Advocates Call For Elevator At Park Slope’s 7th Avenue F/G Subway Station

Advocates, elected officials, and senior neighbors gathered on the northeast corner of 7th Avenue and 9th Street Wednesday morning to announce the launch of a campaign to install a much-needed and long-awaited elevator for the 7th Avenue F/G subway station.

“As you can see from this great turn-out, this is a campaign whose time has come,” Council Member Brad Lander announced, kicking off the press conference. “We know it can be done because the MTA has been working its way through a list of 100 stations to make accessible … There are so many reasons to prioritize this very station – just steps from here we have New York Methodist Hospital, and we are just steps from the Park Slope Center for Successful Aging.”

Lander promised the crowd that he will “fight tooth and nail in this year’s city budget cycle to make sure that we find some resources that we can put toward making this elevator happen.” The project is expected to cost around $10-$15 million, with one elevator going to and from the mezzanine level, and one for each of the two platforms.

Democratic Nominee for New York State Assembly, Robert Carroll, emphasized the need to make the station accessible, not only for the senior community and those with mobility impairments but for the “thousands upon thousands of people” who use the station every day.

“Bringing an elevator to the 7th Avenue station on the F line is long overdue. An elevator will ensure people with disabilities, seniors, and parents with children have easier access to our subways.” He added that he is happy to work with Lander as well as the non-profit, aging-in-place organization, Good Neighbors of Park Slope, in urging the MTA “to commit resources towards installing an elevator” at the station, “one of the busiest stops in Brooklyn and within blocks of many schools, places of worship, a hospital, and a busy commercial strip.”

Jasmine Melzer, a board member of Good Neighbors of Park Slope, playfully reminisced that she used to go to the sandbox with Carroll and his mother when he was a child. She then got serious, stating “In my opinion, the MTA needs to up its game when it comes to accessibility. Unfortunately, our neighborhood did not have a seat at the table in 2010 when the 100 stations were being selected for accessibility between now and 2020. I’d like to think that we can become number 101 on that list.”

Melzer, along with two colleagues, presented the MTA with two petitions in 2014 asking for an elevator at the 7th Avenue station as well as an express bus into Manhattan to help senior residents get to doctors appointments in the city.

Although they had hundreds of signatures, both petitions were denied. She added, “the MTA made the “helpful” suggestion that we take the bus to Church Avenue in order to get the elevator [at that station]… which we thought was pretty heartless.”

A neighbor attending the press conference, Kathy Sonderman, uses a wheelchair and does have to take the bus to Church Avenue — a stop on the F/G line — so she can use the elevator there. Bob Levine, who makes these trips with her, explained that this adds at least an extra half-hour to their commute.

Judy Willig, the Director of Heights and Hills (which manages the nearby Park Slope Center for Successful Aging), and the organizer of the Age-Friendly Park Slope campaign has lived in the neighborhood and has been an advocate for older people for 30 years.

Willig, Lander, and age-friendly advocates have been busy as of late. Just last week, the Age-Friendly Park Slope was launched, providing a partnership with 60 businesses to provide more comfort and amenities for older residents in the neighborhood.

“I would love to see a day when we don’t have to talk about age-friendly. When our communities are friendly to people of all ages and abilities, but we are nowhere near that yet,” said Willig “The truth is, that whatever we do to make our communities age-friendly benefits everyone. Not everybody thinks about what it’s going to be like when they grow older, but if they are lucky, they will have to some day.” She added that “eliminating social isolation and enabling people to connect with each other” is essential to aging successfully, and having accessible transportation facilitates that.

According to Lander, this will be a “big, long campaign,” that will need to get additional groups, like Park Slope Parents, on board as well as expand the number of signatures on the petition. He promises to “fight hard for some seed funding in the city budget this year,” to get the project started.

While the MTA has not yet announced the next stations to be added on to the accessibility list, he thinks now is the time to influence them to make the 7th Avenue Station a priority. “So many thousands of people in Park Slope need and have a right to expect that this station will be accessible. We are here today in part to call on the MTA to prioritize this station, to get it up to the top of the list and to put in the resources necessary to get it done.”

Additional reporting by Donny Levit.