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SIX COLUMNS PATTERNED WITH AN array of colorful mosaics still stand along a spacious new corridor in the bustling Union Square subway station in New York City. New elevators descend to the Manhattan underground complex where NAB Construction Corp. cleared old rooms and built wide, connecting corridors. Along with increasing functional space by 30%, the $40-million rehabilitation features remnants of old mosaics from the station's century-old life.
``We're interested in access with style for everybody--it's a mantra,'' says Lee Pomeroy, whose firm Lee Harris Pomeroy Architects P.C. designed Union Square and several other projects for the New York City Transit Authority's current five-year, $1.9-billion subway station renovation program. Union Square is one example of how the project's city-based engineers, contractors and architects are blending function and aesthetics in stations that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
NYCTA plans to renovate 63 stations in this phase, ``up to 70 if we can,'' says Mysore Nagaraja, agency senior vice president of capital program management. ``Our goal is that by 2019, all 468 stations will be in good repair.''