Despite being separated by more than 3,500 miles, New York City and Paris may be undergoing similar transformations in coming years. Some creative thinking is propelling an emerging trend that would transform dilapidated subway stations into restaurants and even swimming pools.
A recent report in Yahoo.com says a similar idea emerged in New York and Paris, where real estate is not only high-priced, but difficult to acquire.
In New York City, the online marketplace Storefront has entered into a joint venture with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Together, the two will work to transform some portions of the underground subway into pop-up retail space, especially for artists and designers.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a strong contender for the mayor's post in Paris, is also keen to update and transform the dilapidated and abandoned underground metro stations in the city. She has already proposed futuristic projects that would help to convert areas into working spaces for the general public.
A blueprint for such changes reveals how a ghost station can be magically transformed into a dining restaurant, night club, theater, art exhibition center, or an indoor swimming pool.
In an earlier report, quoting an official of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York, Reuters said the MTA is seriously contemplating putting up an underground park in a portion of the station that has become partially idle after trolleys stopped operating there way back in 1948.
The concept is the maiden proposal to be presented formally to the agency and is focused on the Delancey Street Station, which started operations in 1903 and served eight trolley lines from Brooklyn. The idle part of the station still has the tracks, an overhead power line and a booth.
Similarly, the MTA believes the 60,000-square-foot space below Manhattan's Lower East Side could be transformed into a restaurant, health club, night club or shops.