City Subway stations. It is fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, containing two elevators for disabled access. Additionally, the station contains air conditioning and is waterproofed, a feature only found in newer stations. The artwork at 96th Street is "Blueprint for a Landscape", a mural by Sarah Sze.
Effects[edit]
The surrounding area's real estate prices had been in decline.[105] However, the value of real estate in the area has risen since 2013,[106][107] with new construction charging a "subway premium."[105] Some businesses near the station's construction site lost profits,[108] but with the opening of the new station, business owners hope to see an increase in patronage.[109][110]
A writer for The New Yorker called the station area a partially gentrified "traditional dividing line between East Harlem and the Upper East Side". Unlike for the other two Phase 1 stations, rents for buildings in the station area had not reached their maximum. To illustrate the area's transitional condition, the writer stated that the 96th Street station was situated within a few blocks of a high-crime housing development on First Avenue, an old ice-skating rink frequented by "squeegee men" who would demand money from drivers, a tenement where future President Barack Obama lived in the 1980s, the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, as well as the Mayor of New York City's residence at Gracie Mansion.[42]