Backlash After 191st Street Station Tunnel Completely Painted Over

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Uptown community members are speaking out after the city painted over the colorful 191st Street 1 train station tunnel without advance notice.

The Department of Transportation performed the paint job Friday morning, leaving Washington Heights and Inwood straphangers unexpectedly walking through a tunnel of beige over the weekend.

Uptown Council Member Carmen De La Rosa and Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Executive Director Nira Leyva-Gutierrez quickly released a joint statement critiquing the way the city handled the paint project.

"First, it is important to understand the history of advocacy that community members, stakeholders, and elected officials have undergone to ensure that we can all enjoy a clean and safe tunnel — we however, have never advocated for the soul of the tunnel to be removed in the erasure of the local art that was emblematic of the tunnel," the statement read.

"The continual lack of transparency from city agencies has long damaged our community's trust; we are angered and disappointed by the lack of notification and care employed by the Department of Transportation in painting the tunnel without community engagement or planning."

The Department of Transportation told Patch that the cleaning had to do with preparing a "new art project for the tunnel," but did not speak to the lack of advance notice for the community.

"DOT recently cleaned the 191st Street tunnel and removed graffiti," DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone said. "We value the importance of public art and this cleaning is the first step towards creating a new art project for the tunnel.

"We look forward to working closely with the community and local elected officials on a project that celebrates the culture and diversity that makes New York so special," he added.

It is unclear what that new art project will be.

Community members have long pushed for improvements to the troublesome conditions within the 191st street 1 train station and its pedestrian tunnel.

A photo of discarded needles in the uptown tunnel went viral in January 2022, prompting De La Rosa to lead a multiple agency walkthrough of the space to determine solutions.

Going back to nearly a decade ago, a 2014 article in DNAInfo outlined residents frustration with flooding, piles of trash, graffiti and safety worries within the tunnel because of the lack of lighting.

Despite the well-documented issues with the uptown tunnel, community members were vocal about their dislike of the way the city decided to go about painting the space.

"The graffiti was not the problem and the artists WILL return," one uptown resident wrote on a Washington Heights and Inwood Facebook page. "They need to keep the tunnel clean and safe. This is a wasted effort."

"This is wretched, the artworks on the walls wasn't the issue," another person in the group wrote. "Maybe the city needs to clean up the needles and trash first."

Patch will keep an eye out for any more changes to the tunnel.