Honestly, how long should a subway platform renovation really take? Entire 10 story buildings have been built in the time it has taken for them to set up partitions at the 59th Street/Columbus Circle station.

Ok, I can understand that the physical platforms where the trains arrive can be a little tricky. Clearly, you have to be very careful, precise, and safe. Otherwise, someone could get hurt, or service could be interrupted.

But what’s the excuse for the rest of the station?

The areas not near the platform are a f*cking wreck. Since last winter, they’ve managed to set up lots of blue, plywood walls, and rip down facades. Congrats gentlemen.

Every week there’s a new sign about asbestos and lead removal. They even kicked out that goofy little barbershop and convenience store. It’s like they have 20 different projects all going at once that never get finished.

They’ve been tiling random sections of floor for months. It does NOT take that long to lay some damn tile.

While he Hearst Tower, the south-west stairs were closed because they come out right in the middle of the buildings 57th Street side. Then the building was finished, and the entrance was opened. It was brand spanking new with bright tiles, and even some marble looking walls.

Then out of nowhere, they closed the entrance, and threw up another blue wall. The other day, they had the door opened, and I saw that they had stripped all the new tile off the walls and were resetting it. Even the stairs! What the hell is all that about?

Then there’s the disaster around the Trump Tower Globe. How long is that place going to look like a sh*t hole? In case you don’t know…there is a subway entrance on the north side of Columbus Circle underneath the huge, silver globe sculpture at the Trump building. The staircase is huge to accommodate the large amount of foot traffic there.

Well, they closed the stairs and built some temporary steps that are 25% the size of the old ones. Then they tore up a football field size area of sidewalk and street over the platform. That exposed a large area of the station and tracks to the open air. This was done this past winter.

Well, to cover things up, they built a fairly complicated wooden structure of planks and boards (see top photo) to cover everything up, including the ventilation. Genius. So all summer, it was hotter than hell at that end of the station because there was no air movement. All of the vents are boarded up.

Then when it rains, the water just pours in through the wood. They section off huge areas with police tape when it rains because the water just floods in. Thennnnnnnnnn, they stripped the floors like 6 months ago. Of course they didn’t refinish them yet because…well…that would require intelligence. So the floors are all uneven. So guess where all gross rain water goes. That’s right…nowhere. The uneven floor means that the water just puddles up all over the place. It is 4 or 5 inches deep in some places.

They have 20 foot square areas where they have laid new tile, then bare sub-floor, then old floor, then new tile, etc.

The whole job just looks like one giant clusterf*ck. They’ve spent more time building their temporary, air-conditioned offices down there than they have doing actual work.

Ok, vent concluded.