July 26, 2020. Station layout The 191st Street station has two tracks and two side platforms, and is served by the 1 train at all times. Above the platforms is a mezzanine and covered pedestrian footbridges connecting the two platforms; people on the footbridges cannot see the tracks and platforms (and vice versa). The mezzanine and footbridges are finished in glazed white tile and ceramic sheet marble. The station ceiling is supported by 34 steel columns encased in concrete. At approximately below street level, it is the deepest station in the New York City Subway system. It is one of three in the Fort George Mine Tunnel, along with the 168th Street and 181st Street stations to the south; the tunnel allows the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to travel under the high terrain of Washington Heights. In 1947, Victor Hess, who won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of cosmic rays, wrote to the NYCBOT asking if he could use the station "to carry out experiments on the radiation emitted from rocks at a location well protected from cosmic rays." Ultimately, Hess was allowed to conduct his experiments in the nearby 190th Street station on the IND Eighth Avenue Line, which is also far below ground. Despite the 191st Street station's depth, the next station north, Dyckman Street, is just above ground level, at a lower elevation above sea level. This is because 191st Street is under nearly the highest point on the island of Manhattan, deep in the Washington Heights Mine Tunnel, while Dyckman Street runs along a deep valley almost at sea level and its station is at the tunnel portal. As part of the MTA's Arts for Transit Program, during the station's 2003 renovation, $88,360 was allocated for the creation and installation of a mosaic tile piece of art titled Primavera by Raul Colon. Exits There are two entrances/exits from this station via the same fare control. The main entrance/exit at the southwest corner of 191st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue is at the summit of a hill and accessible only by a set of four elevators. The elevators to the mezzanine still utilize elevator operators—one of the few stations in the system to do so. The other entrance/exit, at 190th Street and Broadway west of the station, is located at a hillside and is accessed via a three-block long passageway, which passes under Wadsworth