Call it a tale of two turnstiles.
Each day, nearly 170,000 straphangers swipe their MetroCard at the city’s busiest subway station, Times Square.
Meanwhile, 26 stops away on the A line from that station is Beach 105th Street in the Rockaways, the city’s least-used stop.
To the mere 256 people who spin through its turnstiles each day, it’s like having their own private subway.
“Nothing really happens here,” Mike Lemonn, 25, said.
“I like that there are few people using these trains. The atmosphere gets me started on the right foot for work.”
The rankings of the most- and least-used subway stations have changed a great deal in the past decade. The Bowery station on the J, M and Z lines handled only 308 passengers a day in 1995, compared to 1,771 today, a 500 percent increase. Union Square’s traffic nearly doubled as it moved up the ranks from No. 8 in 1995 to No. 4 last year.
But aside from Dean Street, which was closed in 1995, Beach 105th has remained the quietest station in the city.
In two years, it handles fewer customers than Times Square does in a single day.
“It’s so peaceful compared to the cattle-car stations in Midtown,” said Tina Schliss. “The only downside is that we’re the neglected stepchildren of the subway.”
One stairway has been closed for several years, passengers say, and the rotting wooden roof is riddled with holes and tends to stink after a rain. That’s not to mention the rumors that resurface every few years that the MTA plans to shut the station down.
The A train stops at the station only during rush hour, while the rest of the day, shuttle trains run back and forth to Broad Channel. “We do not shut stations down because of low ridership,” NYC Transit spokesman Charlie Seaton said.
“The only reason we have closed a station is because of its close proximity to another station . . . The smaller stations are just as necessary as the larger ones.”
Of the 422 stations, combining those connected by transfers, a quarter of the subway’s daily ridership of 4.7 million is handled by the top 15 stops. More than half the stations handle fewer than 5,000 riders daily.
With an ocean view from the station booth and little else to do but stare at the surf, transit workers say Beach 105th is among the subway’s most plum assignments, reserved for those only a few stops away from retirement.
“After 21 years, I earned this,” said station agent Charlie Hughes, 61, who is on a first-name basis with most of his customers. “It’s like a small town here. Most of the people live a block or two away, as do I.”
Hughes says he is spending the waning years of his transit career reading the newspapers cover to cover and listening to ballgames on his radio.
“About the only other excitement is watching the waves kick up when a storm front comes in,” he said.
Additional reporting by Valentina Calastri
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Station to station (map graphic)
The busiest and least busy subway stations:
BUSIEST
1) Times Square
Weekday average: 169,819
Annual ridership: 54.1 million
2) Grand Central
Weekday average: 141,704
Annual ridership: 40.3 million
3) 34th Street / Herald Sq.
Weekday average: 115,180
Annual ridership: 35.1 million
LEAST BUSIEST
1) Beach 105th St.
Weekday average: 256
Annual ridership: 74,316
2) Broad Channel
Weekday average: 348
Annual ridership: 98,797
3) Beach 44th St.
Weekday average: 428
Annual ridership: 132,836